All posts by Ricky Young

If My Calculations Are Correct, Part Four

Classic Films, Genre, Home Video, Television, ,

by Ricky Young.

In this fourth and final part of MostlyFilm’s lookback at the 1983 BBC2 sci-fi season – of which you can read parts one, two and three by simply ‘clicking’ – we are left with what I was previously happy to call the dregs.

A harsh word, I know, but I’ll qualify that by saying that of the fifteen films on the list, they were the ones I wanted to revisit least. My reasoning was (as ever) decidedly shonky, but they seemed to be the pulpiest, the most familiar, the ones nearest to cultural touchstones. I know; boring, right? I’m supposed to be rooting out hidden gems here, not sitting down to bloody Invasion of the Body Snatchers for the zillionth time!

Of course, when I really thought about when I’d last watched all three of these films, rather than read about them, or talked about them, or referenced them – there was only one answer: the 1983 BBC2 sci-fi season. So preconceptions be damned, I reasoned, when sitting down with only an Xbox, a pile of dvd’s, a large bag of Jolly Ranchers and a look of steely determination. We’ve come this far together – last one to the finish-line’s a dirty, stinking communist.

Continue reading If My Calculations Are Correct, Part Four →

If My Calculations Are Correct, Part Three

Classic Films, Cult Movies, Film Festivals, Genre, Television

by Ricky Young

Montage of three sci-fi posters.

With seven films outstanding in our look-back at the 1983 BBC2 sci-fi season, should we perhaps turn from our never-ending vigilance against external dangers (such as wrenches and communists), and instead take some time to contemplate the monster that is Man himself? What lessons can we learn about our nature via these Technicolor messages from our own recent past? Well, if 1955’s Conquest Of Space is anything to go by, lesson #1 today is ‘religion is for unstable, murderous nutcases’, so thanks for all the pressing updates on that, Dawkins, you charmless little tit.

Produced and directed, respectively, by 50s sci-fi greats George Pal (who oversaw When Worlds Collide from Part 1) and Byron Haskin (who would go on to helm Robinson Crusoe on Mars, from Part 2), Conquest of Space might not be the oldest of the films we’ve rewatched, but it has a tone and feel of something made considerably earlier. Oh, and it’s loopier than a hipster’s earlobes, but have no fear – we’ll get to that.

Continue reading If My Calculations Are Correct, Part Three →

If My Calculations Are Correct, Part Two

Classic Films, Cult Movies, Film Festivals, Genre, Television

by Ricky Young

If this look-back at the 1983 BBC2 science-fiction season has a theme, it’s that if you’re a simple God-fearing man (or, to a lesser extent, woman), just trying to make his way in the world in the shadow of that first cracked atom, then whatever you do, for heaven’s sake give scientists a wide berth.

In nearly everything we’ve covered so far, men of science have either directly or indirectly been responsible for alien invasion, alien near-invasion, alien semi-invasion, or just alerting aliens to our existence so they can stage – yes! – an invasion. It’s almost as if American society in the 1950s went to bed at night afraid of sudden and total destruction from a massive yet amorphous enemy far away.

Not that such mattered to me, watching these films after my tea every Tuesday night for four months, a stripling of nine tender years. I’ve tried to revisit as many as I can, and I’ve found that it’s less the stories and the dialogue that have resonated over the ensuing three decades, but certain images, sound effects and colours.

It also sort-of explains why I blew up that government aerospace research lab that time, with everyone deliberately trapped inside. Goddamn good-for-nothing scientists.

Continue reading If My Calculations Are Correct, Part Two →

If My Calculations Are Correct

Cult Movies, Genre, Home Video, Television

Part one of a four-part piece, by Ricky Young

Big Expectations

Starting on 11th January 1983, and running over 15 weeks, BBC2 ran a branded season of sci-fi films on Tuesday evenings – crucially, for those who were 10 years old at the time, in that all-important between-tea-and-bedtime slot. Alerted to this by my father, who was always on the lookout for great films in front of which he could fall asleep, I sat on the floor and exposed my brain to far more strange and dangerous cosmic rays than could possibly have been good for me.

It was quite the grab-bag of movies, ranging from early-50’s schlock, late-50’s nuclear hand-wringing, psychedelic 60s romps, 70s paranoia and masses more besides. I watched them all. Little of their importance (or lack of) or legacy (ditto) meant anything to me at the time, but the joy contained in that long string of Tuesday nights still resonated in the back of my brain as an indistinct blur of space-ships, laser-beams and sudden stabs of orchestral menace. I’m not going to get all Nick Hornby on you here, but if I had to track down what kick-started my love for the genre, chances are I’d find it in a four-month excuse for a bunch of cheap repeats.

So when the subject came up in conversation recently, with similarly vague-yet-enthusiastic recollections, I felt it my duty to MostlyFilm – Europe’s Best Website – to revisit some of these half-remembered gems and bring them into sharp and unforgiving 1080p focus. And, I’ll warn you now, take the piss a bit.

Continue reading If My Calculations Are Correct →

The Audience Who Waited

Television, , , ,

By Ricky Young

It's not as good without Les Dennis.
Rory wonders if he set the video for Family Fortunes.

The last time MostlyFilm talked about Doctor Who, I expressed a hope that the second half of the series would be more fun, less annoying, and feel slightly less like it was heading up its own time-tunnel. Did it succeed? If I were to follow the recent Who template, the answer would have been heralded in the article before last, with tantalising hints spread around the rest of Europe’s Best Website – most of which would turn out to be red herrings – and after I’d spent weeks talking it up as the shiznit, you’d finally read it with a bit of ‘oh, that’s quite clever’ and a bit of ‘yeah, but hang on – is that it?’

