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It happens every Christmas of course. They trot out every festive episode of every show they can, from “Friends” (one assumes, never watched it: don't hate myself that much) to “Only fools and horses”. Some are good, some are bad. Here I'll be trying to focus on the good. Mostly. Some of these shows will be ones I already feature, some will be shows I will be looking at in the future, and some will be shows that will never otherwise grace these pages. But the Christmas shows are worth writing about. In the cases of the latter two, I'll give a brief introduction for those who have not seen these shows. As in this first one...
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Focussing on the character of John Becker, a doctor who is so miserable, angry, intolerant and selfish that he makes Mister Burns seem like a real sweetie, “Becker” starred “Cheers” mainman Ted Danson who, ably assisted by his long-suffering assistant Margaret, his dizzy receptionist Linda and his blind friend Jake, tries to make it through the next day without murdering someone. Sometimes he succeeds. As a doctor, his bedside manner is not the greatest, but he takes what he does seriously. It's when he's outside his surgery, trying to deal with the real world, that things really take a turn for the worse.

Becker hates Christmas. It's just an excuse for people to spend money, and to encourage you to spend money. People you haven't seen all year turn up on your doorstep, act as if they're happy to see you and you're supposed to be happy to see them. They eat all your food, drink all your booze and then fuck off a day later to return to wherever the hell it is they come from, and good riddance to them. And family ain't the worst of it! Out on the streets there's a sense of wonder in the air, shop Santas stand on every corner, ringing their goddamn bells and bellowing about toys, people you don't even know and care less for accost you and wish you a Happy Christmas. It's cold, it's usually snowing, the sidewalks are slippery and every shop seems to be enticing you into spending your hard-earned cash on people you don't care about.

Yes, a real-life Scrooge indeed. For Becker, the thought of goodwill to all men involves locking himself in his room with enough booze to knock out a small-sized army, and waiting out the hated holiday season, not emerging again until January, after the equally annoying New Year's Eve. So you can imagine he's not exactly best pleased when, on a reluctant foray into a department store his back suddenly goes, and he is forced to remain in the festively bedecked, holly-covered shop for hours. He must feel like all his Christmases have come at once, which, while it would be normally considered a good thing, is for Becker the equivalent of Hell.

Becker: “Dr. Angry head”

Becker has reached an agreement with Christmas: no expectations, no disappointments. Seems to be working for him. Everyone else around him though seem to be getting affected by his hatred of Christmas. Jake is annoyed he can't go spend the festive season at his grandma's, as he does every year, since she is going to Atlantic City with her friend. (”Between them they have a walker, a wheelchair and an oxygen tank, and they think I'll be the one in the way!") Reggie's Christmas tree falls over, crushing her hand-painted Christmas bauble, with an angel blowing a trumpet which Becker opines is more like Liberace drinking a martini, a precious keepsake from her childhood, and Bob has not got one Christmas card from any of his tenants. To make things worse, Reggie's arch-rival, Sally from the bakery, has collected the most toys for the Christmas Toy Drive seven years in a row, and Reggie now intends to beat her at her own game.

While passing through a store, Becker notices that a Christmas tree in the display happens to contain a decoration just like the one that broke on Reggie. In an uncharacteristic gesture of kindness, he decides to buy it but the store manager will not sell it to him. Frustrated and angry, and determined to get the ball, Becker stands on the display and tries to take the thing off the tree, whereupon his back goes out and he collapses on to the display. Unable to move him, the staff have to leave him there, and every child that comes by presses the button to activate the display, until he thinks he will be hearing the cute little song in his nightmares for months.

Meanwhile, Reggie's plans to beat Sally have come to nothing. Despite going to such lengths as having Bob take toys from the lost-and-found at his building and putting a sign on Jake's back which says I'm blind, please give me toys she is still well behind in the count. Then she hears with delight the news that Sally's bakery has burned down, taking with it all the toys she had assembled for the Toy Drive. “Miracles can happen”, she says. “God bless us, every one!”


QUOTES
Jake (on hearing Becker enter, shouting at a woman about her dog): “Merry Christmas? Or should I just go screw myself?”

Margaret (listing the patients): “In two, there's a Santa with a black eye.”
Becker: “I don't care who he's with: what's wrong with him?”
Margaret: “Not a black guy! A black eye!”

Becker: “Look Santa, the traditional greeting is “Ho ho ho!” If a pretty girl walks by and you just say “ho” she has every right to deck you!”

Becker (after tripping in the store and activating a cute, animated display complete with chipmunk voices): “I'm in Hell!”

Manager: “You're going to have to get up.”
Becker: “I can't get up. I can't move my legs, I can barely move my arms. You're going to have to move me. But do it gently.”
Manager: “I'm sorry, but the lawyers tell us we can't help anyone. Train.”
Becker: “What the hell are you talking about, train?”
(A small train that is making a circuit around the display hits into his head)
Manager: “As I said, train.”

Kid: “Momma I don't like that toy! It's mean Mr. Angry Head!”
Becker: “That's Doctor Angry Head!”

Becker (to kid about to push the activation button for the display): “No no kid! Don't push that button! If you do, I swear to God Santa won't bring you a single present! All right, all right! I'll give you a dollar, no no! Five dollars not to push the button! All right: twenty dollars. I can't move though, you'll have to reach into my pocket to get my wallet.”
Kid: “Oh no! We saw a film in school about men like you!”

Dear God! Say it ain't so!!!!
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Hasn't this fucker got enough money by now??? Is nothing sacred? :mad:

Ahem. Now that I've got that off my chest, back to
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If someone were to ask you, what is the movie that epitomises Christmas for you, what would your answer be? “It's a wonderful life”? “Oliver”? “Die hard”? Seriously? Well, they're all decent movies but to me, and I suspect a whole lot of other people, when I think of Christmas the film that springs to mind is Charles Dickens' “A Christmas carol”. Call it by the name of its principle character if you want, but nothing for me surpasses the elegance of this story. Mixing pathos, redemption, fantasy, cautionary tale, a little horror and good old human kindness and the triumph of the human spirit, this timeless classic shows us that even the most mean-spirited and miserable among us can come to learn the true meaning of Christmas. Granted, most of us would not need to be visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve for that to happen, but though it may have become something of a cliche in these cynical days of the boom-and-bust, grab-all-you-can-while-you-can mindset, you would have to be very hard-hearted indeed not to be moved by the classic tale of a man who turns from a hateful old miser into one of the nicest men in the world.

And of course, like many successful stories, it's been played out again and again, in various forms and formats, from early silent movies to musicals and puppetry, animation and, no doubt, in many languages across the world. One thing that is pretty universal --- I suspect even in countries that profess not to espouse Christianity or celebrate Christmas --- is the desire for a happy ending and the joy of seeing a bad man turn good. But which is the best version of this classic? When I look at the Wiki entry I can see over twenty movies, stretching from the turn of the century right up to 2009. although for some reason which escapes me they've failed to include Bill Murray's “Scrooged”, something I will be rectifying as we introduce
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If we discount the silent movies --- we may not; it depends on whether or not I can find them --- we're left with about twenty-odd different versions of the story committed to the big screen. My intention is to try to watch all of them, or as many as I can, and make a determination as to which one is the outstanding adaptation. You would think, with cinematic techniques having taken a giant leap forward in the last ten or twenty years, that more recent ones would take the prize (and maybe one will) but often it's not just about effects, CGI and major stars: in a case like this, the way the story is handled is also crucial to whether or not the film has a chance of beating its rivals. There are also “updates” and movies based on the framework --- Ms. Scrooge comes to mind --- and I may try to include them, but hey: there's only twenty-two days of journal writing left, and while I probably won't get the actual results before Christmas, I don't want this to be like the turkey: pigging out so much that I start to go glassy-eyed and feel a little queasy. So I won't say when the result will be published, but it will obviously have to be before New Year's Day.

As in other such face-offs I've run, various factors will be taken into consideration and movies balanced and rated against each other under these criteria. Obviously, some may not apply: should I manage to find the silent ones, for instance, a category like “soundtrack” will be meaningless, as will be “effects”, mostly. But insofar as I can, I will try to make sure each movie gets the same treatment as the next. Quite obviously, I won't be reviewing them (who doesn't know the story after all, and even with tweaks and twists, it's always still the basic idea of the miser who learns to love Christmas and his fellow man) but will publish the face-offs as I do them, perhaps two or three at a time, and eliminating one or two until I have whittled it down to a final four, six or whatever, which will then be pitted against each other.

Yeah. Like so much I do, I have yet to work out the details. But we'll get there. Eventually.

Anyone who wants to throw in their comments, suggestions or views is welcome. Let's see which of the many movies made since Dickens first put pen to paper comes out on top.

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Created by two alumni from the anarchic classic sitcom “The Young Ones”, the series stars Adrian “Ade” Edmondson as Eddie Hitler and the late Rik Mayall as Richard Richard (usually referred to as Ritchie) in a carryover from a previous comedy starring them both and using the same names though different surnames, “Filthy, Rich and Catflap”. Eddie and Ritchie are two ne'er-do-well wasters who spend their days moping about their flat, moaning about why they never get girls and devising ever more complicated and outlandish ways to fill the boredom between waking to another day on the dole and heading to bed.

Showing the stunning creativity and acting talent of the pair, one of the episodes takes place entirely aboard a giant ferris wheel, which is due to be demolished later. Many comics can do a solo stand-up routine but it is quite another to do that on TV, deprived of props, distractions or a straight man. This is something Richard Wilson found to his cost when he starred alone in one episode of the hugely popular “One foot in the grave”, one which most people agree was the least funny of the entire series.

Though both are hilariously funny in a “God-they-didn't-did-they?” kind of way, in general Mayall was seen more as the straight man (though paradoxically was the most funny --- the guy who's hilarious because he doesn't get the joke) and Edmondson the witty one. But each worked extremely well off each other, which is why with the sudden passing of Mayall it is almost certain there will be no more of this series, which ran from 1991 to 1995, and the future of Ade Edmondson is, at this moment, uncertain.

But back in 1992 they were at their creative peak, Mayall had yet to experience the horrific quad accident which would later lead to his untimely death, and moving into the last few episodes of the second season of their wildly successful show. As October gave way to November and the nights began getting both colder and darker, the bumbling duo decided to take on the fast-approaching Christmas, in their own inimical way.

Bottom: "Holy"


Ritchie is like a child, waiting for Christmas with joy and excitement, though also playing the role of Santa Claus to them both. Little does he know, though, as he steals into Eddie's bedroom, that his friend has set a most complicated trap for Santa, and he is soon dangling from a noose. As he kicks his feet and struggles for breath, Eddie cuts him down (after first telling him “It'll cost ya ten quid!”) and Santa/Ritchie hobbles, bloody and limping, out of the bedroom. Returning a moment later (just as Ritchie this time) he pretends excitement --- (“I thought I heard sleighbells, Eddie! Has he been?”) --- he proceeds to open all the presents that have been left, while Eddie tries to sleep. It is, after all, only 3:30 AM!

After the present opening, it's time to get ready to make the Christmas dinner, so while Ritchie gets the turkey ready Eddie decorates the place, which basically involves him spraying “Eddie is great” in spray snow on the walls. Unfortunately there's a traditional Christmas accident, as Ritchie chops off one of his fingers with a cleaver. Eddie staples it back on, and by the time Ritchie recovers consciousness it's almost time for dinner, and the guests, such as they are, are arriving. These end up being Eddie's dodgy mates, Spudgun and Dave Hedgehog, who are less than impressed with the meal they are served up. Well, they would be, wouldn't they? The potatoes are so hard they break the plates when dropped on them, the sprouts are as crunchy as hell, and due to a miscalculation on the timings, the turkey has been reduced to a tiny, crisped husk. They're also drinking gravy, as “somebody” has polished off all the sherry!

As Ritchie tries unsuccessfully to engage the guys in games, there is a ring at the door and Ritchie discovers that someone has left a baby on their doorstep. Taking it indoors, he is somehow unaccountably seized by the notion that this is the Second Coming, and that he is the Virgin Mary! He quickly begins to plan revenge on all those who offended him, now that he has been revealed as the mother of God, but all too soon their landlord knocks, declaring that the child is his daughter's and that he just left him there as it was too much hassle to take him with them to the bedside of his wife, who has very selfishly started to die on Christmas Day.

QUOTES
Eddie: “Did you post my letter to Santa Claus? Cos I can't seem to find the “Starbird” that I asked for. Or me Batman cape. Or the ticket to the Bahamas!”

Ritchie: “I thought you said you were going to get me something sun-kissed and exotic?”
Eddie: “And I have! Just open it.” (Ritchie does)
Ritchie: “It's a miniature bottle of Malibu. Correction: it's an empty miniature bottle of Malibu.”
Eddie: “Correct. Merry Christmas, Ritchie!”
Ritchie: “Well, what use is that?”
Eddie: “You can use it to keep Malibu in. Just keep it away from me!” (Hiccups)

(Through a complicated set of circumstances I'm not going to write about, and which you'll only understand if you watch the episode, Ritchie is looking into a “play telescope” at a drawing of Sue Carpenter. Uh-huh.)
Ritchie: “Why's she got only one knocker?”
Eddie: “No, that's not a knocker. It's a speech bubble. She's talking to you, look!”
Ritchie: “Oh yeah! Fik off ... you sad ... pathic ... winker! Ooh! I wonder what she means?”

Eddie: “Oh no! Not sprouts! I hate sprouts!”
Ritchie: “Will you stop whinging, Eddie? Everyone hates sprouts!”
Eddie: “Then why are we having them?”
Ritchie: “Because it's Christmas!”

Eddie (looking at the turkey): “What you going to do with it?”
Ritchie: “Well, it's the season of goodwill and peace on Earth, so I thought I'd chop off both its feet, rips its innards out, strip it, shove an onion up its arse and stick it in a very hot place for four hours till it's completely burned!”

Ritchie: “Oh god! What's the procedure for someone who's chopped off their finger?”
Eddie: “I think .... they bleed to death in about half an hour!”

Ritchie: “Come ye! Come ye! God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing ye dismay. Remember ....” (Looks confused, unable to remember the rest)

Dave Hedgehog: “Is it Christmas? Today? Oh well, Merry Christmas then. Must be why that woman gave me that aftershave this morning.”
Eddie: “What woman?”
Dave: “Oh you know, that woman who's always hanging around the house. What's her name? My wife. Andrea. No, Avril. No, what am I thinking of? Susan! That's the one.!”

Spudgun: “See they changed the titles to Emmerdale Farm. Just called Emmerdale now. Doesn't take so long to read. Gives them a lot more time to do other things, pack more story in.”

Ritchie: “I've got a baby.”
Eddie: “We don't want a baby. Get rid of it. We're happy as we are. Why spoil everything? We'll drift apart. I mean, it's bound to come between us!”
Ritchie: “Well, I think it already has. Come on Eddie! It's time we faced up to our responsibilities! We can't go around being playboys forever! Besides, it's a fact now. We have to deal with it.”
Eddie: “Why couldn't you have been more careful? ”
Spudgun: “Poor little mite. What a way to spend your first Christmas.”
Eddie: “What? Lying on your back with a bottle in your mouth? Sounds pretty good to me!”

Spudgun: “Poor little blighter. No family, no friends, no Christmas presents.”
Ritchie: “Well, he's got us now.”
Spudgun: “Yeah. Look, he can have my present, a box of Terry's All-Gold. We'll have to wait till his little teeth come through before he can manage the chewy ones.”
Eddie: “Yeah, he can have this Frankenstein mask I was gonna scare the shit out of Ritchie with later.”
Dave: “And he can have my bottle of aftershave. It's a new one. It's called “Grr!”
Ritchie: “Gold, Frankenstein, and “Grrr!” (Looks up at the three of them kneeling before the cot, with their paper hats on) “And you're all wearing crowns!” (And notices the blue shawl he has been entertaining the baby with, now wrapped around his head like a scarf.) “And I'm a virgin! Guys, if I was you I'd stay on my knees! This is it: this is the Second Coming!”

Eddie: “I'm not gonna allow the arrival of the son of God spoil my Christmas!”

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Every country and culture has its own sacred cows, untouchable tenets of their faith or history that you do not mess with. England has the Queen. You can say anything you like but don’t slag off Her Majesty! America, basically, has patriotism. It’s “God bless America” if you know what’s good for you, and of course Islam has Mohammed, whose image must never be seen and who may not be lampooned or denigrated in any way. And Ireland has the Catholic Church.

For a very long period, right up to about the 1970s, priests were the real power in Ireland, especially in the rural communities. They were sacrosanct: God’s messengers on Earth, and virtually infallible. They did not lie. They did not womanise. They did not cheat. In all honesty, if you had to choose between the word of a Garda (police officer) and a priest, you would go for that of the clergyman every time. They were the real power behind the throne, and nothing got done without their tacit or explicit approval. They could even bring down governments, or at least encourage/order their flock to do so.

Of course, it was all bull as we now know. As report after report of clerical sexual abuse filters out through the news and more and more priests appear on the sex offenders’ list, and scandal spreads across Ireland like a dark stormcloud, we can see how truly evil and mortal some of these men were. Not all, by any means, but some, and the clerical abuse scandals prove that one thing these men were, and are, is fallible, tragically and horribly so, and the last thing any of them should be doing is telling us how to live our lives.

But back then as I say the Church was the law, and you dared not go up against it. Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews, two writers for the Irish music magazine “Hot Press”, aimed to change all that. In all the history of Irish TV there had never been an unsympathetic, much less satirical depiction of priests and the Church, but that time was coming to an end. Set on the remote and fictional island of Craggy Island, said to be off the west coast of Ireland, Father Ted Crilly lived with his two fellow priests in virtual disgrace, exiled to the forbidding island for “financial improprieties” which had embarrassed the Catholic Church, and in particular the bishop in charge of his diocese.

