#shirley russell

[hairtusk]

Costume design for Women in Love (1969, dir. Ken Russell) by Shirley Russell

Via the BFI special collections

#costume design #women in love 1969 #ken russell #shirley russell #1920s

[theersatzcowboy]

The Boy Friend (1971)

Director: Ken Russell

Cinematographer: David Watkin

Starring: Twiggy, Glenda Jackson, Christopher Gable, Max Adrian, Tommy Tune, Bryan Pringle, Murray Melvin, Moyra Fraser, and Georgina Hale

#the boy friend #1971 #ken russell #twiggy #70s film #70s cinema #uk cinema #period piece #movie musicals #shirley russell #costume design #production design #cult cinema #cult classic #70s movies #30s pastiche #cult films #cult movies #tommy tune #glenda jackson

[tygerland]

The Devils (1971)

#horror #movies #70s #ken russell #vanessa redgrave #oliver reed #cinema #religion #politics #surreal #filmmaking #chaos #costume #shirley russell #film #derek jarman #cinematography #director #movie #the devils #women in love #the boy friend #tommy #savage messiah #😈

[sesiondemadrugada]

The Razor's Edge (John Byrum, 1984).

#the razor's edge #john byrum #w. somerset maugham #bill murray #catherine hicks #peter hannan #peter boyle #philip harrison #malcolm middleton #shirley russell #the razor`s edge (1984)

[countesspetofi]

The ladies of Ken Russell's VALENTINO (1977).

Felicity Kendal as June Mathis, Leslie Caron as Alla Nazimova, and Michelle Phillips as Natacha Rambova.

“Sumptuous” is hardly a strong enough word for the costumes designed by Shirley Russell for this film. Several pieces are now in museum collection.

#valentino #1977 #ken russell #felicity kendal #leslie caron #michelle phillips #june mathis #alla nazimova #natacha rambova #shirley russell #biopic #1920s hollywood

[mywingsareonwheels]

The right-wing media: everything is the fault of trans people (esp. trans women), disabled people, and refugees. Also more widely, all LGBT+ people and every POC who isn't a Tory party cabinet member. Oh, and also Scottish people.

Russell T Davies: here is a young trans woman of colour, a disabled scientist who's an ambulatory wheelchair user and has rockets and stun-darts in her wheelchair, and a glorious new Doctor who's played by a gay refugee originally from Rwanda. They are all unbelievably awesome and are in various ways saving the world. Any questions?

Also RTD: oh and also this other Doctor (who is played by a vocally left-wing Scottish man who's very supportive to his trans kid and is generally an LGBT+ ally) is going to demonstrate that sometimes mentally ill people need to rest rather than being constantly told that working is the cure for everything. Just so you know.

#doctor who spoilers #doctor who #russell t davies #rose noble #shirley anne bingham #fifteenth doctor #yasmin finney #ruth madeley #ncuti gatwa #i know rtd isn't perfect but those three episodes could not have been a bigger fuck-you to the tories #and i mean this isn't tokenism these are all magnificent and awesome characters and actors who are doing awesome things #but the fuck-you to the tories and the daily mail etc. is still extremely fricking welcome <3

[roadpiracyisnothijacking]

Kate's moment without her Zeedex was really powerful because not only did it fully establish the danger of the toymaker and the giggle but it also shows what Kate may be struggling with as a person. All the pressure from being in charge of unit is leading her to be so fractured deep down and she's really just holding on to a thread and trying not to fall apart for unit, her friends, really just the whole planet. She's got all this pressure put on her especially with her father's legacy and you can even see her trying to hide from that legacy by going by Kate Stewart in the earlier series. Also like many characters in doctor who it's hard to call her a fundamentally good person. She has her failings and her wrongdoings, but often times you can see she's trying her best to do what's right like what she says when she hugs the doctor. She's been through so much and she's just had to deal.

I'm exited to see how they handle her story next season, as she has been confirmed to be in one episode. Especially with the fact she had picked up the tooth containing the master (My theory. I mean it did look like her hand. Not confirmed though.). She's such a cool character with so much potential for deep and interesting story lines and I hope they give us more of her story and more of her struggle.

#kate lethbridge stewart #doctor who #russell t davies #dw #the master #15th doctor #14th doctor #celestial toymaker #the toymaker #brigadier lethbridge stewart #brigadier alistair gordon lethbridge stewart #UNIT #unit doctor who #shirley anne bingham #petronella osgood

[nuttersincorporated]

Thoughts on Doctor Who’s 60th Anniversary

For the most part, I really enjoyed the 60th Anniversary. Some of the jokes and things that were said were very on the nose but Russell T Davies did it for a reason. He wanted everyone to know and be unable to ignore the fact that Rose Noble is trans and to have more positive representation. I like that.

