Sorry, will carry on, as always, I will not shy away from spoilers so if you don’t want to know the results, look away….. Now.

Its not that the pickings have been sparse this year, although there is definitely less TV I like going around, I’m also scuppered by opportunity.  I never managed to catch Fringe, Eureka or Warehouse 13 which is a shame as these seem pretty good and are propping up the schedules nicely.  On the other scale Sky graveyarded the last series of Caprica and were damn late with SGU.  Oh well, let’s see how I do.

Best TV show.

There were some obvious ones to go for here.  In my view Stargate universe gave a good last season, Misfits Season 2 was worth watching as well we also had The Walking Dead and since I have decided to give everyone else a chance and give Game of Thrones the Best new Show.  Still, Misfits made a good effort and Being Human was damned close, however the winner is.

Doctor Who

The latest season of Dr Who has divided fans, critics and commentators.  Critics say it’s too complex and confusing.  The split season lost momentum and they dislike the cast.  I disagree

This season wrapped up the River Song arc, finally explaining her origin and relationship to the Doctor.  While not straight forward I would dispute confusing.  It’s a bit of a no-win scenario, you make things too simple and people criticise for being simplistic, add in an arc and some more complicated plot elements and it’s over complicated.

In this series, when episodes have been strong, they’ve been really strong.  The opening 2 parter had mystery, excitement and a real epic scale (The filming in the US really paid off) Similarly Epic were “A Good Man goes to War” and “The Wedding of River Song” and it contained the knockabout fun and breakneck pace of stories like “Let’s kill Hitler”  There were also some good character pieces like Neil Gaiman’s “The Doctor’s Wife” and “The Girl who Waited” overall quality was high and while some episodes didn’t quite make the grade, for example “The Curse of the Black spot” was disappointing and the “Rebel Flesh” 2 part story suffered from padding. (Although I suspect if it had been cut to one episode it would have seemed rushed)

The finale had a slight feel of Deus Ex Machina to it, and indeed was guessed by some fans but has left us with the rather nice idea that the whole Universe thinks the Doctor is dead.  A good way of undoing the slightly tired plot device of the Doctor turning up and basically saying “I’m the doctor, Boo” to scare off his enemies.

Cast wise, Matt smith does well, although is occasionally written too close to Tennant for my liking.  Amy has annoyed less now that they’ve finally dropped her lusting after the Doctor and Rory has been a real standout, definitely my favourite of the two companions.  Alex Kingston put in a great turn as the many personalities of River Song, clearly enjoying playing the younger evil version of herself.  She’s a bit of a divisive character but I liked her.

So, hopefully we’ll have something next year, Due to the Unique way the Tories are trying to shaft the BBC we’ll see what we get.

Best New Show.

Ok, I won’t pre-amble too much.  While picking were thin I still caught some new stuff, and any other year the Walking Dead would have walked this, however in order to talk about more than one show, this got best new show..

Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones is a stunning example of what Commercial stations should be doing and the risks they should be taking.  It adapts the first of George RR Martin’s dense and complex “Song of Ice and Fire” series of books and does a grand job.  There are so many places they could have gone wrong, as it’s short on action but long on talk they could have cut the lavish production values, they didn’t.  They might have thought to add in a bit more action and less talking, they didn’t, and they might have shied away from killing their biggest name actor and the guy on all the posters a few episodes from the end of the series.  Again, they didn’t.  Why other networks don’t take risks like this is beyond me.

Sean bean plays Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, who is recruited by the King of the seven kingdoms to the job of Kings Hand after the previous hand dies in mysterious circumstances.  Meanwhile the two remaining children of the deposed house Targaryan plot to return to Westeros and take back their kingdom.

I can’t praise this series enough.  However extra credit has to go to the Actors.  Sean bean gives his usual gruff performance but never drifts too far into Boromir or Richard Sharpe.  However the real praise has to go to Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, also known as the Imp.  He doesn’t just steal every scene he’s in; he takes it over, as if it was always his.  It helps that Tyrion is one of the more interesting characters from the books but Dinklage really deserves every scrap of credit he gets for this role.  Jack Gleeson also deserves credit for his portrayal of the heir Prince Joffrey Baratheon.  He is either a hugely dislikeable person in real life or a fantastic actor.  I would prefer it to be the latter.

I could go on, there are lovely touches, take the opening credits, an animated map shows you key locations of Westeros, adding some such as the Aerie and the Twins as they feature, shows a pictorial representation of the Rise and fall of house targaryan and the extra touch of having the sigil of their house next to the names of each cast member.  The only downside it that it has set a very high bar for any other fantasy series to meet.  Camelot has been the first to fall well short on just about every level.

Best Finale

This was a tough one, which season ended on an absolute high?  Tempting to add Being Human again but there were other stronger contenders.  Chuck was close on this as well, however the winner is

Being Human

Being Human was one of the absolute standouts this year, managing to outdo last year’s spectacular season.  Due to the events of last season our spooky trio have moved to Wales and taken up residence in an old B&B.  It was a nice touch that, quite realistically much of the season looked at the aftermath of Mitchell “Falling off the wagon” surprisingly enough the police tend to keep looking when a trainload of people are killed.  This combined with the return of Herrick from S1, Werewolf fights and a zombie made for an interesting series.

The finale had the events of the Box Tunnel massacre finally catch up to Mitchell, all the pieces set up through the season fall into place.  Herrick finally recovers his memory and naturally goes on a rampage, mysterious vampiric agents shut down the Box tunnel investigation and Mitchell is arrested and photographed.  By the end the final scene with Mitchell choosing to have George kill him rather than be turned into an agent for said vampires was touching.  Overall a great end to a good series.

Most Improved Show,

.Again, a tough call, more so because many shows didn’t so much improve as maintain the level of quality.  However, I reckon the prize has to go to

Stargate Universe

Is this the second season?  Was it just season 1A?  Sky 1’s dubious scheduling has me all ahoo.  Anyway, this season solved a lot of its normal problems.  They had a greater sense of peril and more action, but thankfully without sacrificing character and plot.  There was some neat use of Time travel, which lead to arguably one of the series most satisfying stories, finding the lost civilisation of their own ancestors, similar to an old DS9 story but taken to extremes.

The robot drones made a good enemy, really making the crew of the destiny seem trapped and outgunned.

Finally, the ending, yes it ended on a cliff-hanger, and arguably a small, low key affair, but again, I rather liked it.

Most Gratuitous T&A in a series

So many contenders this year.  Camelot, from what I saw was trying for a Spartacus’s crown but forgot to add the decent plotting, instead just dubious use of T&A.  Similarly Game of Thrones proved that to be an HBO TV series you have to allow nudity and sex.  Indeed one of my only criticisms was that on occasions it was pretty unnecessary (Even, Gratuitous?  Quiet inside voice) However, the winner managed to win without showing actual sex or nudity.  The winner is

Chuck

Chuck may nab a second award, but, as in all seasons, chuck has several goals.  Amongst entertainment, Genre references, fun and action it also requires to have Sarah either appear in underwear/bikini or dress up in a slinky outfit at least every other episode or more.  It’s the best sort of gratuitous; it’s gratuitous with a self referential mocking nod.  I expect the next season to have Sarah dress up as a Nurse, French Maid, Policewoman and air hostess all in one episode, with added sarcastic comments

Best Factual series

Sadly I’ve not been watching as much factual TV, unless you count Aunt Mabel telling me how we get Marmalade in “Come Outside” or Katie Ashworth explaining where cheese comes from in “I can Cook” (For those without kids, these are kids shows, I long for when they want to watch Horrible histories) and sadly I missed Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe, however there was a particularly good factual series I did catch.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Phew, clunky title, not exactly tripping off the tongue, but a fascinating look into the way machines have affected our lives and how we perceive and interpret the world around us.  It looked at those who believed we could have leaderless utopias or self regulating ecosystems and indeed critiqued some of these ideas or showed where things went wrong.  Deep, challenging and eye opening.