Really unsuited for the clergy, Ted spends his days dreaming about being a rock star or a TV heart-throb, and gets by as best he can, while basically babysitting his younger curate, Father Dougal Maguire, and enduring the abuse of the old retired priest, Father Jack Hackett. As in such sitcoms, unlikely events conspire to produce hilarity, the writers all the while taking sharp and sometimes unkind pot-shots at the Catholic Church and its assumed superiority in Ireland. Although commissioned for Channel 4 and first shown there, RTE, the Irish national television channel, had no problem showing it and it quickly became the favourite comedy show in Ireland, the moreso because we Irish could so easily relate to what the three priests were living through, and were finally, after hundreds of years, free to laugh at the priest without looking over our shoulder in fear of a vengeful thunderbolt. It was quite a liberating experience.

Father Ted ran for three seasons, and also included a Christmas Special, before the untimely death of star Dermot Morgan, though he had already decided not to pursue a fourth season, should it be commissioned, as he did not want to get typecast. It regularly crops up as one of the most innovative comedies of the last twenty years, and is constantly repeated on the TV on various channels. In ways, the show probably quit while it was ahead, ending on a high note, and will always be remembered for finally opening the last forbidden door of comedy in Ireland. It also made a star and household name of Morgan, who had hitherto been a well-known comedian in Ireland but had not been in the public eye for decades.

CAST
The main cast of the show is restricted to basically four people, with the odd intervention from peripheral characters, but these are the core ones:

DERMOT MORGAN as Father Ted Crilly: Exiled to the lonely and desolate Craggy Island for the sin of taking money that had been collected to send a sick child to Lourdes and instead using it to go on a holiday to Las Vegas, as well as other financial irregularities, Ted is a man who has not so much a crisis of faith, but who was never all that bothered in the first place. It’s likely he was pushed into the priesthood, as was the custom in Ireland in the first half of the twentieth century. When Ted points out “Normally the brainy ones (brother) would be doctors and the eejit brother would go into the priesthood”, Father Dougal remarks “Yeah. Your brother is a doctor, isn’t he Ted?” leaving us in no doubt as to where Ted came in the family pecking order!

ARDAN O’HANLON as Father Dougal Maguire: Best and most kindly described as a child in a man’s body, Dougal is much younger than Ted and very impressionable. He seems to live in his own private world, only occasionally visiting the real one. Much of the comedy in the show stems from Dougal’s inability to grasp simple concepts and ideas, leading Ted in exasperation one night to ask “How did you get into the priesthood, Dougal? Was it, like, collect ten crisp packets and you become a priest?” It certainly seems like it; Dougal has no idea what being a priest entails, as he sniggers to Ted “Sure it’s no more likely than that stuff we learned in the seminary, the crucifixion, the resurrection and all that. Sure who’d believe that?”

FRANK KELLY as Father Jack Hackett: One of Ireland’s most respected actors, Frank Kelly dumped the trappings of fame to play the alcoholic, rude Father Jack whose favourite --- indeed, at times it seems only --- words are “Feck! Drink! Arse!” and “Girls!” He spends every day in a stupor of drink, does no work and is rude and abusive to anyone unlucky enough to come near him. He thinks Ted is an eejit and Dougal a gobshite. And he’s right.

PAULINE MC LYNN as Mrs Doyle: The long-suffering housekeeper for the three priests, the one passion in Mrs Doyle’s life is tea. If she’s not offering it she’s making it, and if you don’t want any she’ll persist until you agree to accept a cup. She is the workhorse of the parochial house, from mending broken roof tiles to digging ditches and washing, cleaning and ironing. In all respects, she functions as a mother to the three priests, who seem unable or unwilling to do anything themselves.

There are other characters, as I say, such as the eternally fighting couple John and Mary, Bishop Len Brennan and Father Larry Duff, as well as Ted’s nemesis and arch-enemy, Father Dick Byrne, who lives on the opposing Rugged Island, but as these drift in and out of the series I will mention them when they’re relevant. There are of course also a host of other priests, all of whom have some interesting story, and again these will be introduced as and when.

Hah! I bet you'd thought I'd forgotten this, didn't you? What do you mean, what is it? You've never seen it before? You've never been in my journal before? Of all the .... all right then, this is where I pick holes in movies, and occasionally TV series episodes, but only ones which really annoy me because without being addressed they ruin the film or episode, and call into question the creative skills of the writer(s). They are, in short,
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Everyone is aware that I am planning to review all of the Star Trek movies later on, when the USS Nerdtopia sets sail across the stars, and I would have to say that generally the series, and the films, are basically very well written. But there are plot holes in at least two of the movies that I know of, and this is the one that stands out the most to me, so it's the one I'm going to deal with first.
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Movie title: Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Year: 1991
Genre: Science-Fiction
Stars: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley
Directed by: Nicholas Meyer
Written by: Nicholas Meyer, Denny Martin Flinn

Basic storyline: As the traditional enemies, humans and Klingons, sue for peace and try to come to an agreement, the USS Enterprise appears to fire at the ship bearing their chancellor, and though Kirk and McCoy try to save him he dies. The two are then accused of murder and stand trial. Found guilty by the Klingons they are sentenced to life imprisonment on a penal asteroid. I'll be going into this in much more detail of course when I get to reviewing the film, but for now this sets the basic scene.

When I started this section I was not, I believe, unkind to “Flightplan” (the only thing unkind about that movie was letting it be released!) but I was perhaps a little overambitious in the amount of plot holes I saw in it. Well, that's not even correct: there are that many plotholes in the movie. But to expect that such would be the case with other films would be stretching it, and so, like most films, the ones that follow will all probably have just the one plothole, but it will be a major one.

Thus it is, with “Star Trek VI”, that the plot hole really unhinges the whole concept and causes me to call into question the means by which the Enterprise saves the day. Oddly, I see nobody else marking it, as Star Trek nuts are usually very finickedy when it comes to plot holes, but I've just now rewatched the relevant part of the movie and I can't see any reason to change my mind. There is a plot hole, and it is so big you could comfortably navigate a Constitution-Class starship through it.

To make it easier for those of you who are not interested in Trek, basically the Enterprise is trying to locate a Klingon Bird of Prey, a cloaked ship that is about to launch an attack on the peace conference, hopefully scuppering all chance of reconciliation between the two races. A cloaked ship is one which uses a force field that bends light around it, basically rendering it invisible. Normally, this consumes so much of the power of the ship (in the Trek universe anyway) that all power has to be diverted to the cloaking device, leaving the ship unable to fire its weapons while cloaked. However this ship appears to be a prototype that has managed to get around that problem.
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The upshot is that it is cloaked and can fire while remaining so, and therefore is a hard target not only to locate, but to defend against, as it's the only ship that enjoys the advantage of being invisible while still able to fight. Uhura comes up with the idea of targeting the ship's ionic gas emissions (like the fumes from the exhaust of a car) and they modify a photon torpedo to home in on those traces, enabling it to track the ship and blow it to kingdom come.
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So there you have it. Simple idea, nothing wrong with that. Old-world tech, to a degree, beats new-fangled super tech. Only one problem, and it's this: the emissions can only be traced with specialised equipment, originally intended to catalogue gaseous anomalies --- this is mentioned in the first scenes BUT not by Kirk, commanding the Enterprise. The equipment that they now intend to use is on board another ship, the USS Excelsior, speeding at the moment to rendezvous with the Enterprise.

So the Enterprise does not have the requisite equipment to catalogue the gaseous anomalies, and so cannot in effect locate the Bird of Prey, thus the whole plan has a huge, major, undeniable flaw. It simply would not work.
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But my plotholes are always open to challenge. I'll challenge this one myself. Let's look at the various explanations, workarounds or reasons why this could perhaps not be a plothole.

Answer 1: The Excelsior moved its equipment on to the Enterprise.
Challenge 1: Why? And how? (Well, how is probably not at issue: starships transport material and personnel between them all the time, but they need to be in range of each other to do so.) But the first question remains. The Excelsior is, when we meet it, engaged in scientific research, and there is no, at the time, crisis. Later it becomes involved in the search for the Bird of Prey, and indeed in its destruction alongside the Enterprise. But the Enterprise is not, and was not in this movie ever, a scientific vessel. First, it was a diplomatic one, to ensure the safe passage of the Klingon chancellor to Federation space. Secondly, it is a battleship. Though its stated main mission is to explore, it doesn't generally carry out scientific missions, and indeed is due for decommissioning soon. So why, what reason can anyone give, why this equipment would be transferred to the Enterprise, which neither at the time needs it or can use it?

Not to mention that Sulu, in command of the Excelsior, has been in the Beta Quadrant and is only on the way home when this incident occurs. He races to rendezvous with the Enterprise but by the time they meet battle is already joined. Transporation cannot be carried out with shields up, as would be needed in a battle situtation, especially one where your enemy is invisible, so the transfer --- had it taken place at all --- could not have occurred at this time. Add to that the very real possibility that such equipment is likely not just “plug-and-play”, and would have to be integrated into the Enterprise's computers, and it just seems so unlikely that such a thing could be engineered, given the high-risk, red alert situation both ships are in, as to make it next to impossible to conceive.
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Answer 2: The Enterprise also carries such equipment as standard.
Challenge 2: No it doesn't, not to my knowledge. And it is never alluded to in the movie. I have known the Enterprise to carry out stellar cartography, (although we are talking NextGen here to be fair) and while it is, I concede, possible that it also has that equipment, this point, which would be a very important one to the plot were it the case, is not mentioned, so it can't simply be assumed that they “must have had the equipment too”. That's lazy thinking.

Answer 3: At some point prior to this, the Enterprise had been fitted with that equipment.
Challenge 3: We're back to why? But more importantly this time, how? To our knowledge, the Enterprise has not been home since Kirk and McCoy were found guilty, and Spock has been heading towards the penal colony, hoping to clear his captain's name. He has been specifically avoiding returning to spacedock, pretending that their engines are malfunctioning, in order to give them time to hunt down the assassins and prove their crewmates' innocence. And again, why would he be interested in such a thing? He has much more important matters on his mind.

If anyone can come up with an explanation for this, or has any credible reasons why it should not be seen as a plothole --- and cares --- let me know. As I said, I find it odd that I seem to be the only one who has caught this, and I'm not so arrogant as to think that's because I'm smarter (or more of a nitpicker) than everyone else. Maybe I'm wrong, and there's a reasonable explanation for how this could happen, but I can't see any. When I went to see this movie the first time in the cinema, it jumped out at me like a big red flag, and when we left the movie complex I said to the girl I had gone to see it with --- what? I used to go see movies with girls, occasionally! Why are you so surprised? ---- I blabbed on about it for some minutes, trying to get her to see what I was talking about, but she wasn't as hardcore as me and didn't really care.

Probably why I didn't get laid that night... :shycouch:

But it annoys me. Meyer was the one who got it right the second time with “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”, and for him to miss such a huge hole in the plot is to me just unbelievable. Surely someone proofread this and, at the very least, thought of a way to make it work? I mean, the Excelsior was coming to join the Enterprise: couldn't it have detected the Klingon ship instead of the Enterprise? That would have made sense, even if it meant taking some of the limelight away from Kirk. Surely the cohesion of the story is more important than the egos of actors?

Hmm. I guess not. Still a great movie, and I'll be reviewing it in full later in the coming year. But for now, it remains a huge plothole that, while it doesn't ruin the movie for me, certainly makes it that little bit less enjoyable.

Here's a Star Trek plothole for you: why does the Federation consistently send out it's most advanced and powerful capital ships on scouting missions? That **** has got to be expensive. I know Star Trek is a commie paradise where everyone works for kudos, but somewhere along the line, someone's life is being made harder cause the Enterprise needs more Dilithium crystals.

And perhaps you might say that they want to make sure that ships all on their own in the vastness of space are capable of defending themselves. Okay, so why doesn't the Enterprise have support vessels? A modern capital ship can't even sneeze without being supported by at least five hundred other ships. If exploration is so important that it requires the use of ships that any navy I can think of would be more concerned with using for actual military purposes, then why do they send them out basically naked? They're willing to shell out the *insert closest approximation of Federation currency* to send the Enterprise in the first place, so I don't see why they shouldn't do the job right.

Perhaps they don't want other races to think they're sending armed invasion forces to conquer the unknown reaches of the galaxy. Okay, they're still sending what amounts to an aircraft carrier, or a battleship. Just because the Enterprise isn't as threatening as an entire fleet, it's still a pretty ****ing terrifying weapon of war to just pop up into your system.

So, someone please explain to me why Captain Kirk isn't in command of a relatively well-armed science vessel?

Yeah, you're right. But it's all about Roddenberry's rose-tinted vision of the future, where the military only intervene where they needed. Yeah. fuck that. I can't even count the number of civilisations Kirk, Picard and Janeway screwed up --- sometimes in violation of the PD but sometimes by invoking it --- and I only don't mention Sisko cos he didn't get a chance, stuck there on his station, but he certainly tried.

The idea that the Federation is, as Khan once put it, "one big happy fleet" is so laughable as to be, well, laughable. I guess you could say that a) starships have the longest range and therefore are best for exploration and b) in any voyage of exploration you're bound to come across some badasses, and then it would be best to have something to defend yourself better than a bunsen burner. But sure, it makes no sense, but then, it wouldn't make good TV (or movies) either would it?

I propose a new start for whenever they get around to rebooting the franchise on TV:

"Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship [insert name]. Its mission, to seek out new life and new civilisations. To bring them forcibly under the control of the United Federation of Planets. To make them see things our way, and if they don't, to cripple them with weaponry like no man has seen before."

Looking forward to hearing more about the different Christmas Carol versions. Of the ones I've seen, the Muppet version is my favourite. It's also one of two films that have ever made me cry.

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Bah! Humbug! Oh very well then: throw another coal onto the fire if you must --- think I'm made of money do ye? --- and let's get this party started!

A brief note on my scoring system (brief. Yeah... :rolleyes:) In this faceoff I'm not too concerned with things like box-office returns, budgets or what year each came out, unlike in the “Battle of the Classic Christs” last year. I will be taking into account the acting ability of the cast, but will also be looking at how the character is written, within the confines of the fact that they can't step too far out of the original Dickens model, or they'll certainly lose points. Bill Murray, I'm looking at you! I'll be grading the main characters and also any other supporting ones who impress me, how well the film sticks to the novel, and also how it made me feel in terms of horror, raw emotion and what I'm calling the Puke Level. I don't need to explain that, do I? Areas or scenes of the movie where you just want to chuck. Cratchits, step forward!

If something is original I will award it points, but if it's copied in a later version it may lose points. The ghosts, from the third movie on, will be graded separately and their scores added, as some of the movies only concentrate really on one of them. Any other criteria will be noted and added, with bonus points given for things like innovative twists that work (Kermit) or future stars who play bit parts. There'll be a short (and I mean short. No, I really do this time!) comments section before the score just to give you a basic idea of what I thought of the movie, any interesting, humourous or low points I picked out of it, and how, if at all, it compares to the previous versions I've watched up to that point.

Year: 1910
Medium: Black-and-white
Starring: Marc McDermott, Charls S. Ogle
Directed by: J. Searle Dawley
Length: 20 mins

Brief comments: For an early (the earliest) silent version of the tale, this is a lot better than you would expect. To be able to compress the main storyline (minus Tiny Tim) into such a short space of time is really quite impressive, and the music used really complements the movie (carols and hymns: “God rest ye merry gentlemen” etc) and is the perfect backdrop. I'm also impressed that there are few of those “cards” used --- you know the ones: when the characters speak or when a scene is not obvious and they had to explain, like “Mister Beadle goes into the tea shop”. They only use three or four, and only to explain the basics of the story. There is in fact no speech (I know it's a silent movie: I mean no speech on cards) and the acting talent needed to convey the various emotions Scrooge goes through over the course of the twenty minutes, especially his epiphany, is nothing short of inspired. A really good start and something of a revelation.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Marc McDermott is perfect in the part. Score of 10, due to the fact that he has to act everything without speaking, and does so very well indeed.
Marley: n/a
Cratchit: A decent performance from Charles S. Ogle, but Scrooge steals the show. Rated at 6.
Tiny Tim: n/a
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: Poor, as you would expect: mostly faintly-glimpsed shadows and suggestions. Compared to the depictions in later movies, even the next one, I'd give this a very low 2.

Faithful to the novel: Very much so, except for the exclusion of Tiny Tim: 9

Emotion level: For a silent movie, yeah, not bad. There were a few tears in your reviewer's eyes. 6

Puke level: Zero really. Without any overly dramatic dialogue it's easier to just get lost in the story.

Horror level: Kind of zero really too. Nothing about this could horrify anyone.

Soundtrack: Even though a silent film it had a decent and well-chosen backdrop of music, so I'd give it a generous 8.

So then, total is 32
Not a terribly high score, but I must award extra points for a) it being the first Scrooge movie and b) conveying the story so well without words. An extra 10 points for each so that makes a total of 52, a much better and more representative score.

Year: 1935
Medium: Black-and-white
Starring: Seymour Hicks, Donald Halthrop, Robert Cochran, Mary Glynne, Garry Marsh
Directed by:Henry Edwards
Length: 63 mins

Brief comments:For the first version with sound this is pretty damn good. Seymour Hicks is a different sort of Scrooge --- small, hunched over, with to me a rather uncanny resemblance to Edmund Callon from “The Onedin Line”, but that's just me: this is way too early for it to be him and anyway it's a different actor. The setting of the scene is a little unnecessarily long, the ghosts are poor at best but the emotional level is decent. Bob Cratchit is most decidedly gay (!) as is Tiny Tim (but I always hated that little bastard anyway) and the ending seems for some reason quite rushed, with a lot of things said literally --- “I'll be a second father to Tiny Tim” etc. Overall though, not bad.

I do like how the butcher's shop is closed when he sends the boy to buy the big turkey: well it would be, wouldn't it? It is after all Christmas Day! A lot of versions gloss over this. There's also an unintentionally (I assume) funny scene where the Lord Mayor is throwing a party and his aide asks him, quite straight-faced: “Would Your Honour like to make his speech now, or would you allow the ladies and gentlemen to continue enjoying themselves?” Zing! New aide, please!

