Thanks, FSC

After having the blog inactive for a big while and some internal changes, I took a few decisions, which are really of no surprise.

I’m retiring from blogging. This place was a good experiment for a while, but it died out too fast. I thought i could get some collaborators working on it on a weekly basis, but if my heart isn’t on it, i guess it just won’t work out.

Heck, even my good pal, B-dog, is retiring from blogging. With all the celebrity deaths, pandemics and general shit going around, is blogging what i really wanna do?

I guess not. I’ll dedicate myself to other ventures. In the meantime, Sergeant Politeness will be the new editor.

See you all real soon.

Your pal

Manuel Sandoval a.k.a. FrillyShirtCyberman.

There now follows a brief interlude. Hope everything works now. This blog is now defucnt and no updates will be made.

Quick! a ninja!

Elvis Presley at dizzler.com

A buzzing visual guide to

Doctor Who – The Unicorn and the Wasp ( 2008 )

Edited Highlights:

The Doctor and Lauren Donna need to solve a murder mystery with Miss Marple Agatha Christie. Hilarity, murder, lace, cyanide and a whole lot of references ensue.

Rant:

It’s the 1920s and plucky Donna and his Charleston-dancing friend (Feepo, temping for the Doc this week) arrive just in time for a par-taaaay…and murder! Oh, and the colour purple abused thoroughly…what’s with the production values, yo?

Turns out some fat dude gets topped in a study (where’s Colonel Mustard, yo?). Through some maaaad detecting skillssss (meaning just waiting for expository clues to appear), The Doctor, Donna and a very shaggable Agatha Christie run around for 40 minutes or so. I dunno, I WASN’T PAYING ATTENTION, OKAY? I was just grabbing some screen caps and thinking of jokes. HAVE PITY!

Anyhoo, there’s fekkin’ big wasp killing people around (get Michael Caine, he has the experience! Or even better, get Nicolas Cage!), some stiff upper lip mocking of the British way of life and… that’s it! There’s some weird convoluted discussionabout Agatha Christie’s mysterious disappearance but it…. doesn’t deliver.

And what’s with the character’s stupidity? What the frijoles are they thinking? “ooooh, there’s a nice GIGANTOFEKKERAMA wasp coming my way! What should I do?” GET TOPPED, you idiot! “Oooh, there’s a heavy-like statue coming towards me from the sky? Shall I move to the side? NAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, let it hit me! I CAN TAKE IT!” … Fellas, your Darwin Awards are waiting, collect them on your way to the big re-run in the sky.

The plot…. ehrm, there was one? Gareth Roberts does know his references and it shows, but, jolly frijoles and chips… is he into recycling? He’s pretty much doing the same thing he did on The Shakespeare Code, even the “ah, that’s where they got their inspiration from” jokes ( “You can use that” in Shakespeare Code, “Copyright: DONNA NOBLE!” on this one). It’s a good joke, but all these jokes suffer from repetition.

I would like to make a small aside from all this nastiness from my rant to make some kudos for director Graeme Harper, I love his style. HE FEKKIN’ RULES, OK??? Go watch Caves of the Androzani or Rise of the Cybermen. If you don’t have them, acquire them or invite me out for some food and I’ll gladly show ‘em to you .

Wait, it wasn’t an aside. It was the end of the review. Sorry!

Random thoughts (and the time they appeared):

01:55 “ooh, a giant wasp! OH SH1T IM DEAD!”
02:32 “Flapper or slapper? How about annoying, honey?”
04:56 “Get Poirot on the scene!!”
09:50: WTF… wavy lines for flashbacks?!?!
11:30 A flashback inside a flashbackl?!
14:42 It’s the pudsey bear!
15:55 “Buzzed off!” …groaaaan!
22:00 Damn! THE BUTLER DID IT?!
23:30 she has terrible breath!
25:55 I have a pun for you “he has something on his back!” BOOM BOOM!
29:07 Yes officer, arrest me.. ahh so that’s where the stupid agatha christie villains come from!
29:10 She’s the unicorn because he gives the horn?
38:50 Bessie?