Best Entertainment Factual

This award almost has a usual suspects list, Mythbusters, Top Gear and something with James May, however the addition this year was Channel 4’s 10 O’clock Live, which I still intend to blog about.  Sadly it didn’t win, nope it’s that James May again.

James May’s Man Lab

In this series James May explores “Manly Pursuits” From building bars to serenading women.  It’s a bit like the sort of disposable “Man skills” or Dangerous book for buys” stuff you might get for Xmas made into a TV series.  But it works.

The show covers a wide variety of subjects.  The less than instructional DIY segments, combined with on once occasion cookery, are performed in the “Man Lab” which they actually build around themselves as the series progresses, installing a kitchen and bar.  Outside bigger tasks are attempted such as bomb disposal, rescuing someone from a beach or serenading a woman.  There was an extra feature (Sadly not carried to the second season) where a celebrity man had to perform a “Man task” against the clock, such as assembling IKEA furniture or changing a tyre.  Overall fun, informative and very watchable.

Best UK Network/Channel

Have clearly been responding to criticism that they just buy the best shows by making more of their own output this year.  However, so far it’s been fairly forgettable.  Their placing of all of HBO’s output on Sky Atlantic could have qualified them for this award but you’ll see in the next award why not.  In the definite running was Channel 4, who do seem to be trying new and better things since they axed Big Brother.  I’ll mention Channel 5 as well for not being too proud to buy up second showings of walking dead (Other free view channels should follow this lead) however, looking at the awards so far is it any wonder the winner is

The BBC

Good gods they’re not perfect, budget shenanigans, the infamous wondering timeslot and good old fashioned graveyarding aside they have produced the Best TV this year outside of HBO (And much of their work stands well alongside that) Yes, we had misfires (Outcasts) But they are trailblazing in nearly every field, Documentary, Comedy, Drama, Kids, at the moment the beeb does it better.

Sadly how long it will last is questionable, the budget has been cut in real terms with the govt freezing the license fee and dumping the world service on to the BBC’s books.  They are cutting down many cheap daytime programmes, but the problem with cutting something cheap is it inevitably only saves a little money.  We already know Dr Who is taking a hit, and with Spooks and Hustle finishing its doubtful any replacement will have the same money behind it.  Similarly there will be less money for expensive experiments like Outcasts.  Overall, we could be in for some lean times from Auntie

The Pirate Bay Award for services to Bit-Torrent

I changed this award last year because so many networks were doing well. Sadly a network that was the trailblazer against using Bit-torrent has now fallen afoul.  Yes the winner is

Sky

Sky made a number of slipups.  Now it is fair that Anytime isn’t free to all, although if you can get sky channels (Say with Virgin) its not unreasonable to want to use their on demand service for what you pay for, but no matter (Virgin would do the same if they owned any channels) however Sky made a couple of big mistakes this year.  First was Sky Atlantic, in principle a very good idea, buy all of HBO’s output and bung it on a new channel.  New series even premiered near the US airdate.  What’s the problem, it was Sky subscribers only.  N matter how much you pay you can not get Sky Atlantic on Virgin.  Some said this was a clever way to drive people to Sky but those people seem ignorant of the advent of the Internet.  I wouldn’t expect Atlantic to be free to non sky subscribers like sky 1 and Living are, but to take it completely off?  You might as well say “Just Torrent the damn thing”

Second problem, Sky have been jigging around the channels a bit.  Part of it is to make more sense, Sky 1 will be mostly their own output, Living will be imported shows not from HBO like Chuck, and Atlantic covers US imports (mainly HBO) but sadly this has meant delays to the start of some series, such as Chuck.  As anyone knows, delay too long from the US and once again people go to torrents.

Finally, their poor treatment of Stargate Universe and Caprica.  Ok they knew both were axed, but universe returned with little fanfare and Caprica was Graveyarded.  Both were shown significantly later than their US counterparts as well.

Overall these 3 mistakes have meant more bit-torrenting and lower ratings for Sky.  Hopefully they’ll improve things by the next awards

Only the Good Die young award.

Not too much for the axe to fall on this year, but it claimed a few scalps.  I was going to give this to Caprica, but I’m still debating the Good part of that.  No the award has to go to

Stargate Universe

Ok, it was a massive diversion from the parent show, but it had found its feet and was growing well.  Sadly as far as we know destiny is drifting between universes for all eternity, or until someone stumps up the money for a TV Movie.

Never given a proper chance award

Well, it wasn’t SGU, so it had to be

Caprica

Now, Caprica, for the most part hadn’t impressed me.  But it had potential, and S2 was gaining momentum.  However a graveyard slot by sky made watching difficult and its axing means we’ll only know where it was going by a quick summary at the end.  A shame because done correctly we could have been into S3 Caprica now ready to segway into the proposed Cylon war series.  Sadly it was just too different to Galactica

The Reilly 2040 worst padding award

Again, not been too bad this year, more sires are avoiding padding and getting to the point.  However, there was one culprit.

Torchwood: Miracle Day

This US/UK co-production saw a world where nobody died.  Interesting concept, shame they padded out the series so much.  It left the view of a series that had would pick up pace.  “Now we’re getting somewhere” you’d think then next thing you know we’re plodding again.  Probably not as poor as Series 1 torchwood but this bloated beast was no match for S2 let alone the excellent “Children of Earth”

Pie Man Special Award

In an effort not to make this the Special award for Chuck, it has been disqualified from the special award this year leaving room for

Misfits

The second season of Channel 4’s anarchic Super-hero comedy/drama really went from strength to strength.  While still remaining largely episodic there were some interesting stories carrying through, such as the Superhoodie reveal, in general though past episodes are referenced more than anything.  It almost became a running joke that Nathan, now immortal, is killed once an episode but it was done with such a sense of fun you knew it was a running joke.  An underrated addition was the new probation worker (No 3) who in contrast to the past two is simply uninterested, presumably why he has survived significantly longer than the other two.  For a comedy Misfits manages some Pathos, Alisha’s relationship with Simon/Supherhoodie is well played and there is occasionally some real pathos (Kelly and the gorilla for example) The series finale has a suitably apocalyptic feel where the Asbo 5 reveal themselves to the public and face off against a guy who can telekinetically manipulate dairy products.  Yes you knew Curtis’ time jump power would undo everything but seeing a previously unknown Lactose intolerance used as a Deus Ex Machina is something that only happens in Misfits.

Next series is interesting (I’ve seen it, it’s been on already) using the idea of Seth the power broker from the Xmas special to mix up the powers a bit.  The series will also be surviving without Nathan, but I’m less worried since he was often used as a comedic crutch by the writers.

Worst Treatment of a series

Will keep this short because it’s the same complaint as last year,

The BBC

Ok, let’s nail this down.  Dr Who is a flagship show, one of your biggest ratings hits.  Is it really that hard to set aside the same slot every week for the run of the series?  How hard can it actually be, make up a damn schedule.

Biggest Missed opportunity

Again, no pre-amble here, the culprit was obvious

Outcasts

I wanted to like Outcasts, Original British Hard SF drama, high production values; it’s what we’ve been asking for.  I blogged about this a while ago and it still annoys me.  Hackneyed old SF plots, unengaging characters and a feeling that the writers had no idea what they were doing.  They could have done so much better.  At least it wasn’t the Deep

Anyway, Recently Top gear ran a segment on two commercially available electric
cars, the Nissan Leaf and the Peugeot ion. It has come under some criticism,
particularly from George Monbiot and others. Top Gear have also responded but I’d
thought I should put in my 2.5p (Exchange rate variable) worth.

First, declaration of interests. I am a petrol head. Love cars, Love the internal
combustion engine. Not only that but I do like cars that are bad for the environment,
the growl of an American V8 or the great looks and handling but 1960s fuel efficiency
of a classic british sports car. However, I do despair at my fellow petrol heads from
time to time.