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Seymour Hicks is good in the role: crotchety, mean, twisted and miserable, and also plays the “new” Scrooge well, capering and dancing and grinning like a schoolboy. Scores a good 8
Marley: n/a; never really seen except as a bad reflection in Scrooge's door knocker.
Cratchit: Played well by Donald Calthrop, but his effeminate manner and his almost unreasonable acceptance of Tiny Tim's death in the future sequence annoys me, so I'm only giving him a 7.
Tiny Tim: Gaaah! How I hate him! Still, he's there and he plays his role well, does Philip Frost. AND we get to see him dead. So ... meh alright ... a grudging 6 for him.
Others: Not really. The gentlemen who look for a donation are okay but nothing more, the kid who gets the turkey, the butcher, all ok and Scrooge's nephew is a pain. So as a group I'll give ;em a 4, as nobody really stands out that well.
The Ghosts: Only one ghost really, he of Christmas Present, and he's annoying and in fact the blueprint for many of the future movies for that ghost. For that reason I'll have to give him a 6. The other two are not really seen at all.

Faithful to the novel: Pretty much, yes, so this gets an 8

Emotion level: Yeah, again I teared up a little. 7

Puke level: Quite high, mostly due to Cratchit and his annoying family. The puke level, if awarded, is a minus figure, so here we get -7

Horror level: I was quite chilled by the trio dividing up Scrooge's belongings; they were evil incarnate, but casual evil, which made it worse. Taking his bedsheets from the corpse's bed? And his shirt? Brrr! A big 10 here for the horror level!

Soundtrack: Kind of copies the silent movie, so though it's okay I'll have to take points away for originality and give it a 5

So what have we got then?
Total = 54
Must award points for being the first sound version, another 10
So a total then of 64

Note: I wanted to do these in chronological order --- all I could find anyway ---- but the next one up is the first Hollywood version, very important, released in 1938. It's proved hard to track down and I've had to buy it, so while I wait for the DVD to arrive I'm going to move on (Christmas post, you know?) and I'll come back to it when I can. For now, the next one up is...

Year: 1951
Medium: Black-and-white
Starring: Alastair Sim, Kathleeen Harrison, Mervyn Johns, Hermione Baddeley
Directed by: Brian Desmond Hurst
Length: 86 mins

Brief comments: A decent version, follows the story well but I think gets a little bogged down, both in Scrooge's dealings with his company and a hitherto-unnamed character who was never in the book, and with the Ghost of Christmas Past; his past experiences take up nearly half the movie! Also, at the end for some reason, Tiny bloody Tim is walking! Don't think that was ever explained: even with all Scrooge's money I don't think he could invent a cure for polio, or whatever it was the kid was suffering from that made him lame. Bit overkill maybe?

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Good portrayal by Sim, but a better one by a young George Cole (Arfur Daley) as the young Ebeneezer. Give him a 7
Marley: Awful. Hammy overacting and much moaning and wailing. To think this man would go on to become super-suave Steed in “the Avengers!” Visually, just a faded man. A very poor 3
Cratchit: Annoying and crawly as ever; not quite as gay as in the previous film. Give him a 7
Tiny Tim: Very annoying and smug. Irritating to the nth degree. 3
Others: Hattie Jacques shines as Fan, Ebeneezer's sister, and Kathleen Harrison is excellent in an expanded role for his housekeeper. Both get a solid 7 for their role.
The Ghosts: Ghost of Christmas Past: Terrible, just a shadow. 3
Ghost of Christmas Present: A rip-off from the previous film. Another 3. Nothing new.
Ghost of Christmas to Come: A bony hand/hooded silent figure. Sigh. 3
Ghosts total: 9

Faithful to the novel: Yeah, pretty much so though the addition of Jorkin is annoying and serves no real purpose, plus he's a prick. So lose points for that. Say 6

Emotion level: Teared up a little but not much. 3

Puke level: Extended scenes with the Cratchits and in Scrooge's past earn this a healthy -8

Horror level: None. Zero. Even the "dividing-up" scene here can't compare to the pure dread and chilling horror of the 1938 version.

Soundtrack: Again, nothing special. Your basic hymns and carols. Yawn. Another 5.

Total = 39
Lowest score yet. But add in a plus 5 for each well-known names, or names that would become well-known in Cole, Jacques, MacNee (even if he did ham the role up more than a bacon sandwich!) and Jack Warner, later to be Dixon of Dock Green gives an additional 20
Making the total a much more respectable 59

The way it will work then is that three movies are faced off against each other, and the winner from each trio goes through to the "quarter finals" as it were. Then later, the five/six best are faced off in two groups until finally we have two Scrooge movies who will go head-to-head, the best of the best, to decide which of them I consider to be the top of all the versions of this magical tale.

So in this round the clear winner in the 1935 version with Seymour Hicks, with a grand total of 64. This movie will then go through to face whichever wins the next round, coming up as soon as I've had a chance to watch three more movies!

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Frasier: “Perspectives on Christmas”

Like the title says, this episode allows us to view one event, or one series of events, from four different perspectives, each of which makes an seemingly innocent act look suspicious, or vice versa; the true meaning of not having all the facts before you come to your decision. We open in a massage parlour, where Martin is relaxing and relates to the masseur how things went, from his view:

Martin's Perspective: As they decorate Frasier's apartment for Christmas, Daphne opines that it's odd that, when she was walking Eddie just now, he turned as if to go into the local church. Frasier remarks that the dog did the same with him yesterday, when he was walking him, but Martin brushes it off. He also exits quickly, which sparks the suspicions and then fears of his family. Martin, however, explains to Frasier in the kitchen that the reason Eddie has been going into the church is that both he and the dog have been asked to play a part in the Christmas pageant. He is embarrassed though, as one of the songs he has to sing, “O holy night” has a note in it he can't hit, so Frasier and Niles agree to help him practice.

Daphne's Perspective: All innocent and explainable, right? But then look at it from the viewpoint of one who has only caught some of the conversation and come to her own conclusions as to what is going on. Daphne sees only Frasier comforting his father, who appears to be coughing badly (this is after he has mistakenly laced Martin's eggnog with paprika rather than nutmeg) and as Frasier leaves he assures his father that Niles and he will be there for him (this is for the practice, but she doesn't know that.) She then asks him if he contacted his doctor for the results of his physical and he says he did, is noncommittal about it. When she then hears him on the phone talking to the priest she again gets her wires crossed and thinks he's talking about dying, when he's worrying about playing his part in the drama. Add in Eddie's diversions to the church and she soon puts two and two together and gets nine: Martin is sick, perhaps dying. Martin thinks it's hilarious when he finds out what she was thinking.

Just as they figure it out and are having a right ding-dong, Niles staggers into the apartment, looking wet and much the worse for wear, and collapses, unnoticed, behind the sofa.

Niles's Perspective: He relates how he got into the lift and had to share it with three people --- and a huge Christmas tree. Worried about his Italian suit, he stayed as far as he could from the tree, but then the lift jams. Trapped together, the four of them have to figure a way out. With the maintenance crew at least an hour away, Niles has to climb up the Christmas tree to the lift shaft in order to trigger the remote door release. Unfortunately, once he does everyone legs it and nobody waits for him, whereupon the doors shut again and the lift begins to ascend! Dirty with grease, stuck with pine needles, his expensive suit destroyed, Niles crawls out of the lift and into Frasier's apartment, where he collapses. Unnoticed.

Roz's Perspective: Roz meets Frasier and gets a call from her mother, who is coming to visit. Unbeknownst to him, he tells her about her daughter's pregnancy, news which Roz was waiting till the right moment to break! As the Crane house descends into bickering and arguing and sniping, Frasier decides the best thing to do is get some masseurs and masseuses over to help them all unwind, and so we come to the end, and also the beginning, of our story.

QUOTES

Martin: “That dog does weird things. Yesterday, when we were taking our bath together, he spent fifteen straight minutes pushing the soap around with his nose like an otter! Weird!”

Martin (on phone about his role in the play): “Well I'm terrified about this, Father. It all came around so suddenly. I'm not prepared. Now, tell me what I'm supposed to say when I see Jesus for the first time?”

Daphne: “You were going to let all this happen without letting a soul know?”
Martin: “Well yes. I didn't want everyone staring at me in that church, stiff as a board, all that makeup on my face...”

Niles: “How am I supposed to get up there?” (The lift shaft)
Woman: “You can climb this tree.”
Niles: “Oh surely not!”
Woman: “Oh come on now. I'm sure you climbed plenty of trees when you were a boy.”
Other woman: “That's Doctor Crane's brother.”
All: “Ohhh...”

Woman: “Why is that man crawling?”
Man: “That's Doctor Crane's brother.”
Woman: “Oh.”

Frasier: “My gift does not come from some fancy store, or wrapped in glittery paper. My gift comes from my heart. Tonight I intend to sit each once of you down and tell you in my own words exactly how much you mean to me. (Following protests and claims that this is the cheapest present ever he quickly backtracks) Or, or, I could get us someone up here to give us all massages!”

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Okay, time to check out three more versions of this classic tale and see how they measure up. First we have this one, and yes, it's not quite chronological, but to be honest I had originally intended not to feature this one, then thought better of it. So this comes just before the 1951 version. And no, my 1938 DVD has not yet arrived...

Year: 1949
Medium: Black-and-white
Starring: Taylor Holmes, and narrated by Vincent Price
Directed by:
Length: 26 mins

Brief comments: Although it's wonderful to see Price reading the story and bringing his usual flair and warmth to the movie, the acting is at best adequate and the way I see this is almost like the original 1910 version but with sound and slightly --- slightly --- better effects. It seems very rushed, as the ghosts sequences are truncated and the whole idea seems to be to get the thing done as quickly as possible, which does not translate well to the screen.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Not the greatest, but then Holmes is rather rushed through his role. I'll be generous and say a 4.
Marley: Awful. Nothing more than a man standing in front of Scrooge, not even an attempt at making him seem transparent. When he leaves, he simply walks out the door. The version ten years previous did him far better. 2
Cratchit: Again, just adequate. Nothing stands out about him. 4
Tiny Tim: Same really. Back to annoying again, and the constant androgynising of Tiny Tim through these movies --- at least the early ones --- he always seems like he could be a girl (Tiny Tina?) --- is annoying. 3
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: Awful to a man. I won't even bother separating them, and will give them a low score of 10 to share among them.

Faithful to the novel: Yes, but very rushed and abridged, so only gets a 4 again.
Emotion level: Zero
Puke level: Zero
Horror level: Zero
Soundtrack: Meh, pretty standard. 5.

So that makes a total of 32. Lowest yet, even lower than the silent version, which comes across as far superior. I do however have to take into account the titanic figure of Price, without whom this would never have flown, and so he adds an extra 10 to the poor, poor score, leaving it at a pretty low but somewhat more respectable 42.

Year: 1954
Medium: Black-and-white (Originally colour apparently, but only a b/w version has survived)
Starring: Frederic Marsh, Basil Rathbone
Directed by:
Length: 60 mins

Brief comments: For a so-called musical, the movie seems to consist of a drama with its own score, with intermittent interruptions from a vocal choir. Weird. Made-for-TV special, not particularly impressed with it I must say. Messes with the ending: no massive turkey for Cratchit, Scrooge has dinner with them instead of his nephew, and generally it ends on a song, pretty annoying.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Terrible. Flat, uninteresting/ed, not in the least scared when Marley appears. Very very poor. Does improve a little as the movie goes on. Still, I'd give him the lowest rating yet: 2
Marley: You'd think with an accomplished actor like Rathbone playing him he'd give a good performance. You'd be wrong. He's stiff, flat, boring. He walks like a zombie or a robot. Poor. Another 2.
Cratchit: Least annoying yet. Kind of reminds me of a cross between Jack Lemmon, Bob Hope and Kelsey Grammer. Doesn't make me want to puke. 8
Tiny Tim: Meh, he was doing reasonably ok until he started singing in an annoying soprano. Losing points for that! 5
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: Good twist, this time it's a pretty girl, whom I think is meant to resemble Scrooge's lost love. 5
The Ghost of Christmas Present: More like a bellboy than a ghost, and he sings! Like, constantly! He won't shut up! If I have to hear this fucker sing "A merry merry Christmas!" one more time I'll bloody bury him with a sprig of holly through his heart! Plus he looks like Fred, Scrooge's nephew. Yeah, same actor. Scrooge even remarks upon it, though the ghost pretends he doesn't know what he's talking about. Still, have to give him points for being the first original Ghost of Christmas Present, even if his singing does get on my wick! Okay, okay! A 7, 8 if you'll shut up singing. No? 7 it is then.
The Ghost of Christmas To Come: Not shown. Scrooge wanders alone into the graveyard and in something of a “two-for-one” sees his own grave and then Tiny Tim's. A bit cheap, though the use of the crow on the headstone is good. Is that meant to be the ghost? Cheap get-out but again marks for originality. All I can award here really though is a 4, as there is no actual ghost shown. Although it may be the crow. But it may not be.

Faithful to the novel: Not really. In its way yes, but very rushed and truncated. 5. I'm revising that, due to the liberties taken with what is always the ending, so down to 3.
Emotion level: Not terribly. Maybe a 3
Puke level: Again, no. Zero.
Horror level: Little, but the crow adds something and Scrooge being alone in the graveyard gets this a grudging 2.
Soundtrack: It's a musical, so it has songs, but they're mostly in soprano which is annoying and none of them speak to me. Still, have to award it points for originality. Say 6.

Total then is 47. However because of the serious screwup on the ending I'm deducting 10 points. "A Christmas Carol" is a story that, no matter what you do, the ending is set in stone and should never be changed as they did here. So because of that, this effort can only muster a paltry 37. Boo! :(

Year: 1962
Medium: Colour (Animated)
Starring: Mister Magoo!
Directed by:
Length: 62 mins

Brief comments: I thought about not including this, but if I did that then I would have to question looking at other animated versions, and there are some really good ones, so in the end I decided to go with it. I initially thought I was not going to like it, as t here's an annoying little supposed-to-be-funny prologue where Magoo has to get onstage (the whole movie is acted out on stage) and accidentally goes to a restaurant. But once it settles down it's actually very well handled and the songs are really quite good. Its hard to take Mister Magoo as Scrooge seriously, but it's not the disaster I had worried it would be.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Decent, but it's a little hard to take anyone seriously (even a cartoon character) who has his eyes screwed up all the time. Plus, who doesn't love Magoo? Have to rate him at a mid-range 5 really.
Marley: Again, ok, but a little overacting. Decent ghost, and they remembered the chains. 5 also.
Cratchit: Least annoying Cratchit yet, even less so than the previous but still a little too willing to accept their situation with good grace, damn him. Have to say a quite decent 8
Tiny Tim: The first one not to annoy me. He's cute and bearable. A high 9 for him
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: Ghost of Christmas Past: Very good, quite cute and even sexy (!) in a way (yes, there's something wrong with me, I know!). Smiles a lot but has a sort of sadness in his/her smile (not sure if it's meant to be male or female). Of all the Ghosts of Christmas Past so far, definitely the best, considering it's a cartoon. I love the way the burning candleflame above his/her head dims when their time is running out. A serious 8 here.
Ghost of Christmas Present: Pretty much the same as all others, but with a severe aspect I haven't seen in the others. Give him a 6
Ghost of Christmas to Come: Although again a hooded figure, there's something creepier about him than the others, so he gets a 6 too.
Ghosts Total: 20

Faithful to the novel: Very much so. Even Fezziwig is included, although Scrooge's love is called Belle, not Alice? Even so, a very high 8
Emotion level: Zero.
Puke level: Zero.
Horror level: Zero.
Soundtrack: Very decent, some nice songs, first one to have songs written for it rather than just use hymns and carols. Got to give this an 8

So the total then is 60. But then it has to get extra points, both for being the first animated version and for being the first version in colour, so let's say 5 each for those, bringing us to a Grand Total of 70, highest score yet, surprisingly in some ways!

Which means that despite his short-sightedness, ol' Magoo races to the top and easily into the next round.

Oh Magoo! You've done it again!
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Personal recollection # 4,104: I got watching this show completely by accident. I was waiting for something to start and happened to turn it on, caught the first few minutes of the pilot episode and became totally hooked, much to my amazement. I had seen it advertised and thought "Yeah, I really want to watch that! Another boring political drama! No thanks!" so was surprised at how impressed I was by it and within the first few minutes it had become, to coin a phrase, must-see TV.

"The West Wing" deals with the goings-on in the White House under the Democrat president Josiah Bartlett, and was I think the first show of that nature since the mini-series "Washington: behind closed doors" which aired in the seventies. The storylines, while often more than a little fanciful and hardly representative of reality in the most powerful and important building in the world, were always well-written and served to promote main writer and creator Aaron Sorkin to fame and public acclaim, but of course the best writing is useless if the actors can't act, and "The West Wing" boasted some of the cream of drama talent, including a true superstar in Martin Sheen as the president himself.

The show ran from 1999 to 2006 over seven seasons, though personally I lost interest after the sixth, which both surprised and disappointed me. Up to then though there was some amazing TV to be had, and many careers were made on the back of this groundbreaking series. Of course, dealing as it did with mirror representations of real-life political issues, some silly countries and dictators had to be made up, but we all knew who they were talking about. But "The West Wing" wasn't just about politics and news, crises and meetings. It was also a human story, concentrating on the lives of the people who surround the president, his staff, and how the job --- essentially a 24-hour on-call deal --- affected their own situations, both at home and in work.

"The West Wing" won nine Emmys for its first season alone, and a total of twenty-seven over its seven-year run, making a new record for awards won by a TV show. It revitalised the career of Sheen, who was becoming something of a fading light, and reawakened an interest in politics, both on the screen and in real life, particularly as its mid-point dovetailed with the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent war on terror. By the end of its life the show had shed viewers like a lorry with a badly-secured load of pipes going over a cliff, but it remains one of the top shows in American TV history.

