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"Dare I whisper that it was actually not bad last night?"

You could, but I wouldn't agree with you.
Every week there's a story idea with potential written all over it and every week they piss that potential away.

This week's idea: 3 people from the '50s end up in 2006. Rather than spend time fully exploring the problems these characters would encounter 5 minutes is spent on this aspect as they walk into a supermarket. The rest of the time? Some lame soap style drama about Owen falling for the pilot and spouting THE worst dialogue of the series so far.

None of the characters' stories were wrapped up satisfactorily: Jack helps one commit suicide after a week rather than help him to adjust, the youngster just gets a job and buggers off and the pilot just assumes that this rift will turn up again, despite it not claiming any other planes ever.

This wasn't sci-fi. It wasn't even an interesting drama. It was crap written by somebody who has never actually spoken to a real person and doesn't understand how real people act.

This should be a great series. Who the hell hired these writers?

- Huey

"Really? I thought most of his time was taken up with self aggrandising interviews."

Oh yeah, that too.

I'm not sure that all that's bad in Torchwood is RTD's fault. Okay it's his idea and his characters an' all, but most of his time will be taken up with Doctor Who and setting up the next spin off; Sarah Jane Smith investigates.

The re-vamped Doctor Who has had some real bad moments, but it has also had some great ones too (Mostly in the first series). Torchwood hasn't had any great moments, simply some okaaay ones and some real crap ones.

the show-runner for Torchwood is Chris Chibnall. He's the fella responsible for getting the other writers, putting a story framework together and re-writing all the scripts. What's more, the 3 episodes that have REALLY sucked : the Cyberwoman one, the hicks one and the sex monster one were all written by him. He's also responsible for the season finale which will undoubtably suck.

- Huey

I thought this week's was the best so far. Not quite where it should be, but not bad.
Unfortunately, the writers don't seem to have the confidence to follow through a decent story idea without adding some OTT melodrama.

So, they get stuck with the revived corpse of a colleague. Fine. That's a good enough starting point and there were some nice moments.
SPOILERS FOR THOSE WATCHING ON WEDNESDAY...

They didn't need to turn her into an evil machiavellian genius. Nor have her out to kill her dad. It was far more interesting when she seemed more human with believable motivation - wanting to save her dad. The ending would have been more interesting if she cared about the fact that her living meant the copper died, but still made that choice anyroad.

Disappointingly, the returning woman seemed a better actor than the others and a more likable character too.

- Huey

"JNT wasn't entirely responsible for the bad shit of the 80's. If anything I'd blame Eric Saward more"

Saward still managed to script-edit a handful of classics under his watch and wrote one too. Unlike...

...the next guy. Under Cartmel we had 3 years of plotless stories which were just a handful of set pieces randomly thrown together. He also totally re-wrote the Doctor's character in contradiction to the previous 23 years. Casting the Doctor as a brooding, amoral, cosmic manipulator was not only the wrong move for the series, but was pretty unconvincing when the actor portraying this was Sylvester McCoy who chose to play the character as... a twat.

Whatever the failings of JNT, Eric Saward or RTD none of them have produced anything as godawful as the Sylvester McCoy years.

- Huey

" My arse, have we! Tracey faked Ramone's death to get him out of the rather tricky situation he was in when last we saw him."

Nah, he's dead, I reckon.
Fortunately the new story arc includes a cast from a parallel dimension which includes a non-dead Ramone Dexter - whose own Sinister partner will get deaded.

- Huey

Fanboy radio have got some good podcasts on their site including interviews with Garth Ennis, Brian Vaughn and Andy Diggle.

Other recommenation:
"Just a minute" - radio 4 always funny as long as Graham Norton isn't a panelist.

BBC 7 is playing some Big Finish Dr Who audios

and Radio 1 weekday evenings before Zane Lowe and Colin Murray got foisted upon us.

- huey

I'd second the call for A Belardinelli tribute extreme edition.

It's a suprise and a shame that tooth has honoured outsiders like Jack Kirby before but never those who actually worked for it. I had to read about the death of Eric Bradbury here as well as the retirements of Belardinelli and Ron Smith. All of these have been passed without comment in the pages of the comic.

- the REAL Rennie ending would be:

Dredd leaves the hospital room. Behind him the fingers of the supposedly dead perp twitch into life. Leaving us anticipating the 500 sequels that the story would create.

You'd also have to scrunch in an unnecessary cameo by Giant, Guthrie, Rico or McGruder

- Huey

Unlurking...

I didn't find anything in the editorial to get upset about. Furthermore...

Since Alan took over it's been refreshing to see an editorial that's worth reading. The input page in 2000ad has been a wasted page for the page for the past 15 years.

I might not agree with everything Alan says but I'd rather he said something.

and...

The start of volume 4 had more pages but still managed to have only 1 short Dredd tale worth reading. I'm happy with the quality so I ain't fussed about the quantity.

- H

unlurking...

well, being a lazy git I very rarely post here but,...

are you guys reading the same progs as me? Seriously?

second city blues is the worst/laziest/most cliched/poorly thought out piece of piffle EVER to take up residence in the pages of tooth,

Kek-W has outdone himself this time creating a story even worse than his sequels to Canon Fodder or Grudge Father.
He takes the plot for every Disney sports film and poorly grafts on adult themes. The two mesh together extremely poorly.
His future sport?: Why think up a new one yourself? simply mix all the tooth sports together - skysurfing, aeroball and the mean arena. The only original element, that the ball is alien, makes no sense whatsover. Why use an alien ball? every time it wakes up you have to call off the game.
which leads in to other poorly thought out elements. The inhabitants of this future world seem to know very little about where they live. The gangster dad doesn't realise the newsreaders are CGI. Nobody but the horse guy has twigged that the horses can work in tandem. And even the horse guy didn't twig he'd be able to counter their moves - and he's one of them.

Please somebody explain the attraction of this godawful strip to me and whilst you're at it: can anybody explain what t is with Robbie Morrison and kids? If his Dredd ain't crying over 'em then it's Dante worrying about two kids. Personally, I could care less what happens to the little punks.

Oh yeah, D'Israeli's Dredd is fucking awesome. this man needs to be one of the regular artists.

- huey

Mark farmer did indeed ink Kennedy's work. It was "The Taxidermist" progs 507 - 510 in early 1987.

Cam was gearing up for work on his DC maxi-series "Outcasts" so i guess that's why he could only do the inks.

- huey