Sadly, it seems most seem to think our love of cars and environmentalism can’t meet.
Indeed it quite often leads to a rather childish inclination towards climate change
denialism (Mr Clarkson, I’m looking at you) This need not be the case. My original
blog post was based around comments by Jay Leno, himself an avid car collector and
driver. His point was alternative fuels would free up the petrol car for the petrol head,
in the same way the car freed up the Horse for the enthusiast. This rings true for me,
as 90% of the car driving population care nothing for A V8 rumble or a supercharger
whine. They would prefer a car that goes from A-B, carrying all they wish to carry
(Cargo, children, sports equipment, cows) and costing as little as possible to buy
and run. My point is always we should nurture this and demand better electric, or
hydrogen cars and better public transport. The former to hopefully reduce the demand
for petrol, lowering prices and the latter to ease up congestion, not to mention the
environmental benefits. However to the piece.

One of the main complaints from Nissan and various articles and blogs, is the comedy
scene where they run out of power and have to push the cars around looking for a
charging point. Many state that they deliberately rand down the batteries to around
40% and selected a town with no charging infrastructure in order to make electric cars
look bad. On this point I disagree.

While charging infrastructure has improved, a good percentage of us live in cities
with little or no charging facilities. Hell, Glasgow has something in the realm of
2 locations and its Scotland’s biggest city, imagine the difficulties of running an
electric car out in the highlands. While Top gear may have laboured this point a bit
the possibility of running out of power miles from a charging point is a fear most of
us have. The Leaf has various clever systems in place to advise you if you have run
the battery too far down to reach a charging location, but like it or not at the moment
running an electric car will require planning and forethought that a petrol version will
not.

The second point which Top Gear made pretty well was the Electric Car’s biggest
fault, the time it takes to charge. Yes again they had some knock about fun waiting the
13 hrs for the leaf to charge, but still, for a complete charge from empty 13 hrs is a long
time.

I am not completely defending Top gear however. They took some liberties. First
there was some dodgy figures surrounding the cost to charge up a car, with many
wondering where they found their particularly high tariff. Second was a discussion
about the lifespan of the batteries and potential damage and replacement costs. The
main fault here is tha they failed to explain that if your battery does go wrong Nissan
will replace it for free, and worth noting that 90% of the battery is re-cycled in the
UK. This fact would have taken the force out of their ranting about some of the
running costs.

I don’t want Top gear to do puff pieces on Electric cars, but while not the hatchet
job some of the critics are making it out to be the Top gear piece was aiming to be
negative, as the bookend studio segment with its tiresome “Batteries are rubbish” line
from May and Clarkson “Humerously” suggesting we could use something called
Petrol. This has never sat well with me, Clarkson has a definite objection to the
Prius, and if he could get past rant mode and provide figures to his argument that they
are more environmentally damaging to build and dispose of, he would actually have a
pretty good scoop, since Toyota make a big deal of the Prius’s green credentials, but
instead of that we get general bluster and various omissions.

I don’t expect purely factual slots on Top gear and realise it is as much entertainment
as informative, but I do expect a little honesty, particularly since, like it or not, within
the next 20 years its more than likely we’re all going to be running an electric or
alternative fuelled car.

Here is the BBC’s response, it covers some of the points above, but still fails to mention nissan will replace any battery not holding a charge for free.

First, as always, this story has been covered better in the following blogs, Obsolete, Zelo Street, Angry Mob, Enemies of Reason, Bloggerheads and 5 Chinese Crackers, also worth reading is Flat Earth news by Nick Davies, who broke this story ages ago and has been doggedly persistent in trying to get this to the publics attention.

Ok, still here?

So, for those not paying attention, there was a Sunday tabloid called the News of the World owned by a big media baron called Rupert Murdoch.  Rupert owned a lot of media and was feared by politicians.  Reporters at the News of the world, in order to get celebrity stories, started hiring a private detective called Glen Mulchare to hack answerphones on the off-chance they contained juicy gossip.  This was pretty normal as most papers were involved in similar and indeed worse breaches of the law on fishing expeditions for gossip.  However it was discovered that said PI had hacked the phone of missing Teenager Milly Dowler, and had even deleted messages to listen to more messages of her desperate family begging her to come home.  This then opened a floodgate, 7/7 victims phones had been hacked, families of dead soldiers.  Terrible stuff, but for those who have read flat earth news, unsurprising.  What it did was cause enough public outcry to start a boycott of News of the World’s advertising causing News International to close the paper.

This sorry debacle finally brought into the open the true horror of our press.  Politicians had been scared to act against NI for fears of being attacked by their sizable media interests.  The Police were spiking stories and utterly failing to investigate illegal practices by newspapers in exchange for favourable coverage and a cosy relationship.  While phone hacking was the final trigger to get a proper review it wasn’t the only problem, the real issue was the influence of the press, of News international and the complicity of the police.  It also embarrassed many a politician on both sides as they had all been spotted enjoying the hospitality of News International’s summer garden party mere weeks previously.  David Cameron took a particularly hefty amount of flak for his close relationship with Rebekah Brooks and his hiring of Andy Coulson, not to mention his response was to try and hold back and see if the whole thing blew over, said NI papers currently being on his side.  It was not to be.

Those of us who have been fighting to get this in the open scored victories, the Arrest of Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, the calling of Brooks and the Murdochs to a select committee.  Murdoch abandoning his bid to take over BSkyB, a move that was to be waived through by our compliant culture secretary Jeremy Hunt.  The lib-dems have managed to make some minor gains and Labour’s Tom Watson has shone.  Its been entertaining to say the least.  It seems that every sacrifice that Murdoch throws in teh hope of all this going away gets eaten up and teh hungry spectre of accountability merely asks for more.  Send down Andy… More, Shut Down the News of teh world…. More, Send down Rebekah… More, Ditch the BSkyB bid…. MORE

The prize however, is going to be a bit more difficult.  Already the Right Wing press are desperate to either paint this as a left vs right issue, with the Stalinist BBC trying to knock out the more efficient private NI.  It doesn’t help that Ed Milliband’s main attack is around Coulson, rather than the cosy media relationship.

What I want to see is some hefty reform.  The PCC has repeatedly shown itself as toothless.  The remaining right-wing papers, led by the Daily “Hooray for the Blackshirts” Mail are desperately trying to play this as a problem with NI, when they’re not playing it as a BBC plot, partly in the hope of occupying NI’s position if it is suitably weakened, and partly in the hope that once this blows over they can carry on as normal with no accountability.  Press reform is not in their interests.

The cry has been that Regulation will equal Censorship.  I disagree.  The regulation need not be state, but it also can’t be Self regulation.  That gave a system which favoured the press over the public and the “Fast Free and Fair” service the PCC claims only manages the “Free” part.

The goal of regulation is not Censorship.  In effect its quality control.  A newspaper is a business.  At the moment it is more profitable for a paper to publish an inaccurate story and apologise later than it is to spend money fact checking.  This must change.  I would propose a variety of options on the new regulator, the ability to impose fines, and in severe cases, to publish retractions in the same prominence and amount for inaccurate stories.  This would be a final sanction for a repeat offender (Say the smears relating to the first Jo Yates murder suspect, later found not guilty) Papers may complain that they can’t run a weeks worth of headlines and blanket coverage merely saying they were wrong.  I beg to differ, and the losses this will make, the missed headlines of current events will perhaps make a paper spend that little bit extra on research.  This would be a top end sanction (Others could include suspension of staff and suspension of issues, but the impact must be devastatingly financial)

It should be sometimes accepted that illegal acts may be required to reveal wrongdoing.  However fishing expeditions are not journalism.  If you hacked the voicemails of every MP there would almost certainly be a couple of juicy stories, but Journalist should have evidence before they resort to lawbreaking.  The definition of public interest should also be tightened up.  Celeb shag’n'tell stories may interest the public, but they are not in the public interest.  Knocking these out of the news may force the press to up their game.

