So... the first half of RTD's Doctor Who finale of finales has graced our screens... As one would expect, when a much loved character is about to be offed... it's fairly serious in tone but even that can't stop RTD from pushing in some totally inappropriate, unfunny comic relief - including flaming homosexual... As with a lot of two parters, it seems likely that come part the second, it's going to be obvious that a lot of the first part is filler.

John Simms is again wasted as an actor. He's a GOOD actor, whether it's RTD's script or the direction he received... or he's just hamming it up... it's all a bit much... of course, that said - given the visual effects used - it seems likely that most of it is down to RTD... so, it seems fair to give Simms credit for working with what he had.

If precedent is anything to go by, it seems likely that this will have an unsatisfactory resolution though...

Joss Whedon must be starting to feel like he's not wanted on TV. After the success of Buffy and then not-quite-as-successful-but-almost Angel he went on to Firefly... which was much loved but kinda dicked about and short lived. So, now Dollhouse has suffered a similar fate.

Similar, mostly in dying a death. Dollhouse made it to season 2 only by conceding to considerable budget cuts and it wasn't many episodes into season 2 before the old pattern repeated itself. It disappeared from schedules, got shuffled around and then before the half-way mark... Dollhouse was gone.

Of course, there is an inherent danger to a show by a writer known for his ability to build characters, where at the end of every episode, a reset button is hit and her character is literally deleted... that and the fact Dushku really wasn't a great choice for someone required to show a very large range. Also, Dollhouse kind of suffered from the X-Files Factor - which is to say, there is an enormous global conspiracy... but all we get to see is people sitting in the same office...

For whatever reason, Whedon fails again. Maybe he needs to try something that doesn't involve waif fu?

There is something called an idiot franchise - that is to say, a franchise which has fanboys (or girls) so loyal and unthinking that anything with the right name on it will inspire the easiest of all partings, a fool and their money. There are some obvious candidates for this... EA games and horror films. EA has been pumping out various slightly different iterations of sports games for over a decade now - to the point one starts to feel less contempt for the company and more for the fans... although, as it's EA... there's still a lot of contempt to be felt for them.

Microsoft seem fairly intent on making Halo their torch blazing idiot franchise. Now, some are going to immediately say that Halo was great etc. The first was certainly something that made the X-box a player in the console market - and let's face it, Halo is really much, much more about the multiplayer than the single player, regardless of the orders of magnitude more that was put into that in the second two games...

So, why say this is the dawn of an idiot franchise? First off, Halo Wars... ok, you might say - RTS games on consoles... those are never really going to be great. Some types of game favour a mouse and keyboard, some a controller - and hey, it had some pretty cutscenes and it wasn't actually MADE by Bungie. Sure but it was just a cash-in... and of course, now Halo: ODST has been done... Bungie have bailed, well almost. They're signing off with Halo: Reach - which they've said little about but will presumably be a Halo prequel and FPS.

Bungie can't really be blamed for what went down with Halo - Microsoft bought them and the game concept changed radically and it became the X-box's messiah, very much the Alpha and Omega. ODST was not a high note to finish on - it's a bunch of characters you don't know, doing stuff you don't care about and really, the ODST boys are pussies compared to Master Chief. The chorus of voices on this game echoes much what the developers said - it's not worth full price. It's just an expansion, pretending to be a game... But... in short order, all these sins will be forgotten.

Why? Because... THERE'S A NEW HALO GAME! Which will be the last one to have anything to do with Bungie - all Halo properties henceforth shall be dealt with by a Microsoft subsidiary. Yes. Microsoft want to milk this cow dry enough that they not only bought the intellectual property from Bungie, they're actually making a company to exploit it. A company PURELY to develop Halo titles... the power of fanboys is as awesome as their ability to let fanaticism override intellect time and again... After all, if Halo: ODST being a full priced release when the game amounted to a fairly limited add-on for Halo 3... then it's fair to say the shark has been jumped.

The Water Of Mars... Well, if you want to be an uber fan and put that into an anagram generator... Do so. Anyway, the spacing of these specials has been pretty piss poor but then, that's probably not RTD's fault. You'll probably know he wrote this script by the "OHAI I HAVE THE BROTHER WITH THE HUSBAND!" bit... but we get "YES, THE ENVIRONMENT HAS BEEN BAD DUE TO POLLUTION!" so there's an environmental message... one of the events being subtly dubbed the "Oil Apocalypse"... actually, as far as environmental messages go - that IS subtle but that's more a result of them being generally anvilicious.

So, we don't really hang around in this adventure, Doctor Who turns up on the Mars base and says hi - for reasons of plot that will become apparently later, he materialises his TARDIS for about the first time ever - not in a cupboard but on the surface of Mars... which means he's mincing across the surface in a space suit. Anyway, in short order, the Doctor realises that this is a DOOMED expedition and that it's one of those fixed points in space etc. For some reason, this is related by the Doctor flashing back to the BBC news website or something - showing the obituaries of those on the base... which is a little strange but saves exposition.