CAST
Though there are others who are not based there, the main cast comprises the staff at the Oval Office who assist the president.

PRESIDENT JOSIAH BARTLET, played by Martin Sheen
Although perhaps portrayed too much as an ideal president, a real "good guy", Bartlet is actually drawn from both Republican and Democrat influences, though the main model for Sheen was President Clinton, whom he admires greatly. As the show opens, Bartlet is into his second year as president and engaging in the usual round of fighting off and trying to bring together the warring sides of Congress and the House of Representatives, while dealing with social, domestic, economic and foreign issues as part of his normal day. He is an educated man but not a snob, quick to laugh, slow to anger but when you pique his ire you had better watch out! He is a family man, dedicated to his wife and daughter, and always remembers where he came from, never losing sight of "the little guy" and doing his best to be his champion in his position as most powerful man in the world.

LEO McGARRY, played by John Spencer
White House Chief of Staff and main advisor to the President, Leo is the one who makes most policy and brings things to Barlet's attention. He is an old friend and confidante, and well loved throughout the White House as a kind of father figure by the younger staff members.

JOSH LYMAN, played by Bradley Whitford
Deputy Chief of Staff, it's Josh's responsibility to make sure that everything goes smoothly and that the President is not bothered by things that he, Josh, or his staff can deal with, and that most importantly, nothing embarrassing pops up to surprise him. He is in charge of all legislative affairs and arrangements, and second in authority only to Leo.

C.J. CREGG, played by Alison Janney
White House Press Secretary, it's she that takes and arranges the President's daily briefings and announcements, and it's up to her to present the best side of the administration to the world. She is the Face and Voice of the White House; she tells reporters what they need or what she wants them to hear, but there is much she will hold back, either until there is confirmation or the time is right, or sometimes just never released into the public domain.

TOBY ZIEGLER, played by Richard Schiff
White House Communications Director, he is CJ's direct boss, a quiet, intelligent man who is totally dedicated to his job and to Bartlet.

SAM SEABORN, played by Rob Lowe
Deputy Communications Director, Seaborn's position is the focus of the first few episodes of the series.

CHARLIE YOUNG, played by Dule Hill
Charlie comes to the White House looking for a job as a courier, but Bartlet is so impressed with him that he takes him on as his personal aide, and over the course of the series he becomes the president's closest advisor outside of the senior staff, and a good friend of his.

DONNA MOSS, played by Janel Moloney
Assistant to Josh, she is the one who often keeps him on the straight and narrow, despite himself. She also has a romantic interest in him. She's quite intelligent though a little scatterbrained, and yet probably the most organised of the senior staff. Josh pretends he only tolerates her, but in reality he could not function without her, and they both know it.

ABIGAIL BARTLET, played by Stockard Channing
Wife to the president and therefore First Lady, Abby is a doctor in her own right and has her own career and identity, so is not merely an extension of her powerful husband.

Obviously, in a sprawling organisation like the White House there are far more characters, some semi-regular, some not coming in till later seasons, but this is the basic cast that carries the show through its main run.

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Supernatural: “A very Supernatural Christmas”

Billed as one of the “most violent Christmas specials in the history of television”, the episode opens with a typically Christmassy scene, as a jolly grandfather visits his grandson and later, as Santa Claus, is suddenly pulled up the chimney by unseen hands, to the accompaniment of roars and screams, and all that comes back down is a bloodstained boot. This all happens within the originally fascinated and then horrified sight of his grandson. A year later another similar incident occurs, and Sam and Dean investigate, posing as agents from the FBI. After they find a sprig of mistletoe and a bloodied tooth up the chimney, Sam poses the possibility that they could be dealing with a rogue Santa, an evil brother to Jolly Old Saint Nick, who lore tells punishes the wicked. It's not much, but it's all they have to go on at the moment.

Turns out there have been two victims, and they both visited the same place before they died: Santa's Village. But the Santa they stake out seems to be nothing more than a harmless old man, while some distance away an evil figure climbs the stairs in another house and comes down dragging a bundle, a bundle which issues muffled protests as it is hauled down the stairs, again while a child watches. When the brothers investigate this, the second murder, they notice a wreath in the house identical to one they saw in that of the other victim. Bobby tells them that the wreaths smelled of Meadowsweet, which is a herb that was used in human sacrifices to attract the pagan gods. He describes it as “chum for the gods”. It seems that anyone who buys one of these wreaths may as well be asking to be killed. The obvious thing to do is to try to find out who's selling them.

The boys work out that the pagan god being summoned is most likely Hold Nickar, the god of the winter solstice, who rewards his supplicants with mild weather. In December in the middle of Michigan, where they are, there is no snow, which is certainly out of the ordinary. But when they locate a shop that was selling them --- they're all out now --- the shopkeeper tells them that he got them free from some lady who lives locally. As they discuss “doing Christmas” --- Sam is against it --- Dean points out that it is his last year; after this he will be in Hell, thanks to the pact he made with the demon in season two. But Sam says he can't do it for just that reason: Dean wants a last Christmas, but Sam can't just pretend everything is okay and celebrate the holiday season when he knows his brother will be dead the following year.

We see in flashback young Dean tell Sam about what their father really does, telling him that he is a demon hunter and their mother was taken by demons. Sam is shocked, but probably also angry that he wasn't let in on the secret, even if it is a horrible, scary one. When the boys in the present go to visit the woman purported to make the wreaths, a Madge Kerrigan, and her husband Edward, they are told that she has no more wreaths to sell, as she only made the number that she gave to the shop.

As the boys research the couple, they find that they originally came from Seattle, at the same time as two other mysterious murders took place at Christmas, and they only moved here, to Michigan, in January of this year. When they return to the Kerrigan's house a little exploration reveals a basement filled with blood, human debris, cutting tools and ... one bag that seems to still contain a living being! But as they reach for it the Kerrigans get the drop on them. They come to and find themselves in a sickeningly homely Christmas set. The two Kerrigans reveal themselves not to be the acolytes of pagan gods, but the actual gods themselves, and go on to bleed the two boys, taking their tribute as ancient deities. However a call at the door distracts them and when they return the brothers have got loose.

They break branches off the Kerrigans' Christmas tree to use as stakes, and impale both the monsters. After all they've been through, and remembering how Dean always tried to make Christmas special for him when they were young, Sam decorates the hotel room and they exchange presents. After all, it is going to be their last ever...

QUOTES
Sam: “It's gonna sound crazy...”
Dean: What could you possibly say to me that would sound crazy?”
Sam: “Evil Santa?”
Dean: “You're right: it's crazy.”

Dean: “Did you talk to Bobby? What did he say?”
Sam: “That we're morons.”

Dean: “She didn't charge you?” (for the wreaths)
Shopkeeper: “No.”
Dean: “Bet you didn't sell them for free?”
Shopkeeper: “Hell no! It's Christmas! People pay a buttload for this crap!”
Dean: “That's the spirit.”

Kerrigan: “Suddenly this Jesus character comes along, and he's the next big thing!”

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Year: 1970
Medium: Colour
Starring: Albert Finney, Alec Guinness, Edith Evans, Kenneth More
Directed by: Joseph Bowler
Length: 113 mins

Brief comments: I know this one very well. My sister loves it, and she had a VHS cassette she almost wore out watching, Christmas or not. It's the first colour adaptation, and even given the one above and the cartoon version, pretty much the first proper musical. I feel it will be hard to fault this in any area, but I've never watched it objectively before, so this will be interesting.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Well played by Finney, on both the grumpy side and the changed-man side. Sings well too. Probably worth an 8 here.
Marley: Sir Alec Guinness. Need I say more? A clear 10. Good visualisation and great acting, as you would expect. Not hammy in any way and quite true to the character in the story.
Cratchit: Annoyance factor doubled by the fact he sings, but still ok I guess. 6
Tiny Tim: REALLY annoying! And he sings in a soprano. Ugh. But he plays the part well. 4
Others: Bob's friend Tom, who sings "Thank you very much" is a revelation, a young Gordon Jackson with hair! Gotta give him a 6 for his performance.
The Ghosts: Ghost of Christmas Past: Very well played as an elderly, no-nonsense woman. Scenes of his past are good. A solid 6
Ghost of Christmas Present: A sort of mixture of the classic ideal from the novel and the Jolly Green Giant. Like the idea of the milk of human kindness. Pretty great all around, except for the exclusion of Want and Ignorance at the end. A good 8 here
Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Good until they went and showed his skull-face, which while meant to be a shock was in fact nothing more than schlock, and battering you over the head --- look! He's a skeleton! Yeah, we guessed. Sorry, but that drops his rating down to 4.

Faithful to the novel: Mostly, but I have to take issue with the added-on bit at the end, where Scrooge actually ends up in Hell. Not in the story, and although it's clever and handled well, and we get to see Guinness again, it's unnecessary and seems tacked-on. Makes for a lower score than it should have got, and I can only muster 7 here.
Emotion level: Well, with a musical you're always going to have some, yes, but I wasn't all that particularly moved. Not as much as I was, for instance, with some of the less upbeat versions. So only 5 here.
Puke level: Other than Tiny Tim, there's nothing really, so for his sake I'll just throw in a little -2
Horror level: Nah, not really. The Hell scenes are done well but don't scare, the face of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is silly and Halloweenish, and there's no dividing of Scrooge's gear, which often adds the real horror element. A little too much concentrating on the songs and not so much on the actual story, so here there's a big fat zero.
Soundtrack: Well, what can you say? One of the best, if not the best ever soundtracks to a Scrooge movie. Great songs like “I hate people”, “Father Christmas”, the superb “Thank you very much” and the exuberant “I like life”. Solid 10 all round here.

So, total score then: 74
But with both Albert Finney and Alec Guinness in it that gives it an extra 10, plus a young Gordon Jackson and Roy Kinnear have cameos, so that's another five apiece, giving a
Grand Total of 94, highest score yet.

Year: 1938
Medium: Black-and-white
Starring: Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart, Kathleen Lockhart, Barry MacKay
Directed by: Edwin L. Marin
Length: 69 mins

Brief comments: Considering this was the first time Hollywood really got a hold of the story, I don't feel they messed it up too much or put too much of a spin on it. They did add a few bits here and there and subtract others, which I'll detail later, but by and large this was probably one of the better versions I've seen so far, and I'm glad I shelled out the few bucks for the DVD. Was certainly worth waiting for.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Owen is perfect in the part; Scrooge is bent, withered, nasty and old. His transformation, unlike some others, is believable without being over the top, and you can actually see it happening gradually. Not perfect, but a good solid 8 certainly.
Marley: One of the best prior to Alec Guinness's defining portrayal of the melancholy ghost. For the time, the effects are good too: you can see through him, and he doesn't ham it up or go overboard. Very good all round. Another 8.
Cratchit: The least annoying of any of the portrayals of the clerk so far, bar none. I actually didn't hate him, and though the character is always something of a wimp he seemed to possess some sort of inner strength, a sense of defiance that none of the others did. I'll never I expect give a Cratchit a 10, but he definitely deserves a 9
Tiny Tim: Sorry, but the kid brings it all down again, though he's not quite so annoying. But it's hard to like him. I'll say a 6, to be kind.
Others: Fred is well played with great gusto and exuberance and Mrs Cratchit is something of a revelation. I think she and the actor who played Bob Cratchit are/were married in real life, as they both have the same surname. If so, their onscreen chemistry is explainable and very touching. 6 for Fred and 8 for Mrs C.
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: Holy crap she is stunningly gorgeous! Must have been a real heartbreaker in her day. Kind of reminds me, in her manner, of a good fairy godmother, though if they were all like this we'd everyone be crying to go to the ball! Got to give her a 9, easily.
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Very powerful, very direct and yet behind his booming laughter lies a note of reproach, not only to Scrooge but to men, who still try to fight in the street, even on Christmas! A good 7 for him.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Always hard to do anything with this figure, but he's okay. Just about. A 5, to be fair.

Faithful to the novel: Really, no. There are several departures from the story, including Scrooge sacking Cratchit (which never happened), Scrooge being so incensed about Marley's ghostly appearance that he calls up the Watch to scare him off (never happened either) and several omissions, such as the dividing up of Scrooge's belongings, Scrooge cutting short the trip with the Ghost of Christmas Past (which does happen, but is seldom shown) and again no Want or Ignorance, which was an aspect of the Ghost of Christmas Present that I felt always really grounded the character and made him more than a buffoon who enjoyed the finer things in life. All in all, I can really only award this a low 4.
Emotion level: Some, but not much really. 4 again.
Puke level: Zero
Horror level: Zero; the absence of the trio dividing up Scrooge's things leaves this with no real sense of horror, to me.
Soundtrack: Average. Say a 4. Nothing special.

So our total then is 78, another quite high score. No real extra factors to bump that score up though.

Year: 1971
Medium: Colour (Animated)
Starring: Alastair Sim
Directed by: Richard Williams
Length: 25 mins

Brief comments: The first of what would become a slew of animated versions of the story (I kind of don't count “Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol” as it was based in the world of an already-known cartoon icon; this was written completely separate to any other cartoon, although others that would follow, particularly “Mickey's Christmas Carol”, would use well-known cartoon characters as the basis for, and participants in the story. As a version it's short so quite abridged, and few characters speak really. Cratchit barely says a word, Fred has his visit at the beginning but that's about it, and the Ghosts do their bit (well, two of them: The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come never speaks), and generally it's almost a one-man show. It is quite rushed though, however I must admit the animation really gives the feel of something that could have been created in Dickens' time. Decent enough.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Can only really concentrate on him, as he has the lion's share of the lines (sorry) but although this is Alastair Sim reprising his role from the 1951 movie, I don't feel he does the character justice here, and it's a bit of a fuddle-headed, confused performance. Quite poor I have to say. A generous 4.
Marley: Quite scary and of course given that this is animated they can do some interesting things, such as making his mouth seem twice the size it should be. Good job on him really. A solid 7
Cratchit: Almost non-existent. Very poor. A low 3 for him.
Tiny Tim: Same. He's hardly in it at all. A very low 2
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: A good representation, if a bit rushed. Score of 6
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Again very good, best of the three, and it includes the skeletal figures of Want and Ignorance, which I remember at the time scared the crap out of me, as they're meant to. For that, mostly, I give him a good score of 8
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Pretty standard. What can you do, after all, with a silent, ghostly hooded skeleton? 5.

Faithful to the novel: No. The story is shortened too much. What there is is faithful but there's so much left out or glossed over it has to get a low score. I know they were restricted, given the running time, but still, only a 4 here.
Emotion level: Zero
Puke level: Zero
Horror level: I would have said zero too, but the two figures of Want and Ignorance, especially as they awoke such terror in me as a child, have to rescue this and get it a decent 8.
Soundtrack: None really, so zero.

Total then is 47. Given that Sim reprises his role I would have awarded extra points, but the fact that he made such a dull, lifeless Scrooge second time around loses those points. The only other awards I can give is for the actual animation, which is really first class, so 7 for that, and the attendance of the legendary Chuck Jones gets it another 5, so the
Grand Total is then 69

So although all three scored quite highly in the end, we have a very clear winner. It's not that surprising, as it is acknowledged as generally one of the very best versions, and with a total score of 94 Albert Finney's 1970 musical blasts the competition to tatters and strides confidently and easily into the second round.

All these Scrooge movies you're doing seem pretty traditional. Any off-the-wall interpretations you're doing/maybe I've missed due to laziness?

It's what's out there. I'm doing them in chronological order, so around the 30s/40s/50s they weren't exactly innovative. Later we'll have Muppets, Disney and coming soon in a separate feature, Blackadder's Christmas Carol, which turns the whole story on its head for laughs, and many of them. I'm just going from a list on Wiki, so the next ones seem all pretty standardish. There is one that Patrick Stewart did as a one-man show on stage, but I seriously doubt I'll be able to track down a recording of it, which is a pity. When you have to stick generally to the storyline there's not a whole lot you can do and still remain true to the spirit of the novella. I think you'll enjoy the Blackadder one though.

I guess it doesn't count, but I did find a Youtube vid of an audiobook of A Christmas Carol narrated by Patrick Stewart.

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Blackadder's Christmas Carol

To kind of tie in with my Scrooge Showdown, now in progress, but not included as it is a TV special and very different to any of the movies, here's the hilarious interpretation Ben Elton and Richard Curtis put on the classic tale. Sorry but I can't find it on YouTube... :(

For those of you who don't know, Edmund Blackadder is a character portrayed by British comedian Rowan Atkinson down through the ages, beginning in 14th century England, then moving on to Elizabethan times and then the eighteenth century before ending up in World War One. All through the series Blackadder is shown to be a devious fellow whose plans sometimes, but not always, come off the way he intends them to, but always with hilarious consequences. Through all four series and down through time he has always had a servant called Baldrick, though in "Blackadder goes forth", the final series set in wartorn France, he is an aide-de-camp to Blackadder, who is a captain in the army.

Turning the concept of the story entirely on its head, Ebeneezer Blackadder (what? You thought he'd be called Scrooge?) is known throughout London as the kindest, most generous man in the city, perhaps in the country. To the poor he opens his doors, to the destitute he renders any assistance he can. He sees the good in all men, and because of his trusting, almost naively innocent nature, is a target for every user, scoundrel and conman that crosses his path. He is taken advantage of by family and friends, all of whom see him as a soft touch. His only real friend, Mister Baldrick, loves him for who he is but is equally unable to make his master see the way others use him for their own needs.

Meanwhile, at the palace, Queen Victoria is about to set forth with her husband Albert on their traditional “Christmas adventure”, when they disguise themselves as ordinary folk and seek out people to reward for their kindness to their fellow man. When they reach Blackadder's house they manage to get his turkey, the last thing he has left after having been robbed of all his money (by Mrs Scratchett and an urchin), his presents (by his god-daughter Millicent) his tree (same) and his nuts (by the Beadle). Dejected, and with nothing, he heads to bed, but Baldrick tells him that while he was out a strange ghostly being entered, telling him that they would have a visitation that night. Shaking his head, Blackadder retires.