We should also look at media ownership, no one owner or company should own so much of our media.  This should limit the influence of any one company.

We should also be able to read reports of meetings between politicians and the owners of companies (Any company) in fact Lobbying as a whole should be much more transparent.

I think what would really help is a cultural change.  The old rule in news, that Dog does not bite Dog meant that those who supposedly hold the powerful to account turned a blind eye at their own wrongdoing.  Perhaps Dog should eat Dog in this case.

Just to clarify, I’ve not been picking up the Fear Itself book, but many of the books I do collect are now Fear Itself tie Ins, see unless you’re willing to just drop a title for a couple of months there’s no escaping the huge event.

The plot, from what I can ascertain, Sin, Daughter of the red Skull has found an old Asgaurdian fear god who was so bad he was banished and removed from all of history.  This god has given her a hammer like Thor’s and sent 7 others to earth where they have been picked up by several Heroes and Villains, turning them into evil gods.  Sin has also led an attack on Washington using Giant Nazi robots.  Odin is in fact so scared he has withdrawn Asgard from earth taking all his norse gods with him.  Confused, well for someone not reading the main book it can be.  This is wat I would classify as a “Bad” crossover.  Namely you do feel you’ve missed something if you just stick to your main titles.  So much so that it took several books for me to realise I hadn’t missed an issue in between.

This criticism aside, the event itself is great.  Obviously, some heavy hitters get their own big bad to fight, such as Iron Man fighting the Grey Gargoyle or the Avengers fighting a hammer possessed Thing.  Others are involved in general fighting, such as the Secret Avengers being on the vanguard defending Washington DC from Sin’s forces, The Thunderbolts trying to secure the raft after a hammer landed and was picked up by Juggernaut or the Avengers Academy pupils involved protecting civilians.  Either way, there is a real apocalyptic feel to this event.  Society is breaking down and the problems are as much rioting, looting and people being scared as they are nazi battlemechs or godlike super-villains.

Fear itself has even got me picking up some extra Limited series.  First, Youth in Revolt.

Youth in Revolt Features Prodigy, plus many of the heroes that appeared in the Initiative, who are re-activated as a volunteer force to try to help.  Sadly a situation in Atlanta develops when Thor Girl accidentally deflects some shots from a policeman with disastrous results.  I liked this on two fronts.  First, its more about stopping looters than fighting big bads, although there is a good moment with Crossbones nearly wiping out Gravity’s team.  It’s also great if you were, like me, keen on teh whole Initiative idea.  As well as featuring Prodigy, Thor Girl, Cloud 9 and Firestar, it is jam packed with guest appearances from Butterball, to some of The Order, and ist a good read.

Second is a bit odd but worth a look, Fearsome Four.  because of the high levels of fear, man thing has been drawn to New York.  Howard the Duck recruits She-Hulk, Nighthawk and Frankensteins monster to try to prevent his friend from killing too many people.  Its quirky, Nighthawk appears to have gone a bit ga-ga since I last saw him, think more along the lines of the “God Damned Batman” but its worth it if nothing else for some serious Quack-Fu from Howard.

So, I’m still not picking up the main book, but the story is worth the disruption its caused to my regular reads.  In fact, at this rate I’ll probably pick up the trade.

So, for those who weren’t watching, it was an unprecidented result, in a parliament with a voting system specifically designed to stop any party achieving a majority, with the express goal of keeping the SNP out and an independence vote off the table, the SNP have won the first majority government in Scotland.  Yes, Scotland currently has a government that can be absolutely secure in the fact that it has a mandate from the majority of voters, that’s PR for you.

While the collapse of the Lib-Dem vote helped, with most of their voters clearly turning to the Nats, they also made massive inroads into common Labour safe seats.  The response from the Labour side has varied in the blogosphere.  There was denial, particularly during the election, where Labour were convinced it was merely the Lib-Dem swing, despite loosing safe seats to the SNP, or as seen here, Denial mixed with a shrill terror that the Evil Nationalists are re-building Hadrian’s wall as we speak.  Or here, where they blame the Tories for their loss.

Fortunately, most of the other blogs have correctly started looking inward for the reasons of Labours Defeat.

Part of it had to be the woeful negative campaign.  Put simply it appeared Labour were confident Scotland would sharpen up from its little dalliance with a party that wasn’t them now the Tories were in and all they really needed to do was sit back, make some comments about how terrible the Tories were and the voters would flood back.  It highlights a basic flaw in Labours general national plans so far.  In effect labour are working on the principle that they will win the next election through the virtue of not being the Tories.  That is so far the entirety of their case.  Scotland should be a wake up call that this is not nearly enough.

The other interesting point was Labour’s inability to fight on the Centre left, uncommon in westminster elections where they merely have to fight for the same few swing seats against the Tories, but more common in Scotland.  Furthermore, it shows how Labour still take their working class vote for granted, and they shouldn’t since they are seeking out alternatives as it sinks in that Labour no longer represent them.  Hopefully this will be a kick up the behind for Labour, however so far the party has been pretty quiet.

So, independence, will it happen.  I know a few nationalists (Hell, I’m married to one) and most of them think it won’t happen.  I have to agree, I don’t think there is the appetite.  However, the opposition parties should not think that a loss on an independence referendum will mean the end of the SNP.  A lost referendum will actually show that people clearly liked the SNP’s policys despite the independence issue rather than because of it, and Labour really should be looking at that side of the SNP and learning.

As for the SNP, the training wheels are off, no more excuses this time, no minority status to fall back on and the “It’s Westminster’s fault” argument will grow tired if its wheeled out repeatedly.  Interesting times indeed.

I initially had a polemic post filled with personal insults to all candidates, but I’m trying to rise above petty name calling in politics for proper discussion (Read as I’m not actually that witty so best stick to discussion rather than insults)

Due to Scotland being civilised enough and clever enough to be able to understand PR we effectively have a 4 party system, The “Big 2″ are the SNP and Labour while the Lib-Dems and Tories take 3rd and 4rth, the Greens even get seats, its lovely.

In its first two terms it was a Labour/Lib-Dem coalition.  Yes, we got to see the Lib-Dems ditch their principles over student fees before they did it to the rest of the country.  This last term has been an SNP minority government, and it’s not been the disaster I suspected.

The SNP have had a hard transition from opposition to power, they were caught on the back foot many times at the start, however they have proven a minority government can work, it has meant dumping some key policies, taking some defeats and going through everyone elses manifestos with a fine toothed comb to find compromise and common ground.  It seems to have worked, Labour have been making noises that, particularly with the Lib-Dems toxic reputation these days they may go for the Minority option should they win this time round.

To the parties themselves, the SNP have actually done pretty well this election.  They clearly knew their weak points and studied responses to them, so they weren’t caught out by questions regarding the Lockerbie Bomber release and on the policies they failed to deliver on, Salmond even admitting one of his student policies never appeared because they couldn’t afford it.  In general the SNP are always well served by the leader Alec Salmond.  Salmond is a debater, he likes to argue, many modern politicians, including Labour’s Ian Gray and the Lib-Dem’s Tavish Scott are speech makers, I may blog about the distinction at a later date.

In government the SNP were a refreshing change at the tail end of the previous Westminster Labour Government, their combative stance was a refreshing change from the previous “Rubber Stamp” impression that having the same party in charge of Scotland and the UK gave.  Their policies have definitely been more progressive, there have been some good attempts to put Scotland at the forefront of tidal power generation research, and in more social policy we’ve seen abolition of Student fees, free care for the elderly and free prescriptions for all.  Its quite a buzz hearing envious noises from down south about these in particular.  There have been controversies, the failure to get an independence referendum off the ground is arguably one of their biggest failings, and the M74 extension and proposed Second Forth Bridge lost them support, particularly from the greens.  The continuing farce regarding the Edinburgh Trams hasn’t helped, but in fairness that is almost the definition of an inherited problem, and indeed one they tried to shut down in their first year.