Honestly, my main complaint was that they tried to fit so much into one hour. It made things feel rushed at times. I feel the story would have benefited from taking place over a few episodes so there would be more time to breath. It would also have let them give more screen time and development to people like Shirley Bingham.

If it was longer, it would have given them time to actually address things like how Donna and Rose knew things about the Doctor’s life since Donna’s memory was wiped.

I’m assuming the Meta-Crisis meant that they were still linked to him. Having him close not only meant that Donna started to remember but his thoughts and memories started to bleed through too. It would have been nice if that was confirmed in the episode or be given any explanation at all.

The one joke I didn’t like was Donna and Rose saying a male presenting Doctor just wouldn’t consider letting something go. It wasn’t funny, it was sexist and it took away from what was supposed to be an emotional moment.

My interpretation of them letting it go is that they could now choose to let go of the power. Donna couldn’t have done this the first time around because she was burning up too fast. Also, she didn’t know she could or think she was of anything of value or importance to anyone without it.

Now Donna has a life outside the Doctor. She has a loving husband who adores her and she has a child she can be the sort of mother she wished her own was to her.

As for Rose, she’s had the Meta-Crisis her whole life. She’s excited to find out who she is without it.

#doctor who #doctor who 60th anniversary #doctor who spoilers #spoilers #the star beast #I loved the music #donna noble #rose noble #14th doctor #shirley anne bingham #russell t davies

[clarulitas]

"That's where Shirley Valentine disappeared to. She got lost in all this unused life."

Shirley Valentine (1989) dir. Lewis Gilbert

#Shirley Valentine #Pauline Collins #Lewis Gilbert #1980s #1989 #1980s movies #film edit #uk cinema #my edits #my gifs #Willy Russell #Filmgifs #Moviegifs #dailyflicks #film

[denimbex1986]

"To be there on that day with him and Catherine, and faces that I grew up with, that like, essentially raised you, was just very, very overwhelming."

"Quite exciting to shoot two regeneration scenes within a few weeks of each other. The one with Ncuti, of course, was very different; very different to anything the show has done before."

"...Just when you think nothing can happen, you can never have two Doctors, oh, except you can!..."

"David Tennant and Ncuti Gatwa in one scene together, with Bonnie Langford on one side, Catherine Tate on the other, faced by Neil Patrick Harris. Everything thrown in; it's marvellous."

"Episode 3 is something that Doctor Who does really well, which is simply nuts..."

"I got a DM from Russell on Instagram...from page one, The Toymaker is a very intoxicating and juicy part. I set the whole thing down, I texted him back and said: "Let's go.""

"It's a great bit of casting to get Neil Patrick Harris. There's not many people you can think of who had the skill set. You've got to be able to sing and dance a bit, he's got to be able to do some ludicrous accents. He's got to be sleight of hand. It's very important that he can juggle. I don't know who else we could've got. If he'd said 'no', I think we'd have been in trouble."

"Neil; he just brought so many different layers and aspects to that character. I thought it was a brilliant piece of casting and just great fun."

"Another thing about Neil actually; when you're casting a villain in Doctor Who like this, you've got to get someone who can match David Tennant. That's hard to do. There are not many actors in the world who can actually hit that peak and be a proper enemy to him. So that's Neil..."

"I didn't do so much with the puppets a Catherine did...they were horrifying. I think there'll be some nightmares after this episode. I kind of become a puppet at one point...that was a - quite a complex little sequence."

"And the Vlinx is an extraordinary creation. I love the fact that there's no real explanation of where the Vlinx has come from or what it is..."

"...I wasn't really expecting to come back for this. I was very, very excited when Russell contacted me...seeing Mel brought back to life in a lovely, rounded form was so joyful..."

"To be on that open air helipad with David, with Ncuti, it was really magic. I think everyone knew...could feel the history in the air. Everyone knew something monumental was happening then."

"I feel very fortunate that one of my - I guess my very last scene in the show - is Ncuti's first scene in the show, and I get to actually be responsible in some ways for the new Doctor's appearance...I take a pride in the fact that I got to be there."

"We had this motion control camera which would sort of recreate the same movement so that several images can all be combined. It was exciting. But yes, having just met Ncuti, we had to get very intimate, very quickly and be sort of strapped to each other."