That night, the Ghost of Christmas enters, but seems to be just passing through, as he says Blackadder is such a good man there is no need for him to try to convert him. He does however accept a drink, and gets to talking with Blackadder, telling him about his ancestors, most of whom were mean, nasty people, as we know. We're then treated to special “flashbacks” to previous Blackadder shows, such as Blackadder II, where we see the Queen abolish Christmas, Blackadder petulantly destroy the painting he had been about to give her, only for her to change her mind about Christmas and leave him facing execution. Being Blackadder though, he manages to trick her into signing a death warrant for Lord Melchet instead, and is thus saved from the axe.

Having seen this, Ebeneezer Blackadder is most impressed at his ancestor's guile and cunning, and when the Spirit shows him another of his forebears, Blackadder III, who lived around the 1790s, he is further enchanted. This particular ancestor tries to trick his master, the Prince Regent, who has about as many braincells as a fish has bicycle clips, into handing over all his Christmas presents to Baldrick, dressed as an old woman with a tale of woe. Unfortunately, he becomes a victim of his own plan when Baldrick lets in an actual poor old woman who happens by, collecting for charity, and it is to her that all the Prince's presents go.

Again, his descendant marvels at the ingenuity of the long-dead relative, and asks to be shown his own future, should he change his ways and become like his forebears. In this possible future he sees himself as the commander of a galactic fleet, marrying the queen of the universe. Then he checks to see what would happen if he remains as he is, and is less than pleased with the results, as he is now subservient to Baldrick! After seeing this he decides to change who he is. The next morning he sets about being as mean and nasty as he can be, getting his own back on those who have taken advantage of him over the years. And because everyone expects him to still be the kind, snivelling old soft touch he was, his plan works brilliantly. Enemy after enemy is despatched, from the grasping Mrs Scratchett and her not-so-crippled son to his own god-daughter, who is sent running with a flea in her ear. Even his oldest friend, Mister Baldrick, is not safe from his new persona, as he reverts to the type of man he has seen his ancestors were.

Unfortunately, the Queen chooses that day, Christmas Day to revisit Ebeneezer to reward his philantrophy, kindness and general niceness, but he is now a miserable skinflint, caustic and horrible to everyone, and failing to recognise Victoria and Albert he insults them and throws them out of the house. And there, in one day, go his hopes of ever being Baron Blackadder, the nicest man in England.

QUOTES
Blackadder (off camera): “Humbug! Humbug!” (Coming in the door with bag of sweets) “Humbug, Mister Baldrick?”

Blackadder (looking at Baldrick's Christmas card: “Christmas has an “h” in it, Mister Balrdick. And an “r”. Also an “i”, an “s”, also a “t”, an “m” and “a”, and another “s”. Oh, and you've missed out the “C” at the beginning. Congratulations, Mister Baldrick: something of a triumph I think: you must be the first person who's ever spelled “Christmas” without getting any of the letters right at all!”

Mrs Scratchett: “No goose for Tiny Tom this year!”
Blackadder: “Mrs Scratchett, Tiny Tom is fifteen stone and built like a brick privy! If he eats any more heartily he will turn into a pie shop!”

Blackadder: “What a jolly fellow!”
Baldrick: “Looked like a fat git to me.”
Blackadder: “Well, yes, but you mustn't judge people from outside appearances, Mr. Baldrick. Strip away the outer layers from a fat git and inside you'll probably find...”
Baldrick: “A thin git.”

Blackadder: “I detect from your accent, sir, that you are not from around here.”
Prince Albert: “Er, nein! I am from ... Glas-gow.”

Baldrick: “Night night. Oh, I forgot to mention: while you were out there there was this enormous ghostly creature came in saying Beware, for tonight you shall receive a strange and terrible visitation! Just thought I'd mention it. It come through the wall, it said its piece, and then it sodded off.”

Ghost: “Spirit of Christmas, how d'ye do? Just doing my rounds. A wee bit of haunting, making evil old misers change their ways. Course, you're such a good fellow there'll be no need for any of that nonsense! So I'll just say cheery-bye and be on my way.”
Blackadder: “Can I offer you a cup of tea?”
Ghost: “Ye wouldn't have anything a wee bit more ... medicinal?”
Blackadder: “Only Nurse McCreedy's Surgical Brews Lotion.”
Ghost: “Hey! Nothing but the best in this house!”

Baldrick: “Have you anything for me?”
Blackadder II: “Oh, it's nothing really...”
Baldrick: “Oh sir!”
Blackadder II: “No, really. It's nothing. I didn't get you anything.”

Blackadder II: “Melchet, greetings! I trust that Christmas brings you its traditional mix of good food and violent stomach cramps.”
Melchet: “Compliments of the season to you, Blackadder. May the yuletide log slip from your fire and burn your house down.”

Blackadder II: “Hah! Got him with my subtle plan!”
Baldrick: “I can't see any subtle plan.”
Blackadder II: “Baldrick, you wouldn't see a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked upon a harpsichord singing Subtle plans are here again!”

Queen: “I want presents! Give me something nice and shiny. And if you don't I have something nice and shiny for you. It's called an axe!”

Blackadder III, explaining the rules of Charades: “If it was the Bible I'd do this (holds up two fingers) to indicate it has two syllables...”
Prince Regent: “Two what?”
Blackadder III: “Two syllables.”
Prince: “Two silly bulls? Don't remember any silly bulls in the Bible! I remember a fatted calf, but from what I can recall that was quite a sensible animal.”

Blackadder III: “So, shall I begin the Christmas story then?”
Prince: “Absolutely. As long as it's not that terribly depressing one about the chap who gets born on Christmas Day, shoots his mouth off about everything under the sun and comes a cropper with a couple of rum coves on top of a hill in Johnny Arabland!”
Blackadder III: “You mean Jesus?”
Prince: “Yes, keep him out. He always spoils the Xmas atmos!”

Spirit: “It does point to a very clear lesson.”
Ebeneezer Blackadder: “Namely?”
Spirit: “Uh, namely ... that the rewards of virtue are largely spiritual, but all the better for it.”
Ebeneezer: “Really? You don't think it points to the more obvious lesson that bad guys have more fun?”

Ebeneezer: “Don't be too downhearted, Mr Baldrick, for if you look down in the bottom of the sock, you'll see there's something there from me. And it's something I made myself.”
Baldrick: “Well that's the kind of gift that shows the most love! What is it?”
Ebeneezer: “It's ... (withdrawing his hand from the stocking) “a fist! You use it for hitting!” (Demonstrates) “And the wonderful thing about it is, you can use it again (hits Baldrick) and again!”

Ebeneezer: “Love, I should warn you, is like a Christmas cracker. One massively disappointing bang and the novelty soon wears off!”

Mrs Scratchett: “Ah Mr. Ebeneezer. I was wondering if you had a little present for me? Or found me a little fowl for Tiny Tom's Christmas?”
Ebeneezer: “I've always found you foul, Mrs. Scratchett, and more than a little. As for Tiny Tom, he can stuff it up his enormous muscular backside!”
Mrs Scratchett: “But 'e's a cripple!”
Ebeneezer: “He's not a cripple, Mrs Scratchett. Occasionally saying “Phew my leg hurts!”when he remembers to wouldn't fool Baldrick! If I was you I'd scoop him out and use him as a houseboat. Good day!”

Queen Victoria: “We are Queen Victoria!”
Baldrick: “What? All three of you?”

I had originally not intended to cover this, but I've changed my mind. It did, after all, kickstart the whole franchise and while some of the stories tend to make you roll your eyes a little, there's some good original drama there, and not a small amount of occasional comic genius. Therefore, as the grandaddy of all Trek, it seems only appropriate that I should delve into the original series.
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One of the first ever proper science-fiction dramas to hit the television, Star Trek was conceived by Gene Roddenberry, who was at the time writing for western shows such as “Whiplash”, “Have gun will travel” and other series, mostly western or police-oriented. Having submitted a pilot for his new science-fiction series, Roddenberry was advised to “get rid of the guy with the ears”, advice he fought against and which it turns out was just as well he did, as Spock ended up becoming, as almost everyone on the planet knows, one of the most famous and well-known characters on television, not just in sci-fi. But the original pilot was far from what the series would eventually look like, featuring a different captain, Majel Barret (who would go on to star not only as Nurse Chapel in the series but later marry Roddenberry) as his number one (a phrase that would not be reused in Star Trek until it was rebooted in 1987 and Picard began calling his second-in-command by that designation) and a very animated Spock wearing what seems to be a turtleneck!

Although the original pilot, “The Cage”, fared badly with NBC, the backers, mostly because contrary to Roddenberry pitching the series as “Wagon Train to the stars” --- Wagon Train being a popular western adventure series on TV around that time --- the first episode of Star Trek was considered too cerebral and weighty for the spoonfed American TV audiences. NBC must have seen something in it though, as they commissioned a second pilot (something rarely, if ever done) and dismissing almost the entire cast Roddenberry began again with what would go on to be the classic lineup of Captain Kirk, Mister Spock, Scotty and McCoy, with the ship now called the USS Enterprise. And thus a legend was born.

Throughout its run, Star Trek became famous for filtering messages through its plotlines, comments on society that few if any other shows dared broach. Over three seasons the show tackled such concepts as prejudice, war, racism, power without responsibility and even torture and rape. It was also the first show to feature a black cast member in a prominent role, this being Nichelle Nichols as communications officer Lieutenant Uhura, and went further in its attempt to break down barriers in typecasting by including oriental, Russian and even Irish characters: a true cosmopolitan galaxy.

Much of Star Trek's strength, and its enduring legacy, was its knack of balancing drama with comedy while maintaining a strong family feeling between the main characters. Kirk, despite being of about the same age as his fellow officers, or younger in some cases, was presented as a sort of father figure, tough and principled but always ready to smile when the situation called for it, or make light of a potentially tense situation. The result was a man whom others would follow, almost a superman, seemingly incapable of error or defeat, though he suffered both, which just showed us that he was after all just a man. The Enterprise's voyages took them to many distant planets, and to many an adventure. Unlike later Trek series (to a degree anyway) events in Star Trek were always wrapped up by the end credits, usually with a joke and a laugh before the theme played, and as a rule situations that had arisen in last week's episode would not be carried through to, nor even mentioned in the next or subsequent episodes.

The series made stars of a young William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley, who became the sort of triumvirate of the series: Kirk, Spock and “Bones”, as the doctor was affectionately called by the captain. It gave rise to a whole series of movies, four spin-off series and became the first building block in a mighty franchise that would revolutionise television science-fiction and drama, and which would not be challenged for another ten years, when Star Wars hit the big screen. It's said that somewhere in the world, Star Trek is played every second or something like that. I can believe it. Even if you hate it with a passion, I can guarantee you'll have heard of Kirk, The Enterprise and Spock. It's just ... logical.

CAST
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CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK, played by William Shatner: The Captain of the USS Enterprise, he is the man in charge and the focus of just about every episode of the series. Even when he's not there the others are talking about him. A brilliant tactician, a fearless commander and one of Starfleet Academy's brightest pupils, Kirk led the Enterprise through three seasons of adventure and later, into the other “final frontier”, as he starred in six Star Trek movies, even popping up in the seventh. It's rumoured he may be in the new, rebooted Trek franchise too.

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COMMANDER SPOCK, played by Leonard Nimoy: Second-in-command on the starship, Spock (no other name) is also the Science Officer. He is a Vulcan, from the planet, um, Vulcan. His people have, contrary to popular belief, emotions, but keep them very much under check, preferring to live their lives by the cold dictates of logic alone. This makes Spock seem a very dour, grim person, and mostly he is, but as the series goes on his exposure to humans --- he is half-human on his mother's side --- begins to tell, and he has even been known to smile once or twice.
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DOCTOR LEONARD McCOY, played by DeForest Kelley: The ship's CMO, McCoy is a resident of Georgia and speaks with a thick southern accent. He is probably one of the oldest on the ship, and Kirk frequently refers to him as “Bones” (though nobody else does), probably a reference to the old term for doctors, “sawbones”. McCoy has a pathological fear of the transporter, the device by which the crew of the Enterprise move from ship to planet, their atoms being disassembled at departure point and reassembled at the arrival point. He does not think it's right, “scattering a man's atoms across the galaxy” and will only “beam down” when absolutely necessary.
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LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER MONTGOMERY SCOTT, played by James Doohan: Known to most people as “Scotty”, he is the Chief Engineer and perfers to spend his off-hours reading technical manuals or strolling around the Enterprise, making sure all is in working order, “listening” to the ship. As his name implies, he is Scottish, and also speaks with a very noticeable accent (although Doohan was Canadian); he is known throughout Starfleet as one of the most capable engineers they have, and has a reputation as something of a miracle worker.
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LIEUTENANT HIKARU SULU, played by George Takei: Helmsman on the Enterprise, Sulu is Japanese and navigates the ship, usually remaining on board though occasionally taking part in planetary exploration.
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LIEUTENANT UHURA, played by Nichelle Nichols: The communications officer on the ship, she is responsible for putting any messages through to Kirk. Basically a glorified telephone operator, but she does hold the distinction, as I noted above, of being the first African-American female to land a proper recurring role in a TV drama that had some substance to it.
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NURSE CHRISTINE CHAPEL, played by Majel Barret (later Barret-Roddenberry) she is the nurse who assists Doctor McCoy, and she has an unrequited love for Mister Spock.

These are the main characters from episode two on. There are some slight changes as the season progresses, and I'll advise these as they make their appearance. Star Trek was not however a series given to either killing off its characters or changing them in the way other series in the franchise would, by having them assigned to starbases, conducting months-long research etc. By and large, once the main cast settled down they were there for the duration.

What's the difference between famous and well-known? And your Uhura pic is showing up as a broken link.

I don't know: I guess famous might mean everyone knows them whereas well-known might be many people know them. David Beckham, a star in football here for many years, was virtually unknown in the USA until he joined LA Galaxy, so maybe he's an example. Or not. Leave me alone, it's Christmas you bastard! :laughing:

That Uhura pic is fixed now. This your revenge for my pointing out all the broken links in your journal last week AND humiliating you in the "Post of the Week" huh? :shycouch:

This is par for the course. If there's a bit of revenge, then that's just a bonus.

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For all the slagging off I have given it --- and will continue to give it, through next year --- there's no doubt that some of the episodes of Seth MacFarlane's sister show (I suppose I should say brother, shouldn't I? Screw that!) to Family Guy are terrific, and one thing they certainly know how to do in Langley Falls is Christmas. Whereas the other show's Christmas show was a hodge-podge of Kiss-related in-jokes and some ripping off of the Simpsons (how surprising!), American Dad just went right out there with their festive shows, the one I want to look at being their fourth, broadcast in the middle of the sixth (or seventh, if you're in America) season.

American Dad: “For whom the sleigh bell tolls”
(Again, sorry, no video on YouTube)

It's, you know, Christmas, and Stan is getting increasingly annoyed about the childlike wonder displayed by Jeff, even though he's now married to his daughter. Jeff still believes in Santa Claus, and while Haley thinks this is wonderful, Stan is contemptuous of the man. Does he want to remain a child forever? Francine is worried when her husband tells her he plans to get Steve a gun for Christmas. She makes Stan promise not to, but of course he goes ahead and does so anyway. Steve is less than impressed: he's hardly the gun type. Roger, unable to make an eggnog that can get him drunk, is told of a mysterious legendary moonshiner who lives atop a mountain and may be able to help him.

Stan takes Steve shooting, but when he aims at a snowman in a mall (why? It's a bloody machine gun for Chrissakes? There are children and women about! This is Stan for ya) he accidentally kills a mall Santa. He tries to hide the fact from his wife but Francine discovers the body, which Stan has put in his car while he tries to run the guy's fingerprints. Oddly, the CIA database doesn't seem to have them. Unwilling to have her Christmas ruined, Francine suggests burying the body in the woods. Roger finds the old moonshiner, who goes by the name of Bob Tod. He says he will show Roger how to brew the strongest whiskey on Earth.

Meanwhile, the family start getting mysterious messages claiming to know what they did, and when it becomes apparent that there is no Christmas spirit in Langley Falls, they begin to worry that the mall Santa Steve killed could be ... the real Santa Claus? When they return to the grave they find to their shock that it is empty. Then an elf appears, mounted on a roaring, fierce stag, and tells them that although it was the real Santa they shot, he is not dead but recovering at the North Pole. The elf grins, promising that Santa will return on Christmas Eve to kill them all.

Roger offers them shelter at Bob Tod's. The moonshiner has no love for Santa, and helps them when Jolly Old Saint Nick attacks. Jeff joins them, but when Stan finds out that the reason Santa was able to find them in their hideout is that Jeff told him where to deliver his present, he throws Hayley's husband out of the shack as the hordes of Santa descend, vengeance in their hearts. He comes back though and asks to help them fight, but just then Santa woos him away with a horned helmet he had asked for on his Christmas List. Torn between staying with his wife and accepting his present --- (“You don't have to die with the Smiths, Jeff! You're a GOOD little boy!”) --- he goes to Santa, dons the helmet as Stan snarls at him that he knew he was not good enough for his daughter, then headbutts Santa, who falls, wounded, while Jeff runs back to help Stan.

Seeing Jeff has risked his life to save him, even though he does not like him, Stan finds a new appreciation for Jeff and he is finally accepted into the family. They prepare to go out fighting --- “Whaddya say we go out there, Jeff, and die as a family?” --- but just as it seems they will be overwhelmed by superior numbers, Christmas Day dawns. Santa snarls that he only had till this point to eliminate the Smiths, and retreats in fury to the North Pole, wounded but swearing to return next year to finish the job.

(There are a lot of things wrong with this episode, many dichotomies but you'll have to wait till I get to it in the Dad vs Dad feature before I'll talk about them, otherwise it'll be Christmas and I'll have nothing else written!)

QUOTES
Stan: “Just because you married him does not make him part of this family.”
Hayley: “Actually, it does, dad. And you need to get used to that.”