So, the challengers.  First and foremost is Labour, who do still seem to believe they are entitled to rule Scotland by some divine right, they caught out the SNP in its early years in power, but has been fairly quiet of late, Ian Gray only appearing now and again to comment on any policy that seems slightly unpopular.  In fact they really haven’t impressed much at all lately, they have tried to make the focus of the election jobs after simply pointing out where the SNP failed often left them open to criticism on why they didn’t support policy.  This was particularly evident when they promised a council tax freeze and were promptly asked why they had voted against said policy each time it had come up.  They have since been far more careful to avoid being accused of pettily trying to stop the SNP doing anything.  They also have a flagship policy on Knife crime which shows the unattractive authoritarian streak Labour had in its Westminster years is still alive and well.

The Lib-Dems are nervous, very nervous.  Their ditching of policy on student fees at the start of the Parliament was close to being forgotten, they even helped the SNP get the abolition of fees through parliament, so voted against a policy they allowed through earlier.  They were initially quite annoyed, after all, for 8 years they’d been confident that regardless of who won the election, they always got seats.  Needless to say the SNP opting for minority government caught them unawares.  Particularly embarrassing was when the Westminster party decided to try and introduce minimum pricing, after they’d blocked it at Holyrood.  Tavish had a fairly unconvincing scramble trying to convince people that the Westminster policy was not the same thing they’d blocked.  Anyway, now they have bigger problems, Scotland does not forgive those who get into bed with the Tories, who don’t get much support up here.  The Lib-Dem campaign lurches drunkenly between trying to disavow the entire Westminster party and a strange sense of impending doom.  They expect a wipeout, I won’t put money on that just yet, I suspect they will be hit harder in the councils than in Holyrood, they seem to be aiming to take second votes from Labour as a strategy, and it may just work.

So we come to the Tories, they have one advantage, Annabel Goldie, a scrappy debater and match for Salmond, her ability vastly exceeds her parties popularity.  The Tories have actually not performed badly under the minority government, understanding that getting the few areas of policy they have in common with the Nats is better than nothing they’ve been agreeable and co-operative, which should be quite an embarrassment to the Lib-Dems and Labour, Tories being more reasonable than you.  Sadly their campaign has been lacklustre, mostly because rather than letting Goldie do her own thing Cameron decided that the guy who managed to only retain one seat in Scotland during the Westminster election was the one to run the campaign.  Any gains the Tories make will be in spite of him rather than because of him.

So, these are our options, obviously we also have the Greens, where Patrick Harvie has become more front and centre, and has impressed in debates, we also have George “the Cat” Galloway standing, and presumably re-familiarising himself with Scotland having spent the last decade near London.  This election the Part of tommy Sherridan, of the Tommy Sherridan party for more Tommy Sherridan in politics, will be played by his wife as tommy has found out that Barlinnie south is not actually a seat.

So, a motley crew, but ours, vote wisely.

For those who didn’t know, outcasts was the BBC’s latest attempt at a big budget, grown up SF series. In itself this is a good thing, I love Dr Who but I always had fears that the old beeb would assume this was all that was required for its SF output, so it’s good to see them branching out a bit.

The BBC certainly didn’t skimp, it was filmed in South Africa, written by Spooks scribe Ben Richards and brought in some fairly big name actors such as Daniel Mays (Ashes to Ashes) and Jamie Bamber (Battlestar Galactica) and it had an audience who were willing it to be good to show that grown up SF could work in a prime time slot.

Outcasts was set in and around the human settlement of Fort Haven on the planet Carpathia and followed the colonists as they struggled to survive on an alien world. They would face conflict from without, in the form of the genetically modified ACs and a mysterious alien force, and from within as the charismatic and manipulative Julius Berger tries to unseat Tate, the colony’s president.

First, I quite liked it, it was flawed and often slow, but the concept was intriguing and some of the characters grabbed me. Of course this may say more about me, I found joy in Bonekickers.

So, what went wrong? Why did it end up graveyarded on sunday nights? Why did it turn off both sci-fi fans and mundanes alike?

Sadly most of the blame has to fall at Ben Richards feet. The first episode had many mildly intrigued, but not blown away, and the slow pacing sent viewers switching to Gypsy weddings or whatever else was on in droves. This flaw would have been fine on its own and it could have earned a solid audience from genre fans alone, sadly Richards didn’t help himself there.

I can’t confirm this, but Ben Richards appears to be a bit snobbish about SF. His first error was to wax lyrical about how Outcasts wasn’t really SF, it was more a frontier western but on an alien planet, more about people that aliens, space ships and lasers. Yes, anyone who knows SF will roll their eyes at this, it shows a writer who dismisses SF as childish space ships and bug eyed monsters which is kind of insulting to the genre that gave us Brave New World and Blade Runner. This alone did not put people off.

The main problem in my eyes was that the writers, and richards as show runner has to take some responsibility here, hadn’t watched or read any SF before making an SF drama, the net result of that was they didn’t know a hoary old cliché when they dreamed one up. The warnings were there, in interviews the writers spoke of the “space western” as if it was a brand new idea. Old concepts themselves do not make a series bad, but some background knowledge of the genre would have highlighted where the ideas had been tried previously and where they had been better executed. This may have changed some directions and perhaps forced the writers to drop some dead ends and develop some ideas more completely. For example, they had a brief “gold rush” idea with diamonds, and it could have developed further, with people slugging it out for stones that were precious on earth but common as pebbles on carpathia, showing the odd things we value, but it was forgotten pretty quickly.

Finally, Outcasts biggest problem was a lack of internal consistency. People aquired abilities, gizmos that would easily solve problems disappeared entirely (brain reading machine, I’m looking at you) this just seemed like lazy writing and did affect my enjoyment, and I was massively sympathetic before it started.

So, what was good, Cass and Fleur, the two P&S operatives (police) were engaging and likeable and even Tate, who started off giving the impression that they really wanted Patrick Stewart for his role grew on me. The stories picked up as it went on as well, and the reveals of some mysteries were actually pretty good (Cass’ backstory in particular) but it sadly was too little, too late.

I may later post about an alternative way I would have run outcasts if I don’t decide it makes me too much of a monday morning coach

The problem is, AV isn’t a proportional system, its better than First past the post, not much but a bit, in the way that a candidate must have attracted over 50% of votes, albeit second and third preferences, to win their seat.  This is an important step since at the last election nearly two thirds of MPs were elected with the endorsement of less than 50% of their voting constituents.  Still, the problem remains, for all of us who wanted voting reform AV isn’t really what we wanted, indeed Nick Clegg himself had made some speeches about how poor a system AV is.

The problem here is that the vote isn’t for anything as simple as whether we want AV or not, both sides are reading more into it.  Bearing in mind the referendum paper will have a simple Yes/No option on it what will be read into the votes is entirely different.

First, a “Yes” vote, on the basic level really means you would like AV implemented, but doe sit, it could also mean you dislike FPTP and would like further reform.  This is definitely the view of many of the Yes campaign’s supporters, the fear obviously is that future governments will still argue that no-one wants a proportional system, and that they wanted AV.  Similarly someone opposed to PR may prefer AV but will fear this as the thin end of a PR wedge.  I believe most of those voting Yes would really prefer the referendum to be worded “Would you like to get rid of FPTP?” as opposed to “Would you like the AV system?”

This leads to the problem of what a “No” vote is read as.  To some voters it may be simply they do not like AV as a system, preferring something like the Single Transferable Vote or some other system that is not on the table.  However, “No” voters should be aware, your vote will be read by those in charge as a vote in support of FPTP and the status quo of safe seats and of big majorities hammering legislation through parliament with your only say being once every 5 years.