41:25 I would have amnesia too if I were at Harrogate

43:48 (trailer) URSULA?!?!?!?!

And now…the visual rating!!!

Groan inducing puns

Moments I thought “whoa, either i’m horny or they are nice looking!”

Harperisms (nice shots, cool tracking bits, nice visual flair)

Moments o’duuuuuuuuuuuh!

Attack of the Feepo!

Is this satire?

She did…WHAT?!?!?!?!?!

“Geeze….can I skip directly to the Moffat one?”

Frillyrating:

RTD says:

“Frilly, you suck! This is satire! SATIRE! And it delivers!”

Silly Captions:

“She did WHAT with an alien wasp?”
“Oh, I bet it stinged!” (eat your heart out, Gareth Roberts!)

They caught her in the act!

AAAH!!! Never eat Dave’s Insanity Sauce! NEVER!!!

“Oh no….blue means pregnant?”

PS: I liked it maybe a tad higher than 3 stars, but it’s open to get some pounding, right? And Caves of the Androzani? IT SERIOUSLY DELIVERS:

There will be visual guides

Torchwood – To the last man ( 2008 )

It’s the Tosh-centric episode of the series…and…it’s not a bunch of old tosh!

It starts with one fine cold-opening, leaving you with the sensation that’s it’s going to be another in media res beginning (very Palahniuk, if you ask me). Yup, a “few hours earlier” caption and it’s off we go. It all starts with a cool moment at Tosh’s place and….whoa, someone’s had plastic surgery!

Anyhoo, hormonal moments later, it turns out that every year (or maybe more, i wasn’t paying attention) they revive some frozen dude and he goes on a date with Tosh. I guess the dates are so bad he has to be frozen to survive them (zing!!!).

But wait! The fabric of reality starts to unravel or summat. It all boils down to Tosh and his Popsicle Shagpiece… What to do? End it up all in tears, that’s the Torchwood way! Get out the crying towel (TM The Thing) because it’s a bit of a sad ending. Not as heart-wrenching as the episode Out of Time, but still I felt sad. There’s a nice nod back, when Owen (who isn’t on arsehole mode anymore) offers a bit of advice to Tosh (with him having been through something similar in Out of Time). Loved that bit

Seriously, Helen Raynor’s scripts are much better in Torchwood than in Doctor Who, if you ask me. She knows how to tell a good little tear jerker, with some solid points here and there (and a few gaps that require audience disbelief, but I’ll give ‘em…it’s Sci Fi!) and a good selection of music (et tu, Moby?). Great, quiet little episode, a welcome relief after the kill-o-drama that was Sleeper.

Quick thoughts:

-Wow! Old Torchwood!

-Ah, how sweet, they are in love! Where’s the stuffed toy, dude? You gotta be more romantic!

-”They died so young!” AHHH SCARY!! Is that the arc?!?!

-It’s the return of Cardiff overshots! Yay!

-Ewwwwwww! I’m no homophobe but.. EEEEEEEWWWWW!!… where’s a lesbian kiss for us horny straight dudes?!?!?! WE DEMAND THEM!

-Haunted hospitals?!?! SWEET JEBUS AND HIS TOY DALEKS!! SCARY SH1T!!!

-Argh…time….travel…predestination…head hurts!!

Now, the ratings:

Times the overbearing score tells you to cry, cry, cry!

Times you thought to yourself: hey, it might be something good!

…out of which IT DELIVERS!

Times you think Helen Raynor is much better in Torchwood

Times you think to yourself “yeah, we know they are at it..be subtle, yes?”

Moments you pause and say “Where’s Funny Ianto!?!? I NEED IANTO BEING FUNNY, NOT SNOGGING CAP JACK!!”

Character changes that feel more like “out of character moments” (i.e. Owen being nice and sympathetic and not being a “i’ll shag ANYTHING!” bastidd):

FrillyRating:

RTD says:
IT DELIVERS!!!

there’s no end to these visual guides, is there?