"It was so epic. David is like, an icon to all of us. To me, he's like one of the reasons that I became an actor. I don't know; he signifies everything to me that like an actor should be or can be. I remember getting like a copy of his Hamlet before I went to drama school, and it was very much like: 'This is - this is an actor.' David Tennant as the Doctor and myself as the Doctor, it was just so much fun. The catch scene was a lot of fun."

"In the script, there's just a page where it says: 'Catch, catch, catch, catch, catch, catch, catch.' That informed everyone that the intention was to, you know, to really drag this out; to make it feel like, precarious and on which so much rested."

"That scene was just very exciting because it's like each Doctor has like a moment where they're kind of getting used to their new body and so that's what that scene essentially was for me. And so that was like the funnest way to do that part of the Doctor's story."

"All three of us as actors are fairly physical and it required us to do a lot of single and individual shots; to be to be as cool looking as possible and as effective as possible because some of them were dives and catches, drone shots. To watch the three of us together I thought was really fun."

"It was trying to find enough ways to catch a ball differently. There's also a moment where I kind of had to propel myself off Ncuti's back, and we needed something to give us that lift, so yeah, a bit of trampette work; some of my finest."

"I could never, ever catch the ball, and so we ended up having to fake it...I was terrible at that."

"You would try and sort of palm it, behind your hand, and then do that as you caught it, which should hopefully make us look slightly better at catching than any of the three of us actually were.

"Ncuti did a one-handed cartwheel, just like it was nothing."

"I was going to do the one-handed cartwheel, but unfortunately Ncuti got in first so, as he was the new boy, I had to let him do it. Mine's a little bit better than his but it is what it is; it's fine. I'm okay with it."

"It's a physical show, but you know, when you're acting with those two, it just felt really exciting."

"So the Toymaker's magic mallet still has some inter-dimensional power left, which allows the new Doctor to double-up the TARDIS with, with one well placed whack. So we had two TARDISes; one TARDIS becomes two TARDIS."

"...when Russell told me that we were putting a ramp in the TARDIS, I - I cried. I did. He actually told me about a fan who had contacted him, who was a wheelchair user...he said: "Even though I can't get in the TARDIS, because it's not wheelchair accessible, I just love it." And Russell was like: "So we change it, instantly. We change that." When he told me that story, that really hit me, straight in the heart. I know what that will mean for the disabled community and many disabled Whovians who haven't had that; that's the first time the TARDIS is wheelchair accessible, and to know that it will be like that forever now feels - I'm gonna get emotional -...no, it's good because that's what it means because to know that I was part of that change - it's really special."

"I mean, who knows? I don't know what happens next. That's the exciting thing."

"The end is very simple; actually...It means David is parked, David is living. For once, we've got a happy Doctor who is no longer saving the universe, but that's parked, with Donna, for a happy life."

"Yeah, I suppose the Doctor will settle into being an honorary member of the Mott-Noble-Temple clan, and will see out his days drinking tea and trying to stop Wilfred shooting the moles I suppose."

#David Tennant #Ncuti Gatwa #Russell T. Davies #Neil Patrick Harris #The Toymaker #The Giggle #Doctor Who #60th Anniversary #Shirley Anne Bingham #Ruth Madeley #Kate Stewart #Jemma Redgrave #Bernard Cribbins #Wilfred Mott #Rose Noble #Yasmin Finney #Jacqueline King #Sylvia Noble #Shaun Temple #Karl Collins #Bi-generation

[doctorkinktraveller]

#new doctor who #doctor who #tardis #david tennant #60th anniversary #doctor who 60th anniversary #the giggle #ncuti gatwa #14th incarnation #15th incarnation #shirley jackson #unit scientific advisor #mel bush #bonnie langford #russell t davies

[hairtusk]

Film director Ken Russell, on his wife, the costume designer Shirley Russell (from 'Ken Russell: An Appalling Talent', by John Baxter)

#weeping crying screaming about this btw #ken russell #shirley russell #is this too much to ask for

[therealjohnstewart]

Shirley MacLaine and Jane Russell

#shirley maclaine #jane russell

[timeagainreviews]

From Page to Screen: The Star Beast

Growing up can feel like a lifelong process. I’m an adult, but I’m obsessed with a time-travelling alien show. Part of you will always feel like a kid, but another part knows the past is the past. While I may fantasise about revisiting my past like the Doctor, I admit it wouldn’t feel the same. I’ve changed. The ‘80s could never feel like the present. Every hairdo dated. Every new record in the shop window is a relic. Childhood always stays with you, but as an ever further memory. Understand then the implication that when my household of 30-40-somethings finished watching “The Star Beast,” we were like children.

