Doctor Who - Scream Of The Shalka

Low In Shalka Hole

Doctor Who -
Scream Of The Shalka
Internet Airdate:
13th November - 18th December 2003
BBC 1 - Region B Blu Ray
Six Flash Animated Episodes

I’ve been meaning to watch Doctor Who - Scream Of The Shalka for quite some time now but, despite picking up a cheap second hand DVD of the story sometime during the pandemic, I could never quite bring myself to do so. In the 9 year gap between the ‘almost but not quite any good’ Doctor Who - The Movie (reviewed by me here) and the start of the ‘official ninth Doctor’ (or tenth if, like me and any sane and reasonable person who isn’t mathematically challenged, you realise John Hurt’s The War Doctor is also able to be numbered in terms of his chronological appearance in the show), we were left with nothing much happening for the show’s 40th anniversary. And so, this series of six, short webisodes, running between ten and fifteen minutes each, gave us the first ‘ninth Doctor’ as voiced by Richard E. Grant (who shared a breakout movie with the previous actor to play The Doctor, Paul McGann, in Withnail & I).

Now, as the show went on to bigger and, arguably ‘better’ (but maybe not so better for a long time now) things, Scream Of The Shalka was dumped as being non-canon to the series. Which is a shame because, a) it’s actually Richard E. Grants second spin as The Doctor, following a live action appearance in a nonsensically bad (if memory serves) Comic Relief special and b) The Master is voiced by none other than classic Shakespearian actor Derek Jacobi... who would, of course, turn out to be the ‘surprise’, hidden in plain sight even from himself, incarnation of The Master making his debut in a memorable David Tennant episode of the series, before regenerating into John Simm.

We even have The Doctor picking up a nicely played new companion, Alison, voiced by Sophie Okonedo, who would of course go on to play Liz Ten aka Queen Elizabeth 10th in two episodes of Matt Smith’s tenure in the show. Not to mention a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ voice appearance by a pre-Doctor David Tennant in one episode of this story.

And, it’s a shame this isn’t considered canon and Richard E. Grant wasn’t picked up to continue the role (mainly due to future show runner Russell T. Davies absolutely hating his performance here, from what I understand) because, all in all, I quite enjoyed this one when I sat down to watch it quite recently.* Okay, the animation was not liked by anyone in my house other than me, to be fair. The style is fairly primitive but, with the budgetary constraints, I think the pretence of stylistic simplicity to mask the fact that this isn’t a Disney or Fleisher production is quite charming, in a way (yeah, some things never change when it comes to money... as the BBC’s reconstructed, animated episodes on various Doctor Who releases demonstrate).

But, I think this has two big things going for it. Unlike Davies, I don’t think Richard E. Grant’s performance was ‘phoned in’ and I think what he manages to convey with his voice here, playing an absolutely enigmatic and intriguing incarnation of everyone’s favourite timelord, is actually quite brilliant (yeah, I know, I’m sure I’m in the minority when it comes to this issue but that’s my reaction and I’m sticking to it). Secondly, I think it’s extremely well written and I would have loved to see a two parter live action version of this story at some point... it kinda walks over a lot of what was being done in the Moffat and Chibnall eras of the show, as far as I’m concerned.

I mean, yes it’s a lot of nonsense about an alien hive mind creature coming to live for a time underneath the Earth after a ‘meteor’ crashes and then enslaving and controlling certain places on the planet as the precursor of a full-on invasion with, I have to say, lots of pseudo-science plot points which kinda went over my head... but it was entertaining and thoughtful hokum at the very least and I was kinda into it. The surprise reveal about a certain aspect of this version of The Master also means the show had more than its share of unexpected moments and, yeah, like I said, intriguing and somewhat complex stuff.

It does get dull in a few places and, to be fair, I spotted one of two continuity errors but, it’s pretty fun stuff and so I’m surprised that Scream Of The Shalka isn’t more mentioned in Doctor Who lore. Although, I didn’t watch it at the time because, I didn’t see something streaming on the net as a proper venue for moving image content (and I still don’t... streaming sucks... time to get physical again, people!). Also, I’m not entirely sure I knew about it at the time... publicity for this thing can’t have been that good and I don’t remember anyone talking about it in those days. My loss, as it turns out.

So there you have it. Doctor Who - Scream Of The Shalka was, I think, much better than it deserved to be and, for my money, much more entertaining than I was expecting it to be. The only poor thing about the experience is that animation does not sit well with the DVD format, where you are always going to see some kind of bitmapping at play. A shame, then, that the story has not been reissued on Blu Ray since that’s a much smoother medium for presenting animated content, for sure.

