On the Tele

This week's Life on Mars was great and found DCI Gene Hunt in fine form.



"Blahdy blahdy history bloody blah! It doesn't take a degree in applied bollocks to know what's going on."



"Now - yesterday's shooting. The dealers are all so scared we're more likely to get Helen Keller to talk. The Paki in a coma is about as loud as Liberace's dick when he's looking at a naked woman. All in all this investigation's going at the speed of a spastic in a magnet factory."

Hunt ranting (mp3).

John Simm plays Sam in Life on Mars and it has been rumoured that he was going to appear in this season's Doctor Who. Well, it appears to be true. Head over to the Doctor Who homepage and watch the Series 3 trailer there and you'll find:



He appears in the penultimate (and ultimate?) episode of the year, "The Sound of Drums" which also stars Sir Derek Jacobi. Rumour has it that this episode heralds the return of The Doctor's archnemesis, The Master, as played by Jacobi who takes over the body of the character played by Simm. And Captain Jack also returns here as well. Add a two-part Dalek story (with part 1 entitled "Daleks in Manhattan") on top of this and we've got a season that sounds like it's going to be an absolute blast.

Don't forget, the first show of the new season, "Smith and Jones", will be broadcast tomorrow.

Was anyone else disappointed with this week's LOST?



I guess we should have seen Nikki & Paulo's deaths coming considering the color of her top. All I can say is that the producers really messed up. They introduce two new characters and give them virtually no screentime so the audience hates them and then just kill them off. Why bother to introduce them at all if you're not committed to them? It's like the show is struggling to find a way to inject something new into it but doesn't know what or how to do so. They should have given the characters something to do and, with scenes of Nikki as above, the audience would have warmed to them.

I did, however, enjoy the murder mystery format of the episode. Plus Sawyer's quip, "There a forensics hatch I don't know about?", was good humor. But some scenes were pretty ridiculous. They find the entrance to the Pearl Hatch and all Nikki can say is "Fuck that – let's find the diamonds"?! And Paulo witnesses Ben & Juliet but he never tells anyone? He's stuck on this island and then finally meets people who were not crash survivors and he keeps that to himself? That brief shot of Nikki opening her eyes as she's being buried alive was fantastically creepy and the fact that that's how they die was great but it couldn't save this episode.

I don't mind that the show answers so few questions but there are times when it seems like the show is treading water by just bombarding us with mysteries until the producers have an end date for the series. Whether you feel season one or two is better than the other or not, at least both of them had a fulcrum for the story arc. The first season was about surviving on the beach, investigating the surroundings, and getting to know the characters. Season two centered around the hatch and how its mystery divided the characters. Here in season three, The Others and their camp is the primary focus but not exclusive. Or perhaps it's a weak focus. It has a strong impact on some characters and none at all on the rest. In the second season, not every character was involved with what was happening in the Swan, but what happened there was felt by pretty much everyone. But now, the events at the Hydra station and Othersville affect a small number of characters directly and the rest not at all.

As the series has gone on, we've gotten to the point where we have gotten to know the Losties pretty well. We know why Kate was under arrest, how Locke lost the use of his legs, what Jack's tattoos mean, et al. There seem to be few mysteries surrounding the pasts of the main characters left to be explained via flashback and perhaps Nikki/Paulo was an effort to alleviate this. And now a new female character is going to be introduced in 3 episodes time. Is this going to be an attempt to "artificially" extend the show or buy more time?

At least next week's episode looks to be fun with Kate and Juliet handcuffed together in some kind of The Defiant Ones setup. Check out the preview:



Next week also promises the return of Cerberus, the smoke monster. Now, it is usually pulled out when the story wants to make some serious commentary on what is, I think, the essential quality of the characters – their potential for redemption. We shall see.