In my “The Eve of the 60th,” article, I talked about how I don’t have a childhood nostalgia for Doctor Who. But sometimes, the things we love inspire a childlike enthusiasm within us. Somehow, Russell T Davies managed to retcon my past. In this timestream, Natalie has childhood nostalgia for Doctor Who. Using the TARDIS, RTD has managed to time travel back to our hearts. There’s something warm and fuzzy (and I don’t just mean the Meep) in my chest and I’d like to talk about it.

There are some Doctor Who reviewers who seem to think it’s impossible to talk about the Doctor Who episodes they enjoyed. But if we learned anything from the Jedi, it’s that walking the path of the light side is harder. Snarky shittiness is fun to partake in because it’s easy and immediately gratifying. But I’m not here for shittiness. I’m here for the love. It feels so good to say “I loved The Star Beast,” but it doesn’t mean I don’t have notes. I started out writing about the Chibnall era from a place of enthusiasm. I can’t help what happened after the fact.

My enthusiasm at the beginning of the Chibnall era isn’t a bad place to start this review. Because after “The Woman Who Fell to Earth,” I still possessed said enthusiasm. Seeing Jodie Whittaker as the first woman Doctor was a joyous experience. And seeing David Tennant in the TARDIS again was just as joyful. It’s a fabulous feeling, but I was burned the last time I felt this way. I further temper my expectations because, as I said, I do have notes.

When you spend a large portion of your time either watching, listening, reading, writing, or thinking about Doctor Who, you forget that to some, it’s just a TV show. It’s one of the many they try and watch but miss the odd episode. So while I may roll my eyes at the goofy PowerPoint presentation at the beginning of Saturday’s episode, I have to remind myself that not everyone has been obsessed with Donna Noble for years. Some people might need a little reminder. Fine. While the casuals and newbies are getting caught up on the Nobles, I’ll be over in the corner frothing.

Previously I mentioned that I was withholding judgement for Murry Gold’s new intro music until I heard the full mix. Now that I’ve heard it I can say I liked it much better. It’s far more bombastic with proper engineering. The intro sequence itself was colourful but safe. I enjoyed watching the TARDIS skim the perimeters of the time vortex like a surfer catching a wave. It’s ironic that Dan Slott admitted to writing The Silver Surfer to be like Doctor Who, as it was the Silver Surfer I thought of during this sequence. People have been musing that the Disney influence may have Doctor Who going down the path of the MCU, but this one is pure coincidence. The intro is stunning and fits this exciting new era perfectly.

It’s not as though “The Star Beast,” were an adaptation of a Marvel comic published in 1980. Oh it was? Oh right. Well they got us on this one! Surely they wouldn’t copy the MCU further by hiring the directors of Loki. Oh they have? Oh right. Well at least they didn’t do a Marvel Studios type of production logo that shows different characters across the franchise to play before every new show. Oh they did? Well damn, I guess they are going Marvel. It makes sense when you consider that many people said Loki was doing Doctor Who better than Doctor Who was doing Doctor Who. And on top of that, “The Star Beast,” is a fantastic comic in its own right. I would say Russell T Davies is a mad genius for mining gems from the extended Whoniverse, but he’s done it before with “Human Nature.” My only regret is that this somewhat undoes the continuity of the comics. The nerd in me can’t help but acknowledge the fact that the same comic recently canonically destroyed the Thirteenth Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, and put the Fourteenth Doctor on course to Skaro where we saw him briefly in the Children in Need special. Timestreams.

“The Time Beast,” has now gone the way of “Shada.” Both stories take place across multiple Doctors and multiple forms of media. Not only is there an audio adaptation of Shada featuring Paul McGann, there’s also an audio adaptation of The Star Beast starring Tom Baker. Add the upcoming Target novelisation and you’ll soon have both stories in book form. It’s the fandom’s new “The Doctor’s Daughter was played by the Doctor’s daughter who then went on to marry the Doctor who played her father in the episode ‘The Doctor’s Daughter.’” Get ready to hear that ad nausea. All of this is to say I love when Doctor Who acknowledges its other media and this one was well played.

