Judging the DCU: August 2015

After a pretty horrifying month in July, DC Comics managed to bounce back a little in August - mainly due, I suspect, to their very popular "Bombshells" line of alternative covers. Most of the longer-running titles managed to make a fairly strong bounce back - it just remains to be seen if they drop back down in September when the Bombshells covers aren't a factor.

So much for the older titles, but what about the new? We're just four months into DC Comics' latest relaunch, when 21 separate titles were tossed into the marketplace. The other week DC confirmed the cancellation of seven of them. Add in the miniseries that were ending anyway, and that's almost half of them that are already on the way out. Some of the cancellations are rather sad. The Omega Men and Prez, for example, are two books that have actually provided something fresh and different to DC's lineup, but had their marketing either mismanaged or under-funded and never got the opportunity to present themselves well to the market. Other cancellations are simply to be expected: Scott Lobdell's Doomed was never going to find a large audience no matter how hard DC may or may not have pushed it.

Cinderella (2015)

Walt Disney Pictures are currently on a roll in terms of adapting their extensive back catalogue of classic animated features into live-action films. The current wave seemed to be kicked off by Tim Burton's phenomenally successful Alice in Wonderland, and has been followed by the alternate take on Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent, and now Kenneth Branagh's fresh version of Cinderella.

Actually fresh is probably the wrong word. This is by far the most conservative of Disney's live-action adaptations to date, and pretty much takes the 1950 animated film and translates it with a fair amount of fidelity and respect. It certainly doesn't make any significant changes to the narrative or the characters, or take any risks in terms of tone or aesthetic.

The result is a film that certainly entertains, but also to an extent underwhelms. It's effective, but only to a satisfactory extent and certainly seems unlikely to be remembered as any sort of significant work.

Blake's 7: "Assassin"

It's 9 November 1981, and time for more Blake's 7.

Vila (Michael Keating) successfully intercepts a message from Servalan (Jacqueline Pearce) to the notorious professional killer known as Cancer, agreeing to a contract for Avon's entire crew to be assassinated. Rather than wait for the assassin to come to him, Avon (Paul Darrow) goes looking for Cancer himself at a remote slave trader's community beyond the Federation's control.

So "Assassin" is, like many Blake's 7 episodes, a story split into two halves. The first, which sees Avon infiltrate a slaver's market to gain intelligence on the mysterious Cancer, is reasonably entertaining. The second, which sees Avon, Tarrant (Steve Pacey) and Soolin (Glynis Barber) hunt down Cancer in the bowels of his own ship, is positively risible. What's a viewer to do?

NES30 #11: Final Fantasy

In 2015, Nintendo's hugely successful Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) turns 30 years old. The NES, an adaptation of Nintendo's already successful Famicom console, re-invigorated console gaming internationally after the collapse of Atari and went on to sell 43 million units worldwide. NES30 celebrates this anniversary by counting down my favourite 30 games for the system.

Square was a Japanese videogame developer launched in 1984 with the PC-8801 game The Death Trap. Within three years, despite having developed and released 23 games for the PC-8801 and Famicom, Square teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. Acknowledging that the company was about to fold, producer Hironobu Sakaguchi named the 24th and presumably last game Final Fantasy. It was a role-playing game, with the player controlling a medieval hero using a variety of menu-based systems. Nobody at Square had much faith in the game beyond Sakaguchi. When it become a massive hit, scoring rave reviews and selling 400,000 copies on the Famicom, it came as an enormous surprise - except maybe for Sakaguchi.

Doctor Who: "The Witch's Familiar"

With Clara and Missy dead, the Doctor is trapped with Davros in the centre of the Dalek city on Skaro.

Okay so that first part is clearly untrue: while the cliffhanger ending of "The Magician's Apprentice" clearly showed both characters getting disintegrated by Daleks, I don't think there was a viewer in existence who actually believed for a moment that it was true. So while we do still have the Doctor trapped in a room with Davros, creator of the Daleks, we also have Clara and Missy teaming up to rescue him.

"The Witch's Familiar" is an unexpected second part to the story. The first part had been entirely about set-up - getting the Doctor into a room with one of his longest-running enemies - and I had expected the second to be some typically Moffat-esque extravaganza of time travel and complex paradoxes. Instead for the most part it is actually the opposite: no over-the-top action and madcap shenanigans, just a conversation in a room between old men. What a conversation though. Between the Doctor and Davros reaching an unexpected new connection in their relationship, and Clara's immensely hazardous experience as sidekick to a homicidal maniac, "The Witch's Familiar" is a wonderfully entertaining episode. With this two-parter I think the Capaldi era just found its first bona-fide classic.

Blake's 7: "Headhunter"

It's 2 November 1981, and time for more Blake's 7.

As part of his plan to recruit scientists to his cause, Avon (Paul Darrow) dispatches Tarrant (Steven Pacey) and Vila (Michael Keating) to retrieve the cyberneticist Muller (John Westbrook). When Muller unexpectedly turns violent, Vila is forced to kill him. On the way back to Xenon Scorpio begins to suffer malfunctions, putting Tarrant and Vila's lives in danger.

"Headhunter" marks a sharp contrast to Season 4's earlier episodes. It is a fully blown horror story, packed with murder, walking corpses and a growing threat to all human life in the galaxy. It is the third and final script for the series by Roger Parkes ("Voice from the Past", "Children of Auron"), and it is far and away his best.

The Omega Factor: "Night Games"

It's 27 June 1979, and time for more of The Omega Factor.

Journalist Tom Crane (James Hazeldine) continues to explore his newly-discovered psychic powers while working with Dr Anne Reynolds (Louise Jameson) and Dr Roy Martindale (John Carlisle) at the government's Department 7. When Tom's brother Michael, who is supposed to be in Germany, is found deranged and rambling in rural Scotland, Tom is driven to investigate despite both Anne and Martindale's warnings.

"Night Games" ends in a dramatically strong place. Tom's brother appears to be the victim of a government conspiracy, that conspiracy appears to involve Drexel (the man who murdered Tom's wife), and there may be a mole inside Department 7. It's a shame that the episode struggles so much to get there.

Blake's 7: "Animals"

It's 26 October 1981 and time for more Blake's 7.

Dayna (Josette Simon) teleports down to the surface of Bucol II to meet with Justin (Peter Byrne), a talented geneticist who used to know her father. Meanwhile Scorpio is ambushed by a Federation patrol, forcing Tarrant (Steven Pacey) to retreat back to Xenon base for repairs - and leaving Dayna stranded. She is horrified by Justin's experiment: creating his own humanoid beast-like species to work as a slave race for humans.

Let's jump right into the most egregious problem with "Animals". The episode focuses in the main on a growing romance between Dayna and Justin. She knows him because he used to tutor her in her childhood. There was clearly a romantic attraction then, and it's rekindled now. The only problem is that Justin is visibly in his mid-50s and Dayna is visibly in her early 20s. It's difficult to imagine their earlier attraction - possibly even an affair - as inappropriate at best and criminal at worst. The creepiness is not helped by Peter Byrne's weirdly obsessive portrayal of Justin. He constantly stares at Dayna, and leaves ominous heart-felt pauses in the middle of scenes. At its core "Animals" is a romance, and it's one that fails completely.