h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And the Spiral Staircase

Interesting.

I have a friend who sat in the pub last night and told me that he and two others who watched together had come to the conclusion that it was the worst written bit of television since 'The X-Files'. He stated that it had no credible plot (or mcguffin), one dimensional villians and was an utter waste of time.

Of course, he liked 'Firefly' and thinks 'Lost' is the second coming so his opinions must be treated with a pinch of salt.

hmm, well, I enjoyed it, but didn't feel totally happy with the whole thing. But then again it had rose's mum in it and I can't stand that character. Anyways, lots of goodies. loved the Torchwood weapon.

Liked the Arthur Dent references. The plotline was a little simple, but heck, it was a christmas special I wasn't expecting much more from it. It has to be populist and it has to have a bit of humour and a few nods in it.

I am enjoying the conceit of Britain still being a world power, and the tacit ignorance of the fall of the empire. Just the novelty of seeing the British PM contacting the aliens for earth and London having the big space ship over it (which I felt was as much Independance Day as Vogons. But that's probably just me).

I thought that the spaceship over London blotting out the sun smacked of Independance Day

"The use of the satsuma to remove the platform under the sycorax leader was interesting. The Doctor has destroyed alien enemies before - Ice Warriors in 'The Seeds of Death', Cybermen in 'The Wheel in Space', the Myrkur in 'Warriors of the Deep' - but most of the time he prefers to leave them to destroy themselves."

Mmm, but what about destroying the Dalek mothership *and* Skaro in Remembrance of the Daleks? Never mind the Vervoids, that's one Hell of an attempt at genocide, which makes Harriet Jones' actions seema bit tame in comparison.

Just as an aside, I got my Tardis box set of season 1 this morning (it is being guarded by the radio controlled Dalek I got for Christmas).

I could have *sworn* that people said it wouldn't have 'Confidential' on. But there they all are, on a disk of their own...

It wasn't clear pretty much right up to the last minute whether Confidential would be on the boxed set or not: for a long time the official line was 'definitely not'. The versions that are on the disc are the cut-down versions though, without the clips from old episdoes or interviews with cast/crew of earlier stuff.

Having read the review in DWM I'm not sure I want to get the boxed set... apparently the extras are rubbish.

Well, using a couple of clairvoyant techniques called 'tv companies are thieving b*st*rds' and 'High street retailers are thieving b*st*rds too', I avoided buying the single disk releases and got the box set at some 20% less than I would would have fdone, thus saving me a tidy packet all round, so even if the extras are crap, I've still saved money by buying it in this format.

I don't think that's fair- I think the extras there are great, but people were expecting *more*. Particularly deleted scens and outtakes.

Are there any deleted scenes? Given the nature of the production I'd be amazed if they shot material they didn't know if they wanted.

And outtakes are normally under the control of the actors - they have to give permission before such stuff can be used, and mayhap one of the two leads is a bit of a sourpuss when it comes to that sort of thing.

Kerr wrote:

>> Mmm, but what about destroying the Dalek mothership *and* Skaro in Remembrance of the Daleks? Never mind the Vervoids, that's one Hell of an attempt at genocide, which makes Harriet Jones' actions seema bit tame in comparison. <<


But the Doctor didn't do that. He told Davros not to use the Hand of Omega, Davros ignored him and it backfired. He did at least warn Davros. With the Sycorax, he gave them a warning, the leader chsoe to ignore it and paid for his mistake, leaving the rest of them to learn from that and become a mobile warning to other races that (the Doctor hoped) would leave Earth safe for a while longer. Harriet Jones ruined that. Now the planet is exposed to further invasion and it's directly down to her actions. That's why the Doctor did what he did. By removing her with six little words, he sent a message to others, just as he'd hoped the Sycorax would do.

"it backfired" implies that the Doctor didn't know what would happen when Davros activated the Hand, whereas the Doctor himself clearly says "I programmed the Hand". Rachel even simplifies for Gilmore to "he blew it up", and the Doctor doesn't suggest that she's wrong.

In effect, the Doctor handed Davros a bomb in a box marked 'don't open this box', without telling him what was in it, just that it was dangerous. The Doctor was still responsible, even if it was Davros's hand on the trigger.

Blues- yes, there are quite a few deleted scenes, they were supposed to be on the box set, but RTD admitted in DWM that they'd been lost- everyone on the production thought that someone else was looking after them! According to RTD they've been recovered and will be on a future release. Which I'll then have to buy (well, not *have* to, but you know what I mean).

Apparently there *were* deleted scenes and outtakes but the production team 'lost' them.

The difference between my post and Kerr's is that I don't beleive a word of it and I think they simply forgot.

Well, that is in effect what RTD said- the production team thought someone else was doing it, and forgot to check that was the case.

>>In effect, the Doctor handed Davros a bomb in a box marked 'don't open this box', without telling him what was in it, just that it was dangerous.

I don't suppose "Do not open this box again" would work in the circumstances, would it?

Err, only in the event of a convenient hole in time to drop through.

Careless on two points I suppose. Guillermo Del Toro kept the unused footage on Hellboy down to less than five minutes, and that was truncated rather than deleted scenes. The advantage of tight storyboarding, I guess.

Also careless to have lost them. But hardly crucial. I've yet to see a deleted scene from a movie that added anything, either in or out of context. With the possible exception of *bits* of Aliens.