Francine: “I got wooden clogs to put around the Christmas tree. I'm starting a new Christmas tradition.”
Stan: “What was wrong with our old one? Allowing homeless people to smell our napkins after Christmas dinner?”

Stan: “Relax, Steve. Part of gun ownership is killing people accidentally.”

Jeff: “I wanna help, Mister S.”
Stan: “You want to help, Jeff? Stand here and shield me from arrows until you die!”

Francine (reading Santa's parting note): “You were lucky this time, Smiths. But I'll be back next year to kill you. Oh my God! Looks like we found our new Christmas tradition!”

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Time for our last round before The Big Day. Three more Scrooges to criticise and analyse, all quite different from each other...
Year: 1977
Medium: Colour
Starring: Michael Hordern, Jon Le Mesurier
Directed by:
Length: 59 mins

Brief comments: A typical BBC 70s drama; quite bland, cheap and dour. More like a play than anything else. Although it's in colour you could be forgiven for thinking it wasn't, as the colour is so washed-out, but I guess it adds to the overall period flavour of the story. The awful cheapness of the dramatisation shows when, taken to the place he grew up in by the Ghost of Christmas Past, he sees only a drawing. There is no scene where he and the ghost enter the building.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Dull, confused and somewhat doddery, Hordern seems to mouth the words without really having any conviction. He does not come across as mean, merely old. 4
Marley: More or less the same. Le Mesurier always evinced a sort of bored resignation in his acting, even when he did comedy, and here he carries the same cloak of ennui around him, resulting in a figure who is neither tragic nor scary, but again just bored. The effects are very poor for the seventies too. 4
Cratchit: Not too annoying, played well. Say 6
Tiny Tim: Almost nonexistent, which is a plus, but still. 2 only.
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: All right but she seems quite hard, not at all sympathetic. I can only give her a 3
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Very grumpy, but at least his version includes Want and Ignorance, so gets a 4
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: The usual. Unfortunately, the guy playing him seems more concerned that his hood might fall down than he is of being scary, or mysterious, so gives the impression of slouching along. Very poor, even for the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. 3

Faithful to the novel: Very much, follow it more or less exactly, which is admirable given the relatively short length of the production. 8
Emotion level: Zero
Puke level: Almost Zero, but they had to have Tiny Tim sing, didn't they? -1
Horror level: Zero
Soundtrack: Mostly none, but what there is is typical BBC drama fare, reminiscent of the likes of Sapphire and Steel or Tales of the Unexpected. Say a 4

So, a total then of 37. Any additions? Well, Le Mesurier is in it, as is June Brown, well known to British people as Dot in the popular soap opera Eastenders, so that's another 10. IMDB credits Brian Blessed with the narration, but I'll be damned if I can find any in this production, so I can't include him. That makes a total then of 47.

Year: 1983
Medium: Colour (Animated)
Starring: Um. Mickey Mouse?
Directed by: Burny Mattinson
Length: 26 mins

Brief comments: The first really major animation, “Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol” notwithstanding, to play the story against an already well-known cast of characters, in this case the Disney stable of Donald Duck, Goofy, Scrooge McDuck and of course Mickey himself. A major animated colossus and one that would set the trend for further adaptations of the tale in years to come, and also open up the story to the true world of animation.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Ah, who else could it be but Scrooge McDuck? You gotta love the old miser, and he has some great lines --- “Jacob Marley: you robbed from the widows and the poor, sometimes in the same day!” Very odd to hear Scrooge talk in a Scottish accent, but then that's Scrooge McDuck for ya! Gotta give him a good 8 easily.
Marley: Goddammit it's Goofy! And how does a supposed spirit slip on a cane and fall down the stairs? Gimme strength! A low 2
Cratchit: Much as I hate Mickey Mouse, he does a very passable and not annoying Cratchit, so I'm grudgingly awarding him a good 7 here
Tiny Tim: Only in the story for one scene but quite cute. A good 7 too.
Others: Have to mention my good friend Donald Duck, as Fred. Just for his hilarious voice, and the fact that he's wearing his sailor suit even in this, I'm awarding him a 9
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: Jiminy Fucking Cricket? Oh come on! Have they chosen all my least favourite Disney characters? Still, the idea of Scrooge's conscience being one of the ghosts is clever, so I'll give him a 5
The Ghost of Christmas Present: A somewhat retarded giant. Pretty stupid really. 3
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Just for the end scene, and the fact he smokes AND speaks, which none of the others did, I have to award him a high 7.

Faithful to the novel: Yeah, pretty much so, though due to the running time there are elements omitted. Still, a decent 7 here.
Emotion level: Zero
Puke level: Disney cartoons often have the terrible cutesy-poo factor but this one doesn't make me want to retch, so zero here
Horror level: Are you fucking kidding me? Zero, obviously.
Soundtrack: Standard Disney/cartoon music, but I'll award them extra points for resisting the urge to throw in some songs; there's just one at the opening credits. So overall a 7.

That's a total then of 62. Not bad, but then surely I have to give points for the excellent animation, so 5 for that, and the humour in it is very clever too, even if it is standard Disney, so another 5 for that, give us a
Grand Total of 72

Year: 1984
Medium: Colour
Starring: George C. Scott, Frank Finlay, Susannah York, David Warner
Directed by: Clive Donner
Length: 100 mins

Brief comments: After the musical 1970 version, this is the first one to feature so many stars, and so has become one of the best-known. It's also the longest I've watched up to now. The sequences with the Ghost of Christmas Past are complete; they include all the events, which some of the other movies miss out. There are also some interesting touches, such as Scrooge's father still being cold towards him, and Scrooge himself accusing Fred of employing Peter just to spite him.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Considering that we're talking about George C. Scott here, it's a very disappointing performance. Scott does not seem very interested in the role, he displays little emotion and seems to more or less phone it in. He doesn't even get caught up in the game at Fred's; whereas other Scrooges begged to be allowed stay (and were not) he goes almost with a shrug of his shoulders. In truth, he only really starts to bother acting at the graveyard scene. After that he's more animated, but given that so much of his acting up to that point is so poor, and a big let-down, I can only in fairness award him a 5.
Marley: Very imposing, quite scary in his way and played extremely well by Frank Finlay. A good 8 for him.
Cratchit: Ah it's David Warner! Need I say more? The man brings a gravitas and dignity to the role that nobody else has to date, and I actually feel for the guy. Got to be a 10, and I never thought I would award that.
Tiny Tim: Hardly in the story really, and doesn't sing, so that in itself gets him a proper 5
Others: Susannah York is very good in the role of Mrs Cratchit; have to give her a 5 for that too.
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: Well played but there's that hardness again. Given that the sequence is full, unlike many others, it must gain an extra point, so I'll give her 6.
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Again quite decent, Edward Woodward is good in the part. Want and Ignorance are done well. A score of 7 for him.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Spooky and silent, but there's something about him: he seems to speak in a whining feedback electric guitar voice, and you gotta respect that. Basically, he rawks! Got to get a decent 8 for that.

Faithful to the novel: Extremely so, even if there are a few extra bits added. I'd have to give this the highest score yet, a 9
Emotion level: None, until David Warner and Susannah York get together on the death of Tiny Tim, then the tears are pressing behind my eyes and I must award this a good 7 for emotion.
Puke level: Zero. Not even for Cratchit for once, or Tiny Tim.
Horror level: Pretty much zero also.
Soundtrack: Virtually non-existent. Hardly worth a 1, but let's give it that. Actually, now that I've seen the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come with his heavy-metal voice, I have to up that to a much more decent 5.

And so we have a total in the end of 75. Very good score, but then look at all the stars in it. If you add five for Warner, Scott, York and Woodward that's another 20, which brings us to a
Grand Total of 95! I think that's the highest yet.

And so without any doubt or challenge, George C. Scott's 1984 version --- almost despite his pretty pedestrian acting as the main character --- pushes its way into round two, leaving the others trailing in its wake. And I thought “Mickey's Christmas Carol” was going to be hard to beat! Competition's hotting up now!

The next batch won't be posted (or, indeed, watched) till after Christmas Day. There are still about ten versions yet to go, and then we have to have the knockout rounds, so although I would have preferred we had things all wrapped up by Christmas, I can see this spilling over into January. But I don't want to rush it: I've put a lot of work into it and if it ends up taking me into 2015 in order to do it properly, then so be it. I still don't know who's going to win. I should point out that, although versions are scoring high here, that does not necessarily mean they're going to be the overall winners, as in round two the best of the best will be pitted against each other, and may find after all that they are lacking in certain aspects.

Until Friday then, a Merry Christmas to you all. God bless us, every one. Except you: I've never liked you.

Oh all right: you too then!

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And of course, what look at Christmas episodes would be complete without
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The very first ever episode to air, and the first of many special Christmas episodes of the series, “Simpsons roasting on an open fire” introduces the sixth member of the Simpson family, who was to become so important in their various storylines, the dog Santa's Little Helper.

The Simpons: “Simpsons roasting on an open fire”

Deprived of a Christmas bonus at work, Homer is glad he can fall back upon the safety net of “The big jar”, the money Marge has scraped aside during the year towards the festive season. When he learns though that this money has all gone to remove a tattoo that Bart got against his mother's wishes, he is unwilling to tell his family that there is no money for Christmas, and keeps quiet about the lack of bonus. Desperate for extra money, he hears Barney talk about working as a mall Santa, and signs up. Unfortunately, after many deductions he's left with a lot less than he expected. Then Barney comes to the rescue again, giving him a tip on a dog racing down the track.

At the last moment though Homer changes his mind, hearing the name “Santa's Little Helper” being added to the race. Taking it as a sign he bids his full paycheque on the dog, but it performs terribly and he loses all his money, while Barney's dog, as he promised, wins the race. Heading home dejectedly, they see the dog, Santa's Little Helper, being kicked out by its owner and take him home, where he becomes the family dog, the best Christmas present the Simpsons have ever had.

QUOTES
Marge (writing): “The magic of the holiday season has touched us all...”
Homer: “Marge! Haven't you finished writing that stupid letter yet?”
Marge: “Homer sends his love...”

Marge: “All right kids. Let me have those letters and I'll send them to Santa at the North Pole.”
Bart: “Oh please: there's only one fat guy who brings us presents and his name ain't Santa!”

Smithers (over tannoy): “Attention all personnel! Please keep working during this announcement. And now, our boss and friend, Mister Burns!”
Burns (over tannoy): “Hello. I'm proud to announce that we've been able to increase safety here at the plant, without increasing the cost to the consumer or threatening the management pay rises. However, for you ... semi-skilled workers ... there will be no Christmas bonuses. Oh, and one more thing: Merry Christmas!”

Homer (trying to recall the names of Santa's reindeer): “Um... Dasher, Dancer .... Prancer ... Nixon ... Comet, Cupid ... Donna Dixon!”

Homer: “Thirteen bucks??”
Pay clerk: “That's right. Less social security, less employment insurance, less Santa training, less costume purchase, less suit rental, less Christmas club. See you next year!”

Bart: “Oh come on dad. This could be the miracle that saves the Simpsons. If TV has taught me anything, it's that miracles happen to poor kids at Christmas. It happened to Tiny Tim, it happened to Charlie Brown, it happened to the Smurfs and it's gonna happen to us!”

Lisa: “What's that, Aunt Patti?”
Patti: “Oh nothing dear. We're just trashing your father.”
Lisa: “Well I wish you wouldn't, because aside from the fact that has the same frailities as all human beings, he is the only father I have, and therefore he is my model of manhood, and my estimation of him will govern my own future prospects of my adult relationships. So I hope you take into account that any knock made against him is a knock against me, and I am much too young to defend myself against such onslaughts."
Patti: “Uh-huh. Go watch your cartoon show, dear.”

Bart: “Aw! Can we keep him dad? Please?”
Homer: “But he's a loser! He's pathetic! He's .... a Simpson...”

Simpsons (singing, over the end credits): “Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say...”
Marge: “Take it, Homer!”
Homer: “Er, er, Rudolph get your nose over here, and you can guide my sleigh today....”

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Time to wrap things up and set out the cookies for Santy! All of my journals will, as ever, be closed tomorrow, Christmas Day, though technically of course they won't: you can read them, but there won't be any new entries made until St. Stephen's Day (or Boxing Day if you're not in Ireland) when they will start being updated again.

Just like to say thanks to all who have patronised and kept my journals going with your comments and contributions, and even though I was away for several months this year it seems people for some reason still want to read what I write. Talk about your Christmas miracles!

Anyway, wherever you are, whether there's snow on the ground or the sun is burning high in the sky, whether you believe in Jesus or not, whether you celebrate the holiday season or whether you are just looking forward to a break from work, may you all have a very Happy Christmas and I'll see you all back here on Friday.

Nollaig Shona, Joyeux Noel, Felices Navidades, Glædelig Jul, Hyvää Joulua,
Frohe Weihnachten, VrolijkKerstfeest , Buon Natale, Glædelig Jul Wesołych Świąt and Merry Christmas to all my friends and (almost) family here!

A few quick mentions, though this is by no means a full list, but some people I would like to single out for thanks and to send peaceful and happy wishes to at this holiday time. If you're not mentioned here, you probably didn't sacrifice enough at my temple this year. Or I forgot you. Probably the latter. I'm an old man, and my memory is going. Where was I? Oh yeah, these guys...

Vanilla, Roxy, Urban, Briks, Machine, Frownland, Pet_Sounds, Unknown Soldier, WWWP, Exo, Justin, Anteater, Misspoptart, Goofle, Janszoon, Ki and Lil, Wpnfire, WhateverDude, YorkeDaddy, Plankton, Neapolitan, Mondo, Chula Vista, Oriphiel, Freebase, Fetcher, Moss, Blaro and of course The Batlord!

May you all have a rockin' Christmas! See ya on the other side!

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Time for the final batch of selections before the New Year rolls in. I knew this was going to go beyond Christmas, but now that it's going I want to make sure to finish it, even if, as it will, it brings us out of Christmas and into the New Year.

Here we go then!


Year: 1992
Medium: Colour
Starring: The Muppets! (And Michael Caine)
Directed by: Brian Henson
Length: 100 mins

Brief comments: What's not to like about the Muppets? Kermit as Bob Cratchit, Robin as Tiny Tim, Fozzie Bear as Fezzi --- sorry, Fozziwig! The usual mix of jokes and great songs, clever little cameos and a story that follows the novel very closely indeed, The Great Gonzo as Charles Dickens notwithstanding. I think this may take some beating!

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: It's Michael Caine. Need I say more? Yes, I need. To act as he does, even being the total acting colossus he is, with mostly only muppets to spark off, is truly genius. A very high 9 for his portrayal of the old miser.
Marley: Here's where I have a slight problem. The idea of having two Marleys is an interesting one, and allows both Statler and Waldorf to reprise their favoured roles as hecklers, this time from beyond the grave, but I feel it stretches the credulity a little. And it was not necessary. Though he takes a different role, Sam the Eagle would have made a perfect Marley. For what they are, they do what they do though and I really can't award them more than a 5. The song is good though.
Cratchit: Kermie! The frog has to be awarded a 10, only the second time I've done that for this character. How could you not?
Tiny Tim: And as only the second Tiny Tim not to annoy me, Robin his nephew gets another 10. Cute without being nauseatingly so. He sings, but does not make me want to retch when he does.
Others: Miss Piggy as Mrs Cratchit is ok, but I've never liked the pig. Gonzo has to get a rating as Dickens, give him 8. Rizzo the rat is annoying and unnecessary, and just for their appearance as the gentlemen seeking donations from Scrooge, Beaker and Doctor Bunsen Burner get an 8 between them.
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: Something of an annoyingly squeaky voice, kind of half looks like an angel, bit irritating. But the scenes are represented well. Say a 6
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Jolly giant whom it is hard not to like. 7 for him.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Given that he's a silent spirit, not a bad representation, and I'll say another 6.

Faithful to the novel: Extremely. Almost word for word in places. Got to be a 9 here.
Emotion level: Some, especially in the Cratchit household after the death of Tiny Tim. 7
Puke level: Zero
Horror level: Again I say, are you fucking kidding me? Horror? With muppets? Nah. Zero.
Soundtrack: Decent songs, not too annoying, well written. Say a 7.

So our total then is 92. Being a Muppets movie adds an extra 5 and the appearance of Caine easily another 5, so that's a
Grand Total of 102! Told you it would be hard to beat!

Year: 1997
Medium: Colour (Animated)
Starring: Tim Curry, Michael York, Whoopi Goldberg, Ed Asner
Directed by: Stan Phillips
Length: 72 mins

Brief comments: For a 90s animation this is very flat and two-dimensional, quite Hanna-Barbera: there's even a dog like Spike in it! The colour is pretty washed-out and the movements are jerky, though that could be my connection I guess. Too much usage of the phrase “Right?” which is not proper for the time period.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Meh. Even with Tim Curry voicing him, he's pretty unconvincing. Drawn well, but that's about it. I'll give him, let's see, 5. The addition of a pet dog does nothing for him, and is a typical animation trick, to make it a bit more cute. Fails on all counts, unlike The Muppet Christmas Carol with Gonzo.
Marley: Given what they could have done with animation, even in the late 90s, Marley is handled poorly here, just a man surrounded by a faint green glow. He does describe what some of the links in his chain are though, which is a nice touch. Even so, I think he only deserves a 5.
Cratchit: Basically okay, but just that. 4
Tiny Tim: Almost non-existent. 2.
Others: n/a
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: A bell boy? A bloody cockney bell boy? Give me strength! Worst yet! A poor 3
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Whoopi Goldberg does a very bad Miss Marple and though the figure is black she puts on a cultured white voice, which robs the figure of any originality. A very low 4 for her, and that's being generous.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Big purple Scooby-Doo ghost surrounded by purple glow. Bah. A 3 for him.

Faithful to the novel: Pretty much so, though a few scenes are missing. The inclusion of the dog is an annoying distraction however. Say, I don't know, 7?
Emotion level: Little really. Give it a 1
Puke level: If it wasn't for the song about “Santa's sooty suit” I'd say no, but that earns it a good -4
Horror level: Zero
Soundtrack: Meh, it's ok; some good songs but nothing terribly groundbreaking. Say 6.