This adaptation of the Pat Mills and Dave Gibbons comic is a loose one. While the Meep and Wrarth Warriors look fantastic, some minor liberties have been taken with the story. Yet it’s hard not to admire how Russell T Davies has woven the Noble family and a narrative about gender identity in such a way that it feels seamless. Themes of duality and stereotyping are heavy throughout this episode. Speaking of gender identity, I totally called it with Rose’s choice of name. I said I hoped they would use the trans experience of choosing ones own name to tell a wibbly wobbly timey wimey story, and they did. But this also brings me to my biggest sticking point in the entire episode. I’ve seen a lot of people online using the word “clunky,” and that’s exactly what I would call it. Having Rose choose her name from a latent human/Time Lord meta-crisis going on inside her was great. However, having it be a factor in her gender identity left me a bit cold. It may have worked better if it had been implied that Rose was non-binary at some point before.

Ultimately, it feels like a cis male trying to write an empowering trans narrative and missing the mark a bit. It’s like your uncle using the wrong language to awkwardly say “I support you.” It’s in no way problematic, but it could have done with being passed through a few different trans people’s hands before going into production. Donna’s line "Anyone has a go, I will be there and I will descend,” is the Doctor Who equivalent of David Lynch telling transphobes to “fix their hearts of die,” and I want it on a pin. As a trans woman, I do appreciate the trans representation, but it didn’t quite stick the landing. Moving forward, my personal preference would be to just let trans characters exist. We don’t need you to constantly point out our differences. On the other hand, we did get what seems like very positive disability representation. My disabled Whovian friends all seem to agree that having Shirley Anne Bingham with her rocket chair and a wheelchair-accessible TARDIS made them feel seen. One out of two ain’t so bad, Russell. 

It’s funny to me that it took the Doctor becoming a man again to even start asking questions about gender. Chris Chibnall felt as though he was afraid of bringing up the Doctor’s new gender. It felt very “I don’t see colour, I just see people,” like mentioning the Doctor’s gender would have been the real sexism. I can think of three moments where the Doctor’s gender comes up in the Chibnall era- when the Doctor called herself daddy, when Captain Jack thought Graham was the Doctor, and when the Sontarans thought the Doctor was a companion. It wasn’t until Juno Dawson, a trans woman, wrote “The Good Doctor,” did we get a great conversation about the Doctor’s non-binary nature. I guess “The Star Beast,” was right, trans people are fucking magic.

Seeing David Tennant in his new threads with a sonic screwdriver that draws shields in the air was very cool. He and Catherine Tate haven’t missed a step, and of course, they haven’t, they’ve been playing the same characters on Big Finish for years. But people still felt the need to point it out, so here’s me doing it too. That’s quality. Their meeting again played out almost exactly as I predicted it would in my article “The Future of Doctor Who.” The Doctor is going to see Donna behind some packages, freak out when he realises it’s her, but come running like a puppy dog at the name “Rose.” Only in this instance, the Doctor is torn away from this intriguing discovery by what appears to be an alien craft crashlanding in London. Donna, of course, remained oblivious, as per the terms and conditions of the the Doctor’s neural block he placed on her 14 years ago.

This “new” Doctor prefers to play things close to his chest at first. He avoids Donna and UNIT alike. He still doesn’t know why he has this face again, or why out of all the people in time and space, the TARDIS decided to put that face in front of Donna Noble. If there is a reason, he’s not going to assume what it is, or who might be responsible. I loved watching the Doctor question Shaun about Donna. The fact that the Doctor still remembers the name Nerys after hundreds of years made me laugh out loud. It’s nice to see the Doctor being Doctory. He’s skulking around. He’s getting clues. He’s not making assumptions. Already he’s learned that the rocket hadn’t crashed. Something is not as it seems, and the Doctor intends to find out what.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town we meet Fudge who tells Rose about the alien space pod that landed near their houses. Fudge is one of the few characters who kept his name from the comic. They don’t even call the Meep "Beep" anymore (sort of.) As in the comics, Fudge is an excitable boy interested in science and space. He also plays a major part in helping the episode feel like classic Davies era stuff. One thing we often missed from both the Moffat and Chibnall era was the human cost of alien invasion. Watching Fudge’s reaction to the streets of London turning molten was a nice reminder that the danger was real. Seeing the BBC news correspondant being thrown into the back of a UNIT van made me happier than you might expect. I was reminded of Trinity Wells giving us news briefs. I missed the clever ways in which Davies made the world feel involved in his stories while also getting a bit of exposition out of it. It was at that moment that I realised RTD and Doctor Who were officially back. 