This is the biggest dilemma in the floating referendum voter; they don’t like FPTP, but don’t really like AV either, and don’t really like the idea of endorsing either system.  However, this is the first time in my 31 years of life that voting reform has ever been on the table, if the No campaign succeeds I expect at least a further 30 years until another chance presents itself.  This is our opportunity to show that there is an appetite for a change to our politics and indeed possibly for further change, so I will be Voting Yes in the Referendum.

My Yes vote does mainly originate from wanting rid of FPTP, however the quality of arguments from the “No” camp has been poor, be it lying about the cost of the voting system (Vote “No” or the baby gets it) or rather bizarrely combining criticisms that because it is sort of proportional more extremist parties like the BNP will get in (Yes, they trot out the BNP Bogeyman, read that as Vote No or you get the BNP) with criticisms that it isn’t really proportional at all.  Effectively, see argument 1 if you are anti PR, argument 2 if you are Pro, please for our convenience don’t read them both.  Finally they argue that AV will cause more coalitions and unaccountable back room dealing (Unlike what FPTP did in 2010) despite the fact that Australia uses AV and has had fewer coalitions that the UK.  In fact an Australian Politician wrote an open letter to correct all the No campaigns inaccurate statements about AV because of the levels of inaccuracy in the campaigns website.

In the interests of balance, here is the website for the No Campaign, and here is the Yes where they pretty much destroy every argument in the No campaign.  Guess that’s what they get putting the person in charge of the Tax Payers Alliance in charge of their campaign.  Also you can check you are registered to vote here.

Yes, it has snowed, a function of weather.  Its snowed a lot, we also got trapped by a wave of idiot commentators and idiotic members of the public spouting uninformed opinions regarding the way our infrastructure stands up to the snow.  I thought I’d take a look and try to explain why we appear to grind to a halt in the snow and hopefully bust a few of the myths in the process.

So, to begin, why do our roads, rails and runways seem to shut down entirely when the snow hits while no other country seems to have this problem.

This is actually part of our first mini myth; countries with a similar or warmer climate, such as Belgium, Germany and France do suffer in the snow, to roughly the same extent.  In the previous snow fall there were massive tailbacks on the autobahn and deaths in France due to accidents.  Their trains get slowed down as well.  Their rail networks hold up slightly better, but this is due to their relatively recent construction (Around 1940s-50s) and the lower frequency of services.  As to why we survived better when we got similar snowfalls in the 1960s, quite frankly fewer of us travelled smaller distances to work and did not expect shops to run 24/7.  Back then it was also not unthinkable to call and say you were snowed in.

So, what about countries with snowy climates, Russia, Canada, North America, even Sweden, Norway etc.  How do they keep things running during their far more severe winters?  Well two reasons.

First, they Engineer for it, their infrastructure is built with snow in mind, such as better facilities for clearing points when they freeze and snow drift breaks.  Similarly more of their vehicles can be equipped for snow.  They also have a larger stand-by level of snow ploughs gritters etc, as anyone who had to deal with bitter cold and severe snow and ice every year will have.  Why don’t we, because we won’t pay for the gritters or the stand by crews, and I assure you if we did then come the first mild winter some lump like Eric Pickles or the Tax Payers alliance would be out asking why we are wasting so much money on gritters that are not needed, using the usual faulty memory that plagues those who resent paying a penny of their vast fortunes in tax.

We haven’t engineered our infrastructure for this in the past because there has been little to no requirement.  It make it pretty clear that this weather is unprecedented, or at any rate rare when it doesn’t qualify to be included in the engineering specs for the construction of new roads and railways or the abilities of council vehicles and trains.

Similarly, in places like the Northern US and Canada, a “snow day” is not an uncommon occurrence, where whole schools and workplaces will close for a day.  This official closure allows the authorities to clear the roads without the rush hour traffic getting in the way and compacting the snow into ice.

Finally, as people they are better prepared, many in those parts own snow tyres or snow chains, and just about every municipal vehicle will have access to these as well.  At least now our authorities are looking into buying such things for the next cold snap, hopefully allowing ambulances and police vehicles to avoid getting stuck.

The second question is “Why do we start running out of simple things like bread and milk?”  This is easy.  Particularly for perishable goods such as bread, milk and fresh fruit and veg, most stores now work on a principal of receiving supplies of these on a daily basis, this allows them to minimise losses through spoilage by only stocking around a days worth of such items.  The down side is if the supply chain is interrupted supplies can run short.  This is not helped by people panic buying the minute the snow hits, the stores can take a small run on bread but people filling their freezers quickly wipes out their supplies.  Fuel is a similar case although will usually last slightly longer.  The pres don’t help as the minute they say there are shortages it promotes even more panic buying.  Again in cold countries, this just doesn’t happen because people are used to the weather and don’t get driven into a panic by the possibility of 24hrs without being able to drive to Tescos, something which seems to affect most brits judging by the rushes around the Xmas Day and new years closures.

People also do need to pitch in.  In Edinburgh the Army were drafted in to clear the streets, conversely, in Aberdeen, where this weather is more common most know in heavy snow you dig yourself out, then start digging out the street.  We have a certain complacency that it is the council’s job to clear the snow, which it is, however they will usually have more important routes to clear, so if you want your street cleared quickly, do it yourself.

Finally, and this will sound bad, its high expectations.  In cold countries people understand that it’s best to wait out the snow, allow the authorities to clear the roads then carry on.  We seem to insist that in the face of adverse weather everything must carry on regardless.  People seem to think that with the passing of a snowplough and gritter that roads will magically return to black tarmac.  Well sorry, a snow plough will be wrecked by hardened ice and grit ceases to melt anything below -10.  Grit is tricky to do right, too soon and it will simply be washed away or destroyed by traffic, too late and the snow can dilute the effect.  Finally, things can and still do go wrong.  The M8 closure should not have cost a transport minister his job, no opposition MSP has been able to explain how they would have acted differently.  The M8 was hit by heavy snow during the morning rush hour where, as anyone who has driven it during that time will tell you, it is full.  You could not have got a gritter through that traffic, the traffic then compacted the fresh snow to ice and this causes accidents and in some cases made some hills completely impassable.  I drove a more minor road that day and it was an experience I would not like to repeat.  We need to learn the world will not end if we take one day off work, and the govt needs to stop kowtowing to businesses complaining of the cost and call a few snow days, for the long term good.

Best TV show.

This one was tough, although truth be told the US isn’t nearly pulling its weight like it once was.  So what did we have, well there are many shows I liked, but how many would I actually judge as “best?” Ashes to Ashes was definitely good in its final season, Stargate Universe has become must watch TV even if it took me a while to get into my head that it wasn’t like the last two Stargate series, Lost had a great final season, Being Human S2 was great and of course we had the two masterful newcomers in Misfits and Sherlock which nearly qualified for best show on their first years.  Instead I’m going with…

It’s a bit of a hard one to judge, see if I have my timeframes right, and if I don’t tough, my 09/10 period catches 3 of the specials and the new series, so I’m spoiled for choice.  I know the specials weren’t as well received by everyone, although there is very little hate for Waters of Mars the Xmas and New year end of time 2 parter has taken a lot of flack.  It was a little flawed and very overindulgent in its last act, but it was a goodbye to the team that have brought our show back, and for that I can forgive anything, I cried manly tears.  Then we have the new series with Steven Moffat at the helm and Matt Smith and Karen Gillen playing the Doctor and Amy Pond, and you know what, its different, but Matt Smith has definitely taken to the role like a duck to water meanwhile the feel of the show is different but also much fresher, perhaps a little more kiddie friendly as well which is no bad thing, it is a family show.  The standout episode of the series was “Vincent and the Doctor” but credit where credit is due, the final 2 parter was great, with a mix of action, drama and comedy.  In fact that could be said of the whole series.  Downsides are the iDaleks and a slightly off 2 parter featuring sort of Silurians but in general I wait with baited breath for the Xmas special.