Total then is 36. I have to add the stars on, and there are four of them so that's an extra 20, giving us a Grand Total of 56. Pretty low really, but about all it deserves.

Year: 1999
Medium: Colour
Starring: Patrick Stewart, Richard E Grant
Directed by: David Jones
Length: 95 mins

Brief comments: Make it so! Stewart was born to play this part, so how does he do? See below, but with two titans of the cinema in this I'm expecting really great things and a high score to rival the best I've yet seen. There's an interesting start, with the funeral of Marley, and a few bits added or changed here and there, but generally speaking I'm not as impressed as I had expected to be.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Well, to be honest it's like watching Picard play Scrooge. I kept expecting at any moment that Data would come into the holodeck and inform the Captain that they had achieved orbit. Stewart plays the part exactly like Picard; he's only short of barking “Make it so!” I can't say I'm enthusiastic about his performance. 6
Marley: Ghostly and not badly acted, but nothing terribly special. Say 6.
Cratchit: Grant is good in the role, almost saving the movie, not overly simpering and not too annoying. Have to be a good 8
Tiny Tim: Not too annoying, though he does have to sing! Let's say 6
Others: Interestingly, Liz Smith of The Royle Family fame here plays Mrs. Dilber, the same character she played in the 1984 version, so for that I guess you have to award her something. 5.
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: Oh dear! Looks like a cross between Data and some gay clown! Quite innocuous though, and the scenes are well represented. Let's say 7
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Refreshingly different, in that he's not the “jolly green giant” of most other movies, but a downbeat, almost sad figure. For the difference alone I think he has to get an 8, though with I now see Want and Ignorance featured I'm upping that to 9.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Big blue silent guy, reminds me of an oversize Jawa! Cartoonish. Score 4.

Faithful to the novel: In many places, almost verbatim, though there are some slight diversions. It is, however, the first one to show the couple rejoicing at Scrooge's death due to their debt to him. Overly dramatic ending though, when he falls into his own coffin just before waking up. Pity. Altogether I would think 8 would be a fair score here.
Emotion level: Zero. It's like watching a holodeck episode of “Star Trek” mostly and it's hard not to equate Scrooge with Picard.
Puke level: Zero, though the dancing scenes at Fezziwig's always annoy me.
Horror level: Zero
Soundtrack: There's not a lot of music in it. What there is is made up of basic movie music and a few rather annoying songs. Say 5 for the lot.

So our total then for this version is 64, and with the two stars added in that's another 10, so a
Grand Total of 74. Not great really, and something of a disappointment.

There probably was never any real doubt --- after all, who can stand against the frog? --- but in any event. “The Muppet Christmas Carol” sweeps the boards here and comes in as not only very much the highest score of this trio, but I believe the highest score of any of the versions we've looked at up to now, and I sincerely doubt that anything following it is likely to beat that score. So Kermit and his men march happily into the next round.

And this being the last triplet to be posted before the New Year, it's perhaps appropriate that it also brings to a close the twentieth century versions. As we enter 2015 we'll be looking at the remaining six examples, whereafter the knockout rounds will commence.

For now, a very Happy New Year to you all!

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I'm not going to reiterate all I said in The Playlist (see there for my New Year's message as it were), but again just thanks for all the views and comments, and for your interest in my journals, especially this one. When I started this I was unsure if people woudl buy into the idea of a non-music journal, and while it wasn't by any means the first to concentrate on subjects outside of music, it was I think the first to focus exclusively on TV and films, so therefore someting of a first for me.

Over the last two years it has flourished and prospered, to the point where we are now on the cusp of 25,000 views, which is surely not bad for a journal that has only been in existence for just over two years now. I've done my best to keep it interesting, interspersing the accounts of TV show episodes not only with reviews of movies, but with other sections I think might pique people's interests, including faceoffs and the plotholes thing. Lots more planned for 2015.

In the coming year I'll be formally opening the "Dad vs Dad" Family Guy vs American Dad showdown, which will continue through the year, and maybe further, as well as launching the USS Nerdtopia on her maiden voyage, as we explore all of the Star Trek movies in order. Add to that the return of Trollheart's Cinema Craptastique, new series to come, the continuation of old ones, more movies as well as "Deconstructing The Simpsons", more plotholes and a whole lot of Star Trek, plus some other stuff I haven't even finalised or worked out yet, and the Couch Potato could end up being pretty crowded!

But bunch up, bunch up: there's always room for one more, and everyone is welcome. Hope to see some of you at least dropping in over the coming year.

Happy New year to you all, and see you real soon!
Trollheart

Okay then, time to get The Couch Potato up and running for 2015, and what better way to start with than by returning to one of my favourite shows of all time....

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Season Two: "The coming of Shadows"
2.14 “There all the honour lies”
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Ivanova is dismayed that the Senate have approved the manufacture and sale of merchandise pertaining to Babylon 5. Sheridan tells her it could provide much-needed revenue to help them run their budget but she thinks it’s demeaning. She’s even less impressed when he tells her he has chosen her to oversee the whole enterprise! On his way out of the meeting he bumps into a man who steals his link, but when he gives chase he runs into a Minbari warrior who attacks him. Knocked to the ground, he reaches for a PPG and warns the Minbari, who continues to advance, shouting “Death first!” and he has no choice but to shoot him. The whole thing is witnessed by another Minbari, who runs off. When Delenn finds out about the killing she is livid; she has been instructed by her government to carry out her own investigation, independent of that of station security, to determine whether or not to charge Sheridan with murder.

Garibaldi finds the witness but Ashan is reluctant to help, and between Sheridan and the security chief they begin to suspect a coverup, then a setup. How convenient that there was a weapon lying within easy reach. Why did the attacker grab Sheridan’s link, something that is useless once reported stolen, unless he wanted to make sure that he was pursued, lead the captain into a trap? And surely it could not be coincidence that there just happened to be another Minbari coming up the stairs at the exact moment Sheridan shot the warrior? Something does not add up, or rather, something does, most uncomfortably. But who would have set up such a thing, and why?

Talia bumps into Vir, who seems distracted. He says he has to go, and laughs as if that were funny. Delenn speaks to Ashan, but he will not recognise her as one of his own, calls her a freak. He does talk to Lennier, and tells him that what he saw was one of their people gunned down without provocation, and in the act of surrender. Sheridan is enraged, calling him a liar, but Delenn and Lennier explain that Minbari do not lie, as this would be a stain on their honour. He knows Ashan is lying though and demands to talk to him personally. Earthdome sends a high-flying lawyer to defend Sheridan, though she tells him that Earthgov has decided to proceed with an indictment against him. No matter how the trial goes, the stigma will mean that Sheridan will have to step down as commander of Babylon 5.

In the middle of all of this, Kosh arrives to remind Sheridan of the lesson he is supposed to be taking. Trying to excuse himself does not work and soon the captain is following the Vorlon to Downbelow, where he meets a strange old hermit-like woman who shows him “one moment of perfect beauty”. Vir tells Londo that he has been replaced; the position has become too important for a nobody like him, and Centauri Prime are sending someone better suited to the job. Meanwhile word of Sheridan’s pending trial is getting around and more and more meetings are being cancelled; he’s becoming a pariah. Delenn finds out something interesting about the dead Minbari. Lennier shadows Ashan and sees him paying off the thief who robbed Sheridan’s link, while in a conversation with Londo Sheridan learns that Minbari don’t generally lie, no, but they can if the lie is to help another save face.

Suddenly, the Minbari government want Ashan removed, back to homeworld. With the primary witness gone the case will collapse, but Sheridan will have no way to prove his innocence, and the questions will always be there. However when Delenn reveals that the Minbari who was killed is from the same clan as both Ashan and Lennier, the motive for the former’s lie becomes a little clearer: if he could lie to save face for his clan that would be honourable, and so he did. After Lennier meets with him and tells him that after he has gone back to Minbar, Lennier himself will admit complicity in the attack, thus saving his clan from the shame Ashan would bring upon them but utlimately disgracing it, Ashan admits everything. However he is unaware that Delenn, Sheridan and Garibaldi are all outside in time-honoured “sting” fashion, recording everything. Sheridan is exonerated: a full confession will clear his name.

But the captain realises that such an admission will destroy Lennier and likely ruin his clan, so he strikes a deal with Delenn. If she can get Ashan to admit to bearing false witness, and confirm that Sheridan acted in self-defence, no details of the case need be made public and face will be saved for Lennier’s clan.

That only leaves Vir, who is ready to leave Babylon 5 when Londo tells him that if he goes, the ambassador must go too. He has spoken highly of Vir to homeworld, telling them that Vir is an invaluable aide and he could not possibly work without him. So Vir can stay, although Londo does drop the bombshell that he has invited Vir’s whole family to the station to stay --- for a whole month! The Babylon 5 Emporium is summarily shut down when Sheridan sees that there is a cuddly teddy bear meant to represent him. They’ll just have to find the revenue from somewhere else.

QUOTES
Ivanova: “Welcome to Babylon 5, the last best hope for a quick buck!”

Sheridan: “Find that Minbari witness! He will back me up; I’m certain of it.”
Garibaldi: “Okay. Description?”
Sheridan: “Bald. With a bone in his head!”
Garibaldi: “We’re gonna need a real big lineup room!”

Sheridan: “I want to talk to that witness. He is lying!”
Delenn: “For your sake, Captain, I did not hear that. Nor did you, Lennier.”
Sheridan: “What are you talking about?”
Lennier: “Minbari do not lie. It would be a stain both on honour and on soul.”
Delenn: “For someone of another species to make such an accusation, it would require an immediate, and fatal response from the accused.”

Ivanova, bumping into guy at Babylon 5 Emporium: “Excuse me.”
Guy: “Excuse me miss” --- takes off human mask, reveals himself to be a Drazi! “Do you gift wrap?”

Corey: “May I ask what you were discussing here?”
Sheridan: “The only thing that matters: the truth.”
Corey: “Ah yes. The favourite song of the legally ignorant.”
Sheridan: “I don’t appreciate being called ignorant in front of others.”
Corey: “I’m sorry. Is naive better?”
Sheridan: “And I don’t need a lawyer!”
Corey: “Now we’re back to ignorant.”

Vir: “Back home I’m swallowed in silence, here I’m swallowed by secrets. I feel like I’m caught between fire and flood, and if there’s a way out I sure can’t see it.”

Ivanova: “Another lesson? What was it this time?”
Sheridan: “Beauty … in the dark.”
Ivanova: “Must be working. You’re starting to talk like a Vorlon!”

Londo: “The doll is a mockery! It doesn’t even have any … attributes.”
Sheridan and Ivanova: “Attributes?”
Londo: “Do I have to spell it out for you? Attributes!”
Sheridan: “Oh! Attributes.”
Ivanova: “So you feel like you’re being symbolically cast--- in a bad light?”
Sheridan: “Well put.”

Sheridan: “I never thought there could be anything worse than being all alone in the night.”
Delenn: “But there is: being all alone in a crowd. If you are cut off from your people, your government, you begin to doubt even yourself. I understand it so well that it cuts to my heart.”

Londo: “Your first real hangover, Vir. Enjoy it! I remember my first hangover. Actually, that’s not true. If I could remember it it wouldn’t really be a hangover.”

Sheridan (looking at the teddy bear and smiling): “Ba-bear-lon 5? Oh, he’s a cutie, isn’t he?” Turning it around to see the monogrammed initials on its pocket. “JS?”
Ivanova: “John Sheridan.”
Sheridan: “This is meant to be me?” (Losing the smile) “I want it off my station! I want them all off my station! I want the whole thing yanked out, boxed up and shipped out by 0800!"

IMPORTANT PLOT ARC POINTS
Nothing really. There’s the hatred of certain Minbari for Sheridan, but that’s not actually part of the arc, and we already know this. Other than that it’s a fairly self-contained episode, other than the stuff with Kosh, which won’t have any real bearing until later episodes.

SKETCHES
Lennier, of the Third Fane of Chu’domo
We generally know very little about Delenn’s quiet aide, other than that he’s pretty obviously in love with her. But here we find that he is such an honourable man that he is prepared to take the blame for something he had no hand in, in order to preserve the integrity of his clan. He is also willing, when asked, to work with Sheridan and the other humans, to entrap Ashan. And yet he has no problem felling Zack when he sees him tailing Ashan. Of course, he doesn’t injure him but it’s clear he could have had he wanted to. He may be a little guy who keeps to himself and always --- always --- speaks in a quiet, level voice --- but he can defend himself and would probably prove a tough opponent for anyone who underestimated him.

It’s also his short association with Londo that informs this episode and gives us the missing piece of the puzzle. When Mollari tells Sheridan about the incident in the Dark Star nightclub, when Lennier took the blame for Londo’s getting them into a brawl by cheating, in season one, the captain realises that not lying for Minbari is not an absolute: there are moments and occasions when they can, exceptions to the rule. Mind you, it’s a very offhand comment that secures that information, and had Londo not complained about the dolls of him on sale, the situation would probably never have arisen. On such small events and moments, Babylon 5 turns…

Lennier’s devotion to Delenn is absolute. When Ashan sneers at her, calls her a freak and asks why he trusts the humans, he says “Because she does”. Given the level of insult Ashan directs at the ambassador, it probably takes all of Lennier’s restraint not to clock him one, and when they meet in Downbelow and face off against one another, you could hardly blame him for taking the opportunity to knock some respect into his clansman. Lennier will doubtless be relieved and impressed that Sheridan thinks enough of he and Delenn that he is willing to gloss over the details of the case and only sketch in the barest outlines, saving Lennier from shame. This can only serve to strengthen the ties between Minbari and humans. Well, some of them anyway.

ABSENT FRIENDS
Just really G’Kar missing. However we must take note of the guest star appearance of Julie Caitilin Brown as the Earthforce lawyer, Genevieve Corey. This lady played the original Na’Toth, attache to the Narn ambassador, before being replaced by Mary Kay Adams. Looking like that, you’d have to say she was wasted under all that Narn makeup!

NOTE
It’s pretty obvious who was behind this. As the Minbari who attacked Sheridan was a warrior, or seemed to be, and Ashan referred to him as “Starkiller”, you would have to see Neroon’s hand in this. Certainly the Star-riders would be happy to see Sheridan sacked, sent home or having to stand down in disgrace, and would consider it the tiniest reparation for the destruction of the Minbari cruiser for which they have named him. The plan though has backfired upon Neroon, and he will have essentially Delenn to thank for cleaning his mess up and not allowing the possibility of a scandal to touch the Grey Council. Were it to become public knowledge that the Minbari high command had endeavoured to basically engineer regime change at Babylon 5, that could be a very serious matter indeed. Neroon and his cronies will have to tread more carefully from here on in: Delenn is watching them, Sheridan is watching them and they’ll both be waiting for their next move.

ZACK RISING
We’ve seen security chief Zack Allan become slowly more integrated into storylines as the last few episodes have progressed, from having just one scene to a talking part to a full role in a story. Here he is quite involved and from this point on you’ll see a lot more of him, until like Joshua Cox’s Lt Corwin, Jeff Conaway joins the main cast and even features in the opening credits. Keep an eye on him: he’s a star in the making. I’ll be tracking his progress as we go on.

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Title: Unforgiven
Year: 1992
Director: Clint Eastwood
Writer: David Webb Peoples
Starring: Clint Eastwood as William Munny, Morgan Freeman as Ned, Gene Hackman as Little Bill, Richard Harris as English Bob

If you're my age or thereabouts (god help ya!) then you were probably brought up on westerns, or “cowboy movies” as we used to call them back then. The Magnificent Seven. The Lone Ranger. The Big Country. And series like “The High Chapparal”, “Gunsmoke” and “Bonanza” on the TV. Westerns were of course most popular in the forties to about the sixties, and then began to fade a little as other, more exciting and more challenging genres like science-fiction, horror and suspense movies came through. To be totally fair to them, Westerns were seldom great works of writing. That's not to say they weren't written well, but most of them followed a basic formula, and while Sergio Leone's “spaghetti westerns” would somewhat redefine and reinvigorate the genre in the seventies, Westerns were pretty much on their way out by the following decade. In recent times they've made something of a resurgence, thanks mainly to the likes of “Dances with wolves” and “Tombstone”, but even now it's unusual to see a Western on the big screen.

That said, the last one I watched, the remake of “3:10 to Yuma”, was very enjoyable. But if you look through the history of Westerns there are big names striding across them like colosssi: Brynner, Wayne, Marvin. And in later years, one man would come to almost embody the idea of the hired gun, the nameless stranger drifting into town and causing, or getting caught up in, a whole heap of trouble. Beginning his career in the TV series “Rawhide” and later going on to become the hard-bitten cop Harry Callahan, Clint Eastwood made his name in the already-mentioned movies directed by Italian film maker Sergio Leone, and it is to these, to some degree, that this movie tips its battered, gunshot hat.

Billed as “the last great Western”, it really does turn out to be that. In a coda or epilogue to his years as “The man with no name”, Eastwood stars in, directs and produces a movie which forever draws a line under every mean western hombre he played in his younger days, and drags in the process some harsh truths out into the light. This is not a feel-good movie, where the goody gets the baddies and the girl. There is no riding off into the sunset as some unseen harmonica plays, no kicking the heels to the flanks of a trusty steed which whinnys and rears up, carrying the hero across the bleak desert, his job done, the town saved, the bad guy lying dead on a dusty street behind him.

This, if it can be termed as such, is a real Western, probably the most faithful and least fanciful depiction of what life must have been like in the Old West, and how stories get taller and taller the more they're told, and ordinary men who would laugh at the concept are made into heroes, but the reality is much different. It also finally answers that old question: just what does happen to old gunslingers who aren't killed and survive to their retirement?