While going back to the house to grab her phone, Rose meets the Meep hiding amongst her bins. Right away she feels kinship to the Meep who she sees as a misanthrope hiding from oppressors. Of course, she gives the Meep sanctuary. Even though the E.T. moment of Donna discovering the Meep among Rose’s “gonks,” had been played over and over throughout the trailer, it still made me laugh. Catherine Tate has great comedic timing, and watching Rose attempt to draw her attention away was charming. Everyone but Shaun seems hellbent on hiding aliens from Donna, especially Sylvia. I found Sylvia’s transition into a sort of June Whitfield à la Ab Fab entertaining. She’s just let herself in making enormous sausage rolls and tuna curry.

The Doctor says things like “I absolutely love her,” now. Even Sylvia feels warmer toward Donna. Her insistence that the Meep doesn’t exist, even as its holding onto Donna’s leg doesn’t come from her old streak of meanness, but rather from a place of protection. She’s horrified by the prospect of Donna seeing an alien and it burning up her mind. She’s carried the facade this long. This falls into line with the character growth she began experiencing toward the end of the original RTD run and I am happy she didn’t regress.

Most of the Donna Noble story remains in tact and accounted for. Shaun? Still her husband. The lottery winnings? Gave it away. Nerys? Still a snake in the grass, despite the accident. The only one missing is Wilf who the Doctor fears is dead. Honestly, who can blame him though? The only times people say “He’s no longer with us,” are usually when someone has either left their job or died. I guess it’s a nice fakeout for people who didn’t see behind-the-scenes photos from some guy on Twitter. We are given hints that we’ll see him at some point, probably in “The Giggle.” I liked the implication that UNIT has put him up in some comfortable digs. It’s nice to imagine that Wilf and Benton are probably playing chess in a posh retirement home somewhere.

UNIT is back in a major way, and it appears to have some new players. I feel like we’ll see more of Major Singh and Colonel Chan. It would be nice to get some recurring UNIT soldiers again. I feel like they missed a chance with Ross Jenkins in “The Poison Sky.” Kate Stewart is set to return, but replacing Osgood is Shirley Anne Bingham. I loved Osgood, but after seeing Shirley take those soldiers out with darts hidden in her chair I thought “Oh no, I think I fancy her.” She’s got a mischievous air about her that makes her feel a bit cheeky. It will be a lot of fun to see what Ruth Madeley brings to the table. I hope they don’t shunt her off as quickly as the rest of them. 

After a daring escape through the lofts of several people’s homes, the Doctor and the Noble-Temples escort the Meep to safety. But after witnessing the Wrarth Warriors’ tendency toward non-lethal force, the Doctor begins to piece together who might have taken over the minds of Colonel Chan and his men. The Doctor decides it’s time for the Meep to plead its case in the court of a parking garage. After gathering two Wrarth Warriors as witnesses, the Doctor dons a barrister’s wig and invokes Shadow Proclamation Protocols 15, P and 6. And dammit wasn’t it good to hear David Tennant invoke the Shadow Proclamation again? Blissful, even.

One thing I particularly liked about the barrister’s wig is that it calls back to the Fourth Doctor in one of my favourite stories- “The Stones of Blood.” Not only was it good to see the Fourth Doctor referenced in what was originally a Fourth Doctor story, but it also mirrors the circumstances of the original trial quite well. In both cases, an evil villain is posing as a harmless innocent and it’s on the Doctor to prove it. Like the black sun of the comics, a Psychedelic sun turned Meepkind into hideously evil monsters. Their once gentle natures now give way to sadism and conquest. The last remaining Meep, the worst of them all, stands before us today. If you had read the comic book like I did, you would have known this to be true, but up until the reveal, my wife would have died for the Meep. She was mostly alone in this as everyone else saw the Meep’s “I will either die or turn evil,” t-shirt quite early on. Interestingly, some people were actually drawn in by the Meep’s lies.

Casting off its ruse, the Meep’s face contorts as it produces a laser gun from its marsupial pouch. I absolutely love the transition from Puss In Boots to Dr Evil’s cat. The marriage of CGI and practical effects had me wondering how they managed the change. I imagine they had two separate sculpts for the head. One cutesy floof and one twisted grin. I know it’s difficult work, but I love an old fashioned person in a costume. It was cool to get a glimpse into the performance with the Cicely Fay interview on Doctor Who Unleashed. As a person interested in practical effects, this was right up my alley. It’s nice to see that no matter how big Doctor Who gets, they’ll still use a performer in a suit.