Best New Show.

Again, a little spoiled for choice, and again very much dominated by British TV, obviously Stargate Universe is an option, and I’d even consider Caprica, although I have to confess that I gave up half way through and came back at the end, none the less, while it took its sweet time to get going I was warming to it.  Truth be told it was very nearly Misfits, Channel 4’s ASBO superhero show, and if I can’t come up with an award for it from the usual categories then expect a spurious award near the end because it deserves some love.  However, best newcomer is non SF, it was short, but daring and once again it’s Steven Moffat.

Sherlock

This was a surprise, the BBC were running a set of new dramas, some one offs or week long events like The Deep, but then there was Sherlock, a modern take on Sherlock Holmes.  Epically named Dominick Cumberbatch took on the role and gave a great young Holmes in his performance, managing to keep the character enjoyable even if you know in real life he’s pretty unlikeable.  Martin Freeman took the role of Watson, now a veteran of Afghanistan drawn into holms’ world.  The show had a real energy and pace, so much so you really didn’t notice its quite staggering 1hr30mins running time per episode, yes each episode was a mini movie, that in itself is bold enough and kudos to the Beeb for letting them try it.  So far we only got 3 episodes but with a further 3 planned these could be short bursts of brilliance.

Best Finale

We had quite a few series end this year, or indeed be axed.  In the end though there were two real contenders for this prize, and oddly enough both had similar finales.  Lost didn’t win it, now I’m not a hater of this finale, yes it was a bit annoying that the island’s secret was basically “It’s a magic island” and I know that many found the “Alternate” flash sideways turning out to be the afterlife a cop out, and I would have perhaps preferred it to be a parallel world and the solution not to be turning the island off and on again, but regardless Lost’s finale was emotional and offered a sense of closure for me at least.  But it’s not the winner, no that has to go to…

So, it was all a sort of limbo for coppers who died on duty and Gene Hunt was to usher them to the next world, it makes sense, fits in with the Life on Mars Finale, and in general works.  It shouldn’t, it should be a cop out (pardon the pun) but it explains so much.  And of course we had the villain of the piece, Jim Keats, the more modern DCI and very possibly an agent of Satan himself trying to lure genes cops away, he managed to really create a nemesis for Gene, initially subtle and menacing his final few scenes where he was all out evil mad were a joy.  Taken as a 5 series story Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes is going to be one of my must own on DVD (Hell I’ve already got Life on Mars) I think re-watching now I know the secret will only reveal even more.

Most Improved Show,

This is a tough one this year, possibly because most of the series are either new or the returnees were pretty damn good already.  So I reckon I may be pretty controversial when I say the winner is

You may think I’m just making sure chuck gets an award this year, and you may be right, however stay with me.  Chuck was good already, but I really do think that it has been consistently improving over its run.  S3 gives us chuck with a new intersect, one that gives him kung fu skills.  Not just that but its one of the few series I know that can take getting a sudden series extension and not have the latter half turn out rubbish.

Most Gratuitous T&A in a series

I didn’t catch too much of Dollhouse this year, so I can’t say if it qualifies.  In fact T&A is clearly something ion this age of austerity we can’t afford, or perhaps its just I’m watching fewer shows that lend themselves to it.  I should probably watch the Hawaii Five O remake as it’s meant to be littered with it so I can have this award in next year.  I could use Misfits but what T&A it had wasn’t particularly gratuitous, so instead I’m opting for a non genre show that I’ve watched a bit of, because I like this award.

I’ve seen a few episodes of this and wow, you thought Knight Rider was bad, women seem to wonder around topless just for the hell of it.  The scene that I thought really exemplified this was during an episode where there had been a drought and at the end it rains once our titular hero has killed someone in a gladiatorial bout.  Apparently in ancient Rome rain made women in crowds fall out of their tops.  Similarly a fringe benefit to being rich was that you could have topless slaves hanging around your house and your wife wouldn’t bad an eyelid.  I get the feeling at script meetings someone did ask ‘How can we get more boobs into this series?’

Best Factual series

I’ve realised I watch a lot of documentaries, due to the unique nature of various channels I often don’t know if I’m watching something new or something ages old.  I have also decided to have two separate categories.  Shows like the excellent Wonders of the Solar system are clearly factual, however entertaining they may be while something like Top Gear is technically factual but is first and foremost entertainment.  I thought this was an important distinction.

This year I’ve been fairly spoilt for choice.  A good start was the badly advertised and barely plugged “The Digital Revolution” presented by Dr Alex Krotski, this had a lot going for it, not only was it an interesting insight into the social impacts of our information age but it was presented by the presenter I liked the most from 1990s games review programme Bitz.  Mythbusters is also a worthy candidate, straddling the boundary between factual and Entertainment factual with aplomb.  The winner this year must be.

This is one of these things that the BBC has everyone else beaten by a country mile.  Professor Brian Cox takes us through some of the wonders of the solar system.  That’s kind of it.  The content was factual but presented in such a way that it wasn’t stuffy or dry.  Brian Cox is an excellent presenter and speaks with a genuine and infectious enthusiasm for the subject matter and the visuals that are presented are truly awe inspiring.  Seriously try to watch this.

Best Entertainment Factual

And so from the less noble end, again we have Mythbusters as a possibility and the ever present Top Gear, in fact all we were short of were a few drama-documentaries which seem to have been in short supply.  However my award goes to.

I’m a big fan of James May, I think he’s a good presenter, particularly when given a subject matter he is interested in, he can usually add a touch of humour to whatever he’s presenting.  This series spun off from three one-off programmes he did, concerning toys.  In this he takes a toy, tries to convince some kids its fun and works towards a giant challenge.  This series had May building a life size Airfix model Spitfire, building a bridge over a river using only Meccano, re-creating the brooklands racing circuit full length but using Scaelextric, Living in a house made entirely of Lego and re-instating a branch line in Hornby double-0 gauge.  His success sis often varied but in the process it was nice to see kids taking an interest in toys and the way James May and a TV crew could get families and communities out together.

Best UK Network/Channel

To be fair there’s only a little competition in this, Virgin/Channel one are improving but look set to be dismantled after a Sky Buyout, Living will probably qualify for a Pirate Bay award next year, Channel 4 made a good effort with Misfits and now that Big Brother is gone I expect wonders.  Sky1 itself is on a bit of a decline, having far fewer shows that I’m interested in this year than last now that Lost is gone however their recent purchase of exclusive rights to all of HBO’s output is promising even if their proportional budget on home grown series is miniscule.  Bravo is still Bravo with nothing particularly new or interesting and with SyFy running V, Eureka and Warehouse 13 its fast becoming the channel filled with series I should watch but don’t.  No, the winner this year is,

Its not perfect, and there are criticisms, but this channel this year has given us, Dr Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Merlin, Sherlock, Ashes to Ashes, Top Gear, James May’s Toy Stories, The Digital Revolution, Survivors, Vexed, Miranda, Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe and many others.  All thoroughly entertaining, all home made.  It runs very few bought in series these days which is good as all the money from these series goes straight back into the BBC and into British pockets, surely worth supporting.

The RIAA award for harm caused to Bit-Torrent

Most networks are beginning to understand that getting stuff on screen as soon as is humanly possible after US screenings is the best way to stop people downloading stuff.  So this year the award has been flipped to recognise those who do their best to keep you off the Bit Torrents.  A credit here should go to ITV, Channel 4 and the BBC who have made their on demand service for catching repeats available to as many people as possible (Living only allow on demand on premium packages and sky only allow their Anytime service on sky) Sky have got anytime and have the best record for putting shows on usually in the same week they air.  I’m torn though.  See Sky’s protectionism is driving people like me to bit-torrents when we miss things (There were a few episodes of Lost I had to catch up on through “Alternate” means) it’s a small thing but it’s the only thing this year that pushed me to Bit Torrent.  In the end it has to be

Both are as good as each other, most of the channel’s main output is available, most are on for a week at least and they have back catalogues available for free or very little.  This could well be the future of TV.