Torchwood – Sleeper ( 2008 )

So, another day, another Torchwood?

Kind off, actually, this one feels more like 24 meets X-Files, really . Not that there’s anything wrong with it. It goes like this: a crazy bint goes bananas on a bunch of blaggers and since the UK is sooooo lawsuit happy, she gets sued by the blaggers (one of them died, but what gives? Lawyers can’t be bothered with stuff like that!!).

Anyhoo, the bint wastes her only call and instead of calling Shark or some cool lawyer, she calls Mulder and Scully. Sadly, they were shagging (not each other) and she searched the Yellow Pages for something “X-File-ish”. Obviously, she needs glasses. She gets Torchwood!!

So the Torchwood team o’idiots comes around to help her… by torture! What’s this? Guantanamo’s franchising in Cardiff? So after some ol’ good torture (Captain Jack is a crazy gringo…) turns out that the deranged bint is… AN ALIEN!

Worst of all, she’s part of an infiltration mission that has one mission: to blew the whole frickin’ budget in crazy Michael Bay-esque explosions and sh1t like that. It goes all 24 on us and you get everything: stabbings, bullet, explosions, babies hit by cars, pasties stolen, Windows Vista crashes and even a few moments of pure, cool entertainment.

By some doo-hickeys thingamajigs, they manage to stop this rag tag of stupid aliens, but the one that looks like an evil P.E. teacher mocks them saying that his comrades are…ALREADY HERE!!

…Sadly, i thought this was going to be the arc for the series, but I was wrong. Still, this one entertained me thoroughly. Violence, blood, funny jokes by once po-faced Ianto (now he’s Comedy King Ianto!) and not one but two Battleship Potemkin moments!

Quick thoughts:

-Gee, she really needs to get medication for her PMS.

-That ought hurt!

-NO! NOT THE MIND PROBE!!!!

-Somewhere, George Bush is real proud of Cap’n Jack’s methods.

-You’d think they get out of the fekkin’ Hub and do some policing, dontcha?

-Gee, nice mother skills, you stupid Vicky Pollard look alike!

-WHOA!! NASTY!!! Baby killing on open tv?!?! Even if it’s implied, it’s fekkin’ harsh!

-”I know everything. And it’s at the bottom of the screen”. IANTO = QUIP KING!

-The attack begins!

-HA HA HA HA! “bits of string tied to cardboard rolls!” IANTO KILLS ME !

-Gee…someone saw Predator, right?

-C’mon, dude, you had time to activate your explosives…

-Predictable ending but still…whoa…

Now…the ratings:

Amount of times you think this is about Guantanamo

Times you thought to yourself: hey, it might be something good!

…out of which IT DELIVERS!

Cap Jack’s campy moments (in the dozens)

Times you expect Jack Bauer to drop by, shoot someone in the arse and shag someone (preferably female)

Overshot views of Cardiff (a.k.a. they get payola from the Cardiff board of tourism)

Plot holes (each face is 5)

Ianto quips that made me laughs like an idiot!

FrillyRating:

Almost famous for tiny dancers…

Dave Grohl…you are GOD!

spoofing:

to be honest, I never liked Almost Famous, it felt like “look at my youth, it was fekkin’ good” and then it goes “oh nooooooo! the world of rock it’s not what it appears”. No excrement, sherlock…

The peninsula

Hello everyone, grab a wicker chair and a drink. This was going to be a nice, relaxed loony island, but when we were told that it was “only a phrase”, we thought they referred to the loony part. Alas, they meant to the “island” bit.

Yeah, that joke is old as heck. But it was a good Simpsons episode.

Anyhoo, this blog will contain rants, reviews and stuff like that from different friends. Since not all of them have good english, I’ll be posting their writings. Besides, I’m a trigger-happy editor who can’t wait to mess around with other people’s writings.

This place is also dedicated to the memory of the “En Busca de RE:” letter that the aforementioned friends and I did on irregular basis. The blog will get updated more often.