*Okay, this morning but, by the time this one gets up on the blog, probably a number of weeks ago.

Death On The Nile

 

A Gal In
Every Port

Death On The Nile
UK/USA 2022
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
20th Century Fox Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Slight spoilers.

Finally catching up now to the 2022 release of Kenneth Branagh’s Death On The Nile... a loose adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel of the same name and a sequel, in this case, to the director’s Murder On The Orient Express (reveiwed here), in which he reprises the role of Christie’s famous Belgium detective Hercule Poirot.

And there’s lots of things wrong with it, it has to be said. Especially if you’re an Agatha Christie purist and treat her original works as sacred. I don’t and am somewhat fortunate, in regards to this film, that I’m not all that familiar with the story. The first and last time I had any exposure to this particular tale was in my local cinema in 1978, when I saw Peter Ustinov play Poirot in the adaptation of it from that year. It was a much publicised film and I think I found it pleasant enough (which is probably not nearly enough for a ten year old boy watching more sensationalist fair such as Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica) but I absolutely don’t remember anything of it other than Ustinov wore a white hat... I think.

So, luckily for me, I found this new version by Branagh to be utterly entertaining and well directed, with some beautiful, symmetrical cinematography and bright, almost lurid colours signalling stark contrasts in tonal palettes, to indicate key locations (and even time shifts) at various points. There are a load of problems though... so I’ll get to those first.

The character of Poirot is at least 30 years younger than in the books and here is seen, younged up and clean shaven, serving in the Belgium army during the First World War. The scenes serve as an introduction to the film and are rendered in a beautifully crisp black and white which helps serve, along with a later flashback, to give us both an origin of why Poirot grows these enormous moustaches and also helps to humanise Poirot. So I think Christie purists would have bailed by this point of the pre-credits because, yeah, all of this is just made up and not from source.

Then we have the various characters and plot mechanics themselves... many of them amalgamated or replaced to give a smaller ensemble. Perhaps a very smart movie for a film adaptation but not something fans of the novel would easily embrace, I suspect.

Now I’ve said that, though... the cast are all wonderful and there are some real star names on board the paddle steamer, which serves as the ‘murder cruise’ location for the majority of the film. Actors such as Annette Bening, Letitia Wright, Armie Harmer, Sophie Okonedo and, the film even reunites famed comedy duo French and Saunders as ageing lesbian lovers. Joining them is the absolutely brilliant Gal Gadot and, I have to say, I was impressed by her skills as an actress here. I mean, she does brilliantly as Wonder Woman but I was amazed she was able to hold her own with such acting heavyweights on board... more than hold her own actually, she pretty much outshines many of them and I was truly astonished by her presence on screen again in this one.

There were two more big downsides for me though. One is when one of the characters greets Poirot with a parody of a famous line from Casablanca, “Of all the pyramids in all the world...” etc. Alas, the main action of this film takes place in 1937... five years prior to the release of the film this character is paraphrasing. So, yeah, this was quite a glaring error.

The other big problem for me was... knowing it was a mystery. As soon as I heard one of the characters complain that some red paint was missing, I knew that a gunshot wound or some such was obviously going to be restaged to reframe the timing of a murder and I was pretty sure I knew, due to some atmospheric dance hall telegraphing near the start of the movie, exactly who the two culprits would be. Despite their pretences throughout the main body of the movie. So, alas, within the first twenty minutes of the movie, I was pretty sure I knew who would be responsible for various murders and... yes, alas... I was completely right. Always a bad thing, in my book.

However, I will say that, for all it’s many perceived flaws, I thoroughly enjoyed this production and was content to let the beautiful performances and wonderful cinematography, counter pointed by a nice score by the director’s regular collaborator, composer Patrick Doyle, wash over me and give me a nice time. I even enjoyed the romantic spark of humanity stirred up in the movie and bolstered by an epilogue which clearly spells out Poirot’s intent to one of the other characters (a scene which also features a cameo by long standing TV Poirot David Suchet, as it happens). So, yeah, if you’re a strict Agatha Christie fan then you may find this new version of Death On The Nile to be in poor taste, perhaps... but I certainly had a good time with it, despite the ease of the solution to the mystery. Glad I saw this one and I hope Branagh gives us a third sometime soon.