The Meep takes the Doctor and company back to its ship to keep them as an in-flight meal. But before the Meep can get them all on the ship, UNIT intercepts leaving only the Doctor and Donna onboard. It’s up to them to stop the Meep before the ship’s dagger drive takes out 9 million Londoners upon lift-off. Evoking the MCU once again, the Doctor deprograms Donna like she’s the Winter Soldier or Black Widow calming the Hulk. The code awakens the Doctor Donna which causes her to exhaust artron energy. We get another classic David Tennant yells at God moment as yet another member of the Noble family is separated by glass. But just as things begin to feel hopeless we learn that not only is Donna not dead, but Rose is also part human and part Time Lord. Using her brief taste of Time Lord consciousness, Rose fully disables the Meep’s ship and the molten cracks from the dagger drive powering up disappear. This was so cheesy and I adored it. Classic RTD right there.

A recurring argument I see in favour of Chris Chibnall is to point out how people often complain about things the Thirteenth Doctor does that other Doctors also did. According to this theory, every Doctor has their own “giving a brown man up to the Nazis,” moment. You know, kind of like when the Eleventh Doctor murdered Solomon by teleporting a bomb onto his ship as he was escaping. He could have teleported the bomb anywhere but chose murder. Who was it that wrote “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship,” again? Chris Chibnall? Oh. We do get a bit of that here with the Fourteenth Doctor ejecting the Meep from its ship. But the Meep was refusing to know when it was beaten. It’s the Sycorax all over again- no second chances. It’s dumb to call the Doctor a pacifist, but is it better that the Twelfth Doctor pushed the Half-Faced Man in “Deep Breath,” or that he talked him into jumping? These are some pretty heavy concepts, but no, the Nazi thing was still worse.

I was glad to see the human/Time Lord meta-crisis taken care of in this first story. It’s nice that Donna is out of the woods and able to have some final adventures with the Doctor before she bows out again. It would have been kind of distracting for them to have to keep worrying about her mind burning every time someone said the word Doctor. It also allows us to fully enjoy the TARDIS reveal. Watching David Tennant run through the slick new interior like a little boy was euphoric. It was cute to get confirmation that even the Doctor has a moment of discovery whenever there is a new console. You always assume the Doctor just knows how to pilot any configuration of TARDIS controls, but even he sometimes has to ask “What’s that?” The TARDIS redesign was well worth the wait. Such a gorgeous set. It’s easily my second favourite TARDIS interior after the Eighth Doctor’s. The changing colour of the round things will offer so many different moods. White for normal function, red for the cloister bell, and purple for the disco party. The Doctor should get some roller skates now. Maybe if they visit the ‘70s at some point. I pray there’s a mirror ball.

Along with a possible mirror ball, the new TARDIS console comes decked with a coffee machine. If you’ll recall “The Doctor’s Wife,” the TARDIS doesn’t always take the Doctor where he wants to go, but always takes him where he needs to be. This means that the TARDIS dropped the Doctor off next to Donna, redecorated knowing about Donna’s tendency toward spilling coffee on computers, and offers her a cup of coffee. That’s some 3-D chess there, old girl. But wherever it is she was so keen to take them in “The Wild Blue Yonder,” she seems as equally keen to escape. From some of the stills I've seen, I wonder if it isn't some sort of evil TARDIS they've found themselves inside.

Judging by Davies' past penchant for planting the seeds of future stories across multiple seasons, it may be a while before we meet the Meep's cryptic boss. Will this boss have anything to do with the woman in Dubai who is gaga over Rose's gonks? Was that just a red herring? Perhaps this boss is actually the Toymaker and I'm overthinking it. But why would he be interested in two-hearted creatures? Is he searching for two-hearted species to track down the Doctor for some revenge? I have so many questions! As wonderful as it is to be curious about Doctor Who again, we'll still have to wait until next week. But the longer wait is over. Doctor Who is back, and isn’t that exciting?

#doctor who #the star beast #beep the meep #the meep #Fourteenth Doctor #David Tennant #Donna Noble #Catherine Tate #Shaun Temple #Rose Noble #Yasmin Finney #Russell T Davies #Shirley Anne Bingham #Ruth Madeley #Miriam Margolyes #Karl Collins #Sylvia Noble #Jacqueline King #14th doctor #bbc #tardis #Disney+ #doctor who 60th anniversary #wrarth warriors #timeagainreviews

[mariocki]

The Land Unknown (1957)

"We'll find the wreck without your help."

"Maybe you will, if you aren't trampled to death first, or eaten alive, or die of starvation. Wait till the Antarctic night comes and for nine months the black air hangs round you like a rotten rag, and your eyes are blinded from the dark and from your own sweat. And you lose each other, and you're alone! Alone, do you hear me? Always alone."