Only the Good Die young award.

Not too many entries here.  I could say Defying Gravity but I may sound like a broken record next award.  Instead I’m going to go for,

I know it was 2 seasons old, but it was really getting moving.  They had found a groove, were building a mythology, and now we’ll never know how it was to end.  I miss my dose of supernatural fun.

Never given a proper chance award

This one should be obvious

It was shafted by Fox, let down by the Beeb, graveyarded and left to die.  A shame because this was a series that really got under my skin.  Space exploration where exploring space is the main source of peril, it was drifting near documentary territory at times.  I just wish everyone involved had been a little more confident in the series to push it harder.  I think this could have been a classic.

Most Promising 1^st Season.

Again, a crowded year, Sherlock, Caprica, Stargate Universe, Defying Gravity. But in the end of the day the series which had a season that made me sit up and take notice was.

It shouldn’t have worked, it was badly marketed, with the creators seemingly telling as few people as possible about the show, it epitomised the joke Channel 4 Mindset of any new series being something crossed with Skins and the cast seem pretty dislikeable from the get go, but it worked.  A good combination of humour, drama and character this series drew you into its world.  A mysterious storm gives a group of youngsters on community service Super Powers, but how will they use these abilities and how will they explain why they killed their hulked-out probation worker.  See, the premise is even hokey, and it often had a “Storm powered person of the week” format that reminded me of Smallville’s early “Kryptonite powered baddy of the week” format, but it worked, and worked well.  The characters grew into full fledged personalities and the final episode in particular, which involved an evangelical Christian able to turn anyone who could hear her to her way of thinking had a real night of the living dead vibe to it.  Season 2 has shown no dip in quality either.

Most off the Boil series.

No pre-amble it has to be

So off the boil its been axed, Heroes, I would say its not you, its me, but it is you and I can’t do this anymore, I can’t sit through dross just to have the one or two great episodes, it just isn’t working for me.  Yes, I gave up through Season 4.  Can’t fault the networks decision here; however I have a concept for a sitcom starring Ando and Hiro if you’re interested?

The Reilly 2040 worst padding award

It’s a tough call, I could hit Heroes a bit more but that would be cruel, and if Padding was the only problem with “the Deep” it would be a mercy.  It could be Caprica, I don’t know because I faded out mid season and came back nearer the end.  No, it’s a tough call but I think it will be

I suppose it usually wasn’t a padding episode, but more some episodes were padded, So much of the Earth based body swap stuff is just tedious and most of the time you’re just waiting to see people in dark corridors whisper at each other to let you know that you’re seeing the interesting bit.  If you extracted the padding and re-distributed destiny sub-plots I reckon you could have shaved a couple of episodes off this series.  Overall though USTV, you are improving.

Pie Man Special Award

This is an award for something I think is good but has been sidelined by better, newer or just by accident.  This year it is

It nearly warranted the “Worst Treatment” award, see last year Team Chuck only thought they were getting 12 episodes, wrote a tight 12 episode arc and once ratings were ok were then surprised with another 10 eps.  I don’t give the award because wheat we got from this was something more akin to 2 seasons rolled in one.  It may have actually removed some padding.  Chuck is still a Joy, and a greater involvement of the extended cast meant we got more Buy More antics, a greater involvement for Morgan and best of all, an end to the will they/won’t they Chuck and Sarah question, they did and it stuck.  Plus we got at least 2 new Jeffster Numbers.  I can’t say this enough but a Jeffster Album?

Graceful Retirement Award

I think we only had one real contender, Heroes’ retirement being anything but graceful the award goes to

It was big finale time, and to be fair a cracking final season, obviously there is some disappointment from not having the Island’s secrets revealed in any way beyond “Magic” and the flash “Sideways” transpiring to be the afterlife was a slightly wasted opportunity, but it left me satisfied and gave a sense of closure which was welcome.  The story is complete; we need not worry about Lost any more.  And I for one cried like a baby at the finale, although the way Michael giacallo Scores episodes I’m sure he could make the Go-Compare adverts seem like stirring pathos laden masterpieces.

Worst Treatment of a series

Virgin/Channel One were a possibility, but chuck wasn’t as badly treated as last year.  I reckon Living are already getting much of my Ire for next year over Chuck as well, so lets have a different perpetrator this year.

The BBC has had one major problem this year.  Its Schedule or lack thereof.  It seems that either the IPlayer has spoiled them or they it is in fact incredibly difficult to put a programme on at the same time every week.  For its big hitters like Sherlock ad Dr who it’s often a matter of 30mins or so but I really shouldn’t be checking an EPG to see when Dr Who starts this week.  For others like James May’s Toy stories, it roved quite freely, so much so that I watched every episode on IPlayer.  But the worst has to be their treatment of Defying Gravity.  It was graveyarded, that I don’t mind, but there were some weeks we got two episodes, some one, some none, never at the same time, sometimes on different days.  Again IPlayer was my friend but how the hell can we be expected to support a show when it isn’t on the same time every week.  The BBC really needs to sort this out even if On Demand is the future.

Biggest Missed opportunity

I was tempted to say Caprica, but it was improving towards the end of S1, instead I think I’ll shoot at a one off Drama the BBC produced initially as a 5 day TV event, but were so worried about its poor quality that we had to endure 5 weeks of torment.  I speak, of course, of.

The Deep

James Nesbit, Minnie Driver and a crew of other “Him off of that things” take a submarine to the Antarctic undersea volcanoes to try and find out what happened to the previous mission (Containing Nesbit’s wife) and carry on their research.  What followed was a horror of dodgy premises, poor acting, poorer scriptwriting and mind boggling stupidity.  Note to writers, you should not see a twist and say “Was that meant to be a twist”

Various plot elements only made sense if you accepted that someone would pay to shove idiots underwater.  Here are two examples, presented in time honoured “Choose your own adventure Style”

You are on an evil giant Russian sub that looks suspiciously like that factory they film Dr Who in a lot.  To repair your sub and get everyone away from the soon to explode nuclear reactor you need to find the last sub and salvage a part from it.  You are using two pods to double your search chances.  One is your own, its controls labelled in English but it lacks the ability to dock with an airlock.  The other is the Russian one; it can dock but has all its controls in Russian.  You have two pilots, one, Clem speaks no Russian, does not know what part to look for and will have a long drawn out trauma about his wife who was killed on that sub, the other, Svetlana speaks Russian and knows what part to find.

If you put Svetlana in the Russian pod and Clem in your own, go to Paragraph C

If you Put Clem in the Russian pod and Svetlana in your own, go to Paragraph B

B Congratulations, you are churning out daft decisions suitable for a writer of The Deep, situation 2 is here.

You are a sonar operator and know your boss is on the take to corrupt Russian oil barons.  You suspect your boss knows you are on to you when he comes in holding a pistol, but the slide is frozen.

If you rush your boss to try and wrestle the gun from him before he can free it up go to Paragraph C

If you stare at him with a gormless expression, akin to a cow looking at a slaughterhouse wondering what goes on in there, go to Paragraph D

Paragraph C Bad luck, your decisions are good but do not draw out enough “Drama” you will never make it as a scriptwriter of “The Deep”

Paragraph D Well done, you are probably dead, of your own stupidity, but if you have survived the terrors of using a spoon to eat breakfast you could have a future writing any sequel to “The Deep”

Think this sums up what I thought of the show, it could have been interesting, educational, tense and claustrophobic, but it failed to hit any of these.  The money should have been given to the poor.