Naturally, problems arise almost immediately in the form of WATER SPEWING ZOMBIES. Who were apparently trapped under the ice or something and now a SINGLE drop of their water will infect someone faster than you can say "28 Days Later". The twist is of course, these zombies are smart and can make water... so, they're kind of fucked. In fact, the Doctor ELABORATES to them just how fucked they are. Or rather, how their fate is inevitable.

They went on - at length -before this episode came out, that it would be the scariest ever (they seem to say that a lot)... but really, it's far more action than anything. The situation is fairly hopeless... but that doesn't equal a scare factor. Just a lot of heroic self-sacrifice etc. etc. It's really just an enjoyable yarn... which probably means RTD is saving himself up for his final episodes.

A lot better than Planet of the Dead and The Next Doctor... but that's not exactly saying much, is it? Also... why were these specials SO badly spaced? There were supposed to be four in 2009 but it seems there will only be 3... as the Christmas Special is going to be a two-parter that finishes in early 2010. Still, that means there are going to be specials in TWO months. Poorly planned.

To make a comment about remakes would be to tread upon ground that is walked all too regularly, so let us generously not mention that of the new V - which is, yes... a remake of the classic 80s TV miniseries. So, anyway - the basic story can be summed up (and the show even makes the reference) as the start of Independence Day with giant ships showing up over all the major cities on Earth. The big difference being that they don't explode monuments, they're all smiles and sunshine... OR ARE THEY?!

Naturally, too good to be true! As if good natured aliens would ever stop by Earth to give us something for nothing - because naturally, the space hooker from Firefly (their leader) tells us that they're just stopping here for a weekend break but they'll give us technology and stuff to cover the inconvenience... and this is in the first five minutes, including an entirely gratuitous and unnecessary jet fighter falling out of the sky and exploding.

The show doesn't waste much time in showing us that the aliens are plotting against us. In fact, it's pretty telegraphed by the way they behave - even if the end of the first episode didn't pull any punches in that regards... which kind of kills the suspense, beyond how. Oh, wait - no. They want to infiltrate human society. They don't really say WHAT they want... but yeah, then... if they're so technologically advanced - they could have tossed an asteroid at us and wiped us out to harvest everything.

Just the usual failing.

It is - of course - tradition for horror franchises to contrive some way to return the killer and thus allow there to be additional films and thus, more money - what makes the Saw franchise a little different is that the third film ends with him being pretty unambigiously killed and the FOURTH one shows him in the process of being autopsied (and no, he's not jumping up like Michael Myers or Jason). So... it's somewhat impressive that having died in Saw III, his machinations are still afoot and as elaborate and nigh infallible as ever in Saw VI.

There ISN'T really much to seperate this film from the others... there is actually something of a narrative thread here, which is to say - this film is a BIG author filibuster about health care in the USA and the role of the insurance companies in screwing people over on their health insurance... all of which takes something of a back seat to Jigsaw basically exceeding a BATMAN level of planning, forethought and prediction.

It's not hard to see why the writers want to keep Tobin Bell around, he's pretty much the only character who has been in every film and he's a fine actor and really, the most iconic thing about the entire film series is the creepy puppet with Tobin Bell doing the Jigsaw voice - that and the twist at the end of the film.

This is pretty much what anyone who has seen a Saw film would expect, which for most means this probably won't be worth going to the cinema for.

The re-imagined Battlestar Galactica started by telling us that the Cylons had a plan... so, now sometime after the end of BSG, we have the release of "The Plan"... and it's no exaggeration to call this a glorified clip show.

We get some insight into certain events - mostly (as you'd expect) seeing what the Cylons were doing in the human fleet... Apparently their master plan didn't involve Galactica escaping - they wanted to wipe out humanity in one move... and the way they kept getting the fleet's position was because the human form Cylons that died were giving co-ordinates to the Cylon fleet.

There isn't much to write home about. For the true BSG aficionado - it will fill in some blanks... but really, what it seems to highlight most is that the plan... wasn't very good. Other than that, it really comes down to... a little background. There are no cosmic revelations to be had about the story, no awe inspiring twists... which is probably for the best. For an average BSG fan... maybe not so much - possibly for nostalgia value... but if you want to watch the show again... why not just watch the show again?

Lost has popularised flashbacks to an epic extent. The bandwagon is one that the whole TV industry has been all too keen to jump on... so, it's perhaps somewhat appropriate that Fast Forward should offer us the opposite... which is to say, a global event where near enough the entire population sees 137 seconds of their lives six months in the future.

An interesting premise for a story, yes? Well - yes... it's an interesting premise. Shame about the execution. Several episodes in and it's hard to really care about any of the characters... You really need to care about the characters in this but whether it's the writing, the direction or the actors... it's hard to like any of these characters.

And that makes it difficult to really take any interest in the show. Apathy toward characters kills any real interest in the overall plot - which amounts to how the "flash forward" happened, who did it and why... but yeah, who cares about that when most of the characters are either bland or spend their time being angry and shouting a lot. Most of these people are constantly at the level of angry Rush from Stargate Universe. It's based on a book - maybe it's better to just check that out and save yourself the time.