#the land unknown #creature feature #1957 #american cinema #virgil w. vogel #lászló görög #william n. robson #charles palmer #jock mahoney #shirley patterson #william reynolds #henry brandon #douglas kennedy #phil harvey #ralph brooks #george calliga #tom coleman #kenner g. kemp #william alland #bing russell #cute and dumb monster mash‚ in which a quartet of incredibly square jawed American sciencey types plummet their helicopter through some #Antarctic ice and wind up in a prehistoric wonder land of creatures and horrors including some dinosaurs that are variously portrayed via #men in suits‚ puppets‚ and just shooting monitor lizards closeup it's all pretty adorable and makes for an easy fun time but the Americana #and the period typical chauvinism can be a little grating (and a fr warning for the introduction of and immediate horrific destruction of a #very cute and furry little friend). of the cast‚ the stand out is definitely Henry Brandon as the sole survivor of a previous group of #castaways (what are the chances!) driven near to madness by his years alone in a dino infested jungle of death. #he's fully ham but has some wonderful moments waxing lyrical on his loneliness and the dangers of facing down lizardy horrors #originally intended as a lavish colour feature‚ this had its budget slashed by Universal after the disappointing box office of sci fi #alien feature This Island Earth (this budget slash may also account for the less than stellar effects but it's all part of the charm..)

[mywingsareonwheels]

Ugh, that thing Russell Lewis does...

... of dropping in devastating or revealing character information in off-hand bits of dialogue or the info on a tombstone you see for one second or this this that and the other. Right up until the final episode.

Some of the things that are really blink-and-you’ll-miss-it the first time around if you’re not careful:-

Bright lost his daughter. While way posher than most of the characters he’s still not from quite as upper class a background as his wife (who cheated on him at least once, though they weathered it). Her nickname for him means “tiger”. He doesn’t seem to have fit in comfortably at any point with anyone, perhaps indeed until he starts to bond more closely with Fred and Morse in the last 2-3 series.

Win was stalwartly in London for at least part of the Blitz. She once met a guy with a foot fetish who flirted with her and she’s still tolerantly amused decades later.

Constance was less than 20 when she had Morse. (AAAAAAAH.) (Everything about her marriage to Cyril sounds horrifying frankly.)

Max is gay and has a lost love (“and one was fond of me” / ”the one that got away”)

Fred grew up without indoor plumbing and generally in fairly intense poverty, he and Charlie at least (presumably Billy and I suspect their mother too) were physically abused by their father (who was an alcoholic).

Also on Fred: he was already an anti-fascist in the 1930s including when it meant joining with one of his colleagues (Sgt Vimes, who Sam was probably named after) against the rest. (Frankly Fred is the king of the “devastating info that is easily missed”, and that last point regards some moderately obscure knowledge to decode but it’s solid once you have that.)

Jakes’s non-Blenheim Vale background was very poor too, given his familiarity with the “Never-Neverland” of the kind of housing estate that replaced the kind of slum that Fred grew up in.

Dorothea has had a fricking epic past doing war correspondence etc..

Sam was bullied at school and didn’t tell his father because he was worried about how he would react.

Jim was brought up by his apparently rather obnoxious and judgemental grandmother, which might explain the desperate need to fit in and get on at all costs, as well as the extremely skilled peacemaking at times. He might have been in the navy before the police, though that’s a bit more uncertain.

Trewlove went to a posh enough school to have serious chess-playing as a thing. (She’s definitely the only person at the station with a comparable class background to Bright’s.)

And so on; I know I’ve missed out plenty of things here and especially I know there’s some info about Win that’s on the tip of my brain and I can’t quite remember. (I think she’s from Blackpool originally, e.g. and misses the sea? And did some war work outside London?) I weirdly couldn’t think of anything significant that’s not already foregrounded about Joan, Box, Fancy, or Monica; help me out here lovelies. :-) 

This is on top of eveeeeerything about Morse, which is far more foregrounded but even he has things dropped in very casually sometimes.

Goodness they’re all so messy and I love them all so very very much. <3 (Though also: I so very much wish that Lewis gave just *more* to his women characters. I have the obvious reservations about Joan’s arc (I *like* Strange, but... hmmmmmmmmmm), and the obvious wishing that Monica and Trewlove especially had had far far more to do.)

#itv endeavour #tw child death mention #tw child abuse mention #tw alcoholism mention #reginald bright #win thursday #constance morse #max debryn #fred thursday #peter jakes #dorothea frazil #sam thursday #jim strange #shirley trewlove #endeavour morse #endeavour s9 #endeavour spoilers #russell lewis