So, avoiding all that; it was more fun, it was less annoying, and it looks like the next series will veer away from its own time-tunnel at the last minute. Although if it then crashes headlong into its own time-perineum, it’ll only have itself to blame. Continue reading The Audience Who Waited →

It’s Just A Name These Days

Television

Ricky Young has 33 questions about Torchwood that Russell T. Davies MUST ANSWER

"The plot of the fourth series is written ... here!"

Oh, what exquisite pain it is to be a Torchwood fan. You’ve certainly put us through the wringer over the years, Mr. Davies. Designed as a taboo-busting, Who-flavoured love-letter to US genre shows, Torchwood has survived on its energy and charm, all the while maintaining fairly elastic relationships with taste, sense and quality. From body-horror one week to existential pondering the next, the first two series were the very best sort of mixed bag, going from thrilling to infuriating, often in the space of one episode.

The third series, Children of Earth, amplified this tendency, shooting for epic and very nearly making it, before the last episode drowned in a sea of belm. For the latest series, Torchwood is now a co-production with the US cable network Starz, and at the end of the sixth of ten episodes, even the most ardent fan could be forgiven for having a few questions about – and yeah, in true Torchwood style, we won’t hold back here – what the living fuck is going on. So here’s just a few… Continue reading It’s Just A Name These Days →

WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT TIME!

Television

Ricky Young revisits the gonzo variety shows of yore thanks to Challenge TV

The irony here is that Jim’s face is actually made out of molecules of purest anti-showbiz

Given the unpredictability of my Humax PVR, and its tendency to withhold or distribute channels based on what appears to be little more than malice, it recently came as a very pleasant surprise to be given telly’s number-one receptacle for obsolete game-shows, Challenge TV. Zooming forward through the days on the EPG was a delight, promising hours and hours of shiny-floored fun.

I’ve always loved a game-show. The natural buffer between the news/human-interest of the early-evening and the drama or comedy of 8pm onwards, game-shows were something light, something flashy, something you could have your tea in front of, something you could watch with your gran. Something that could get you involved without being too taxing.  Something with questions, and prizes.

Little slices of glamour beamed directly into your home in half-hour chunks; a perky theme, flashy titles, charismatic host, inventive format, gags, quiz, games, raucous outro – the works! Incredibly plain people given a quick glimpse of the good life, to which the tanned, funny man in the nice suit held the door. Primary-coloured sets edged with glitter. Scoreboards, prize-funds and running totals of cash won. Glamorous assistants and jokes about the missus. Lordy, I watched them all. Game-shows were great!

These days game-shows exist in prime-time only as post-modern revivals or teatime grinds, their place in the schedule taken by stranded soaps and chiding instructionals. Continue reading WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT TIME! →

‘I’d Hate to End the Universe by Mistake’

Television

by Ricky Young

'Oh, Christ I’ve left the iron on.'

On October 29th, 1969, computers at Stanford and UCLA connected for the very first time, on a system known as Arpanet. The initial message sent across this precursor of the World Wide Web was ‘Well, the ending of The War Games was a typical Malcolm Hulke clusterfuck, wasn’t it?’

Not really. Bare-faced lies like the one above only serve to highlight the difficulty in being critical about Doctor Who on the internet. There’s no shortage of keyboard warriors rushing to their computers as the credits roll, ready to pour vats of scorn upon the latest story, often in tones so hysterical only dogs can hear them. Dedicated blogs and sites exist solely to examine every possible facet of the programme, and take it apart mercilessly.

Telly + fans + internet = madness; nothing new there, but Who fandom is deeper and richer and older than most. It survived the dark days of cancellation, kept the flame alight when no-one else cared, then had to sit and watch and seethe as the Doctor became public property once more.

No wonder current show-runner Steven Moffat gets exasperated, to the extent that he publically berates ‘net geeks’ who traduce his work (even if he does sometimes miss the point of some articles entirely). But before we continue, please note that this author loves Doctor Who unreservedly. Especially when Doctor Who is thrilling, and fun, and whimsical, and scary, and funny, and audacious, and genuine, all of which Season Five was, to the most satisfying degree since the show returned in 2005. Loving something unreservedly, of course, means not acting blind when it starts showing signs of distress.

(There are spoilers after the jump for the recently-broadcast season)

Continue reading ‘I’d Hate to End the Universe by Mistake’ →

You Were Expecting Someone Else?

Television

by Ricky Young

You know, it

If one were to believe the online comments sections of national newspapers, the return of Doctor Who in 2005 led to more raped childhoods than any other programme except Jim’ll Fix It.

‘They’re doing it all wrong!’ was the cry. Podgy men in their thirties couldn’t wait to focus their ire upon show-runner Russell T. Davies, for perceived crimes against dim memories. That post-Tom Baker Doctor Who too-frequently resorted to rote and desperate storytelling, and more often than not consisted of helmeted men in sparse white corridors talking awkwardly about global politics (‘Thanks to you, Doctor, the resistance has triumphed! Our planet is safe again! Will you stay and lead us?’ ‘No, Commander, but I think they’ll be in good hands with you.’) didn’t stop them becoming very upset that the new production team didn’t give a hoot about what they wanted.

An unashamed populist, Davies took a moribund joke of a franchise and stripped it down to basics, making the story of a battered war-casualty and his platonic love for a toothy shop-girl a nickel-plated hit for the BBC. It was far removed from the Who that was a sniggered byword for fifteen years of single men in purple waistcoats attending conventions in Wolverhampton, content to spend hours waiting for a glimpse of Sophie Aldred’s bum.

Continue reading You Were Expecting Someone Else? →