We open on a typical western scene. A man stands in the setting sun, seen from a distance, raising and bringing down an axe. We can't see what's he's doing. Is he burying a rival, someone he has just killed? Is he digging for treasure, or indeed hiding some? Turns out that, under a tree and next to a ramshackle barn, the man is burying his wife, who has died of smallpox. It's two years later and we're in Big Whisky, Wyoming, a typical shithole of a town where the rain is lashing down, as if in sympathy with the pathetic lives the folk here live. In a cathouse, a cowboy takes exception to some remark made of him by one of the prostitutes and cuts her face. He leaves her disfigured, but she must still earn her living the only way she knows how, the only way she can.

The sheriff, known as Little Bill (Hackman) is reluctant to have the two cowboys hanged --- it was, after all, only a whore they cut --- and instead decides to whip them, but when Skinny, the owner of the bordello, complains that he is out of pocket as he now has one less whore to work for him, Bill fines the two instead, which does not go down well with the other ladies. They decide to pool what little resources they have and try to get together enough money to offer a reward to anyone who will come to Big Whisky and kill the two cowboys for them. Justice was not done, they think, so they will create their own justice. An eye for an eye.

We're back at the farm, where the man we saw at the start, the man burying his wife, is chasing hogs around when a stranger rides up and starts telling him that he knows who he is. William Munny (Eastwood), famed gunfighter, bankrobber and train robber, who shot more men than anyone even knows. The man denies this, annoyed, looking at the young man who sits arrogantly astride his horse, eyeing him as if deciding whether or not he has wasted his time making this trip to meet him. Invited in, turns out the youth is the nephew of someone Munny knows, calls himself the Schofield Kid, and says that his uncle told him that if he wanted a partner to help him kill someone he should seek Munny out. Schofield tells Munny about the disfigurement in Big Whisky, though by now it's become somewhat embellished: the whore lost her eyes, here ears, and so on. Schofield is going there to claim the thousand dollar reward that the other girls have offered, and wants Munny to split it with him. Munny, however, is not the man he used to be, or is rumoured to be, and declines, sending the Schofield Kid on his way.

As he watches him ride away into the distance though, Munny looks thoughtful and it's obvious he's remembering freer times, wilder times where he rode where the wind took him, and shot down any man who looked at him cross-eyed. Later he takes out his gun and practices shooting, but his late wife has “cured him of his wickedness” as he says himself, and his aim is well off. Age has caught up with him, and a farmer has little use for a six-shooter. With some perseverance though, and switching to a rifle, he finds the old skill has not deserted him. Soon afterwards he is riding in pursuit of the youth, leaving his two children to look after the farm.

In Big Whisky, Skinny discovers that the girls do not have the thousand dollars they have advertised as a reward, and worries what will happen when someone comes to collect? He goes to tell Bill, who is less than pleased, knowing that such an offer, even if the girls are lying and actually have the money, is going to attract every cowpoke and gunslinger from here to Cheyenne. They'll be flooding in, all eager to get their hands on that money and do in those two cowboys. Going to be real hard to maintain law and order round here now. And he was just getting finished building his house, too.

Munny comes to the house of his old friend and partner Ned Logan (Freeman) who he asks to look in on his kids while he's away. Ned however decides to accompany his old buddy on the trip, and the two of them rendezvous with the Schofield Kid, who is less than happy that the reward is now going to have to be split three ways. Munny, however, is immovable: it's either Ned, him and the Kid or they'll both go home and the youngster can tackle the cowboys on his own. Schofield gives in with bad grace, seeing as he has no choice, but declares that Munny will have to share his half with his friend. Munny says it's a three-way split or nothing, and Schofield has to agree, especially when they discover he's almost blind.

Meanwhile, the first gunfighter to act upon the whores' offer rolls into town, as “English Bob” (Harris) heads towards Big Whisky on a train. It's not long however before he and his travelling biographer, Beauchamps, are accosted by Bill and his men. Having disarmed Bob --- Beauchamps would not know what to do with a gun --- Bill proceeds to kick the living shit out of him, sending a message to all the bounty hunters and cowboys who plan to come looking for the “whores' gold”. Having reduced Bob, a much older --- and unarmed now --- man, to bloody pulp, he then throws him and his biographer in a cell. While they're incarcerated, Bill reads through the book which is supposedly written about English Bob, “The Duke of Death”, and laughs at the so-called true account of the episode he reads. Bill tells him the true story, and Beauchamps begins to see that Bob may not be the “English gentleman gunfighter” he has been portraying him as. When Bob is “escorted” beyond the county line, Beauchamps stays behind, reasoning that he can get more and proper material for his writings by sticking with the sheriff.

When Little Bill is told two strangers have ridden into town, armed, he goes to relieve them of their weapons, by any means necessary. Ned goes to check on the Kid --- and intimates he might take a little detour into one of the ladies' rooms while he's at it --- leaving William shivering and looking a pathetic figure on his own at the bar. When the sheriff's men enter and demand his gun, and he refuses to hand it over, Bill takes it and then doles out to the stranger the same treatment he gave English Bob, which is to say he punches, kicks and generally beats the crap out of him. Ned and The Kid meanwhile have been helped by the girls to escape, and make for their horses. William manages to crawl outside and somehow gets up on his horse, and they all head to shelter.

It's some time before Munny recovers, and the Kid watches him with growing disappointment, disillusion and realisation that this man is not who he thought he was, not any more. When he says to Ned “He's gonna die, ain't he?” there is no sorrow in his voice, and no real doubt either. He's just concerned that they won't be able to finish the job. The trio go after the cowboys and get one of them, but it's far from the triumph they --- or at least, the Schofield Kid --- had envisioned. Dyin's a dirty business, and it becomes pretty clear to the two hardened veterans that the Kid, despite his boasts, has never killed anyone. He is visibly shaken, and Munny shows his humanity when, having been the one to shoot the young cowboy, he entreats his mates to come out and allow him to have a drink of water, promising that they won't shoot them. He's clearly heartily sick of the whole business, even though he's been spending some time with the girl who these guys cut up. He knows they have to pay for what they did, but he don't have to like it. He will, however, keep his promise and finish the job.

Ned, on the other hand, decides he's had enough and is going to head back to Kansas. William says they'll head down to kill the other target and then hook up with Ned on the way back. When word reaches Little Bill that, despite all his warnings and demonstrations, one of the two cowboys have been killed, he organises a posse and they move out in search of the killers. Ned is captured and brought to him. Meanwhile, Munny and the Kid close in on the other cowboy, who has taken refuge with some of his mates. They get him as he comes out to take a shit, the Kid killing what proves to be his first man. But when the girls bring the reward to Munny and the Kid, they learn that Ned has died under interrogation, tortured to death by Little Bill, and worse, his body is now being displayed in front of the saloon with a sign saying his best friend is a murderer.

And so we kick into the final phase of the movie, where for a short, brutal period Eastwood resurrects the desperado that populated so many Spaghetti Westerns, with a shot of Dirty Harry in there for good measure. Age seems to fall from him like a cloak, and anger and revenge burn in his eyes. If he had a cigar he'd probably clamp it between his teeth and grind them till the cheroot split. He sends The Kid back to his farm with the money, telling him to take his own share and give Ned's and Munny's to his kids, then he rides on into town for one hell of a reckoning.

When he leaves town, Little Bill is dead, Skinny is dead, along with about another four of the sheriff's deputies. He rides off into the rain alone, nobody daring to stop him, and warns that unless Ned is buried with proper respect and the ladies are left alone, he will return and “kill every goddamn one of you sons of bitches.”

QUOTES
Little Bill (looking down at the cut whore): “She gonna die?”
(It's said with such offhand casualness, such total disinterest that he might as well have been talking about the weather. Bill clearly could not care less whether she lives or dies: one less whore to worry about. Still, if it did turn out to be a case of murder, then those boys may have to swing anyway. So maybe he is a little concerned, but more for himself and them than for the poor pathetic victim lying at his feet).

English Bob: “I don't wish to give offence, but I suggest this country select a king --- or even a queen --- rather than a president. One isn't that quick to shoot a king or a queen: the majesty of royalty, you see.”
Joe: “Maybe you don't wish to give offence, sir, but you are givin' it, pretty thick! This country don't need no queens whatever I reckon. Matter of fact, when I hear talk of queens I ---”
Thirsty: “Shut up Joe!”
Joe: “What's wrong with you Thirsty? This son of a bitch---”
Thirsty: “Might be that this dude here is English Bob! He's the one that works for the railroad shootin' Chinamen! Might be that he's waitin' for some crazy cowboy to touch his pistol, so that he can shoot him down!”
Joe: “Is that a fact, mister? You English Bob?”
Bob: “Pheasants. Let's shoot some pheasants. Ten pheasants, say ... a dollar a pheasant. I'll shoot for the Queen, and you for ... well, whomever.” (After the shooting match) “Well, that's eight for me and one for you. That comes to seven of your American Dollars.”
Joe (paying): “Som damn good shootin'! For a “John Bull”!”
Bob: “Well, no doubt your aim was affected by your grief over the injury to your president.”

Bob: “There's a dignity in royalty, a majesty that precludes the possibility of assassination. Now if you were to point a pistol at a king or a queen, your hands would shake; the sight of royalty would cause you to dismiss all thoughts of bloodshed and you would stand ... how shall I put it? In awe. You would stand in awe. Now, a president? Well, (pauses and laughs) why not shoot a president?”

Bob: “Little Bill! I thought you was --- I mean, I thought you were dead.”
Bill: “Lot of people thought I was dead, Bob. Hell, even I thought I was dead, till I found out I was just in Nebraska!”

Bill (reading the book in Beauchamps's bag): “The Duck of Death.”
Beauchamps: “Um, duke. The Duke of Death.”
Bill: “Duck, I says.”

Bill (while kicking seven shades out of English Bob): “I guess you think I'm kickin' you, Bob, but it ain't so. What I'm doin' is talkin': talkin' to all those villians down in Kansas, and I'm talkin' to all them villians down in Missouri, and all those villians down in Cheyenne! And I'm tellin' them there ain't no whores' gold! And even if there was, they wouldn't wanna come lookin' for it anyhow!”

The Kid (looking at a badly-beaten Munny): “His pistol must have jammed!”

The Kid: “Say Will?”
Munny: “What?”
The Kid: “That was the first one.”
Munny: “The first one what?”
The Kid: “First one I ever killed.”
Munny: “Yeah?”
The Kid: “You know I said I shot five men? It weren't true. That Mexican that came at me with a knife? I just busted his leg with a shovel, I didn't kill him neither.”
Munny: “Well, you sure kileld the hell out of that fella today.”
The Kid: “Yeah. Yeah I did. I killed the hell out of him, didn't I? Three shots, and he was takin' a shit. Jesus Christ! It don't seem real! He ain't never gonna breathe again. Ever. Now he's dead. The other one too. All on account of pullin' the trigger.”
Munny: “It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. You take away all he's got, all he's ever gonna have.”
The Kid: “Yeah. Well. I guess they had it comin'.”
Munny: “We've all got it comin'.”

Little Bill: “Well Sir you are a cowardly son of a bitch! You just shot an unarmed man!”
Munny: “Well, he shoulda armed himself if he's gonna decorate his saloon with my friend.”
Little Bill: “You'd be William Munny out of Missouri. Killed women and children.”
Munny: “That's right. I killed women and children. Killed just about everything that walked or crawled at one time. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you did to Ned.”

Those clever little touches

A man almost synonymous with Westerns and being a hard-bitten hombre who would ride for days to find a man and kill him, Eastwood finds that as he tries to mount a horse for the first time in what must be years, it is not as easy as he rememnbers it being, and he ends up dancing around in a comical/tragic circle trying to get on the horse's back, eventually ending up on his backside in the dirt. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

Whether it's intentional or not, it's interesting that the hero/antihero's name is William Munny, very close to William Bonney, the famed Billy the Kid, espeically as Munny is supposed to have this tough desperado reputation.

The times, they are a-changin'

Munny thinks little of leaving his two children, the oldest of whom can't be more than ten or twelve, to fend for themselves on the farm while he rides off after the Scofield Kid. I guess they're in the middle of nowhere; it's not as if the kids are going to be attacked or anythng, and they've probably been shown how to defend themselves. Still, social services would not be impressed!

True Western

If ever a movie was made that showed the stark, unalterable, unvarnished truth behind the tales of heroism, bravery and daring beloved of those who write about the “Wild West”, this is it. Munny may have once been a bad, evil, scary man who would shoot you as soon as look at you, and who inspired fear in everyone by the very mention of his name; a man whose fame and the tales of whose exploits would have drawn gunslinger after gunslinger into conflict with him, eager to dethrone the king, eager to prove themselves the next big thing, eager to take down the boss. He may have been all those things once, and perceived that way, but that was then and this is now. When The Kid asks him about some incident in the mythology that has grown up around his life, he tells him he doesn't recollect. He may be playing the event down, but it may also be true to say that he really doesn't remember. He's much older now, weaker and he would say a better man, or striving to be one, thanks to his late wife. He has hung up his gun and ridden his last horse (or so he thinks) into danger and adventure, and wants to put all his gun-toting days behind him. Maybe he makes himself forget, or tries to, or maybe it's just advancing age and the strain of too much whiskey and too many bullet wounds, but William Munny is no longer the man he was, much less the legend he has become, or that people have tried to make him, maybe even against his will.

This could not be demonstrated any more clearly or harshly than in the scene where Little Bill encounters him alone in the saloon, and proceeds to kick the living shit out of him. Conscious that the man is unarmed, and not caring who he is, the sheriff kicks him and sneers as Munny crawls along the floor, trying to avoid the blows. At one point, he grabs his whiskey bottle, intending to use it as a weapon to defend himself, but almost as if his erstwhile ally is turning on him, the bottle slips from his hand as he is knocked back to the floor, potential salvation --- which had been intent on being his damnation until his wife saw fit to try to change him --- snatched from his grasp.

The pathetic sight of the once-feared gunfighter cowering as he tries to evade the blows, and the somewhat shocked faces of Bill's men as they watch their boss sadistically lay into what they see to be an old drunk are telling, too: even they can see this is over the top, and perhpas some of them are seeing the real sadist in the sheriff, a man who enjoys beating defenceless people up and is no respecter of age.

But it's not just William Munny that's lying there, panting and gasping in the rain on the sodden ground outside the saloon, hoping he's not going to die. It's every gunfighter, every hero of the West, every pistolero and cowboy and rebel and desperado that ever walked, rode and fought his way through the pages of a western novel or whooped his way across the silver screen. In a very real way, this is Eastwood showing us the true West, where while a man's livelihood --- indeed, his very life --- and certainly his reputation could depend on his being faster on the draw than the other guy, every time, when old age crept up on him it gave no points for scores mounted up while the man was young: now he's old, and his past exploits don't matter a damn. In the same way as he, in his younger days, would pass by and narrow his eyes at some old-timer sitting on a bench or propping up a bar, he now is the old-timer, and the world is viewing him through the slit and narrowed eyes of the present, where his adventures years ago count for precisely nothing.

In the end, you can live on your legend --- real or built up by others --- for so long, but eventually time and age will claim you, and the harsh bitter truth comes home to roost like a dark raven alighting on your shoulder, and you know that your number is up. There will be no more heroic deeds, no more last-chance gunfights, no time to draw anymore. The other guy is finally quicker than you, and he's looking at you thoughtfully from behind a cowl as he leans on his scythe. All things pass, and so must even a legend pass into history, and the Old West must make way for the new.

Why do I love this movie?

I love the honesty in it. It's never once denied that Munny was a badass, but those days are long behind him now and he is a pale shadow of his former self. It's also almost a case of “Godfatherism” --- ”I keep tryin' to get out, they keep pullin' me back in!” --- where Munny has voluntarily, for the sake of his wife and his kids, left his old life behind, has quit drinking and settled down to the boring and unrewarding life of a farmer, but is denied this retirement when he is dragged back to his darker days, both to (I suppose) impress or at least not disappoint the youngster who seems to idolise him, and to make some decent money.

I love the way it's driven on three separate imperatives. Firstly, and most importantly of course, it's money. William is not making much of a living, scraping out an existence as a poor farmer, and a share of that rumoured thousand dollars would certainly help the lives of he and his kids. Then there's the outrage, the almost chivalrous need to ride to the ladies' defence. It's charming, but almost out of character with the West. In general, women --- especially whores --- were treated with almost contempt by the men, and the idea that anyone would seek to avenge an attack on one is pretty ludicrous by itself. Put it with a cash reward though, and suddenly everyone's Sir Lancelot. Given that, though, it's fair to say that for this trio there is certainly a sense of wounded chivarly at play. Munny, though he probably killed women and children, as he says himself later, is outraged and angry that anyone could treat a woman that way, perhaps because he himself did the same sort of thing, and wants now, at the end, to try to make up for it.

The Kid is idealistic and really does think he's riding to the rescue. For him, the money is secondary, although he goes on about it a lot. He's not really that interested. He's young, after all. Plenty of time to make his fortune. But to ride with William Munny, the legendary gunslinger, and to take on those cowboys in the name of revenge and the settlement of honour, that's far more important and it will make his name from one state to another if he can pull it off. Ned, of course, really just comes out of boredom and a sense of loyalty to his friend.

So there's chivalrous intentions, the greed for money and the need to prove themselves. Even Munny, old now and well past this sort of thing, must feel that he has still something to show the world, one last hurrah before the end, one more time before he really does this time hang up his gun. Once more unto the breach, pardners, once more! He probably realises fairly soon that he has bitten off more than he can chew, but he is not a man to back away from something once he has undertaken it. Even when Ned quits after they shoot the first cowboy, and Munny probably wants to follow him, he holds true to his promise, perhaps one of the few things he can continue to hold on to, the only real proof he still can offer that he is a man.

Then there's the downbeat tone of the movie. There's no whoopin' and hollerin' and shootin' up the town. When men are killed, it's shown to be a dark, gritty, unpleasant business. There's no honour in it. There's no joy in it. It's a job, simple as that. You kill them or they kill you. And wehn Munny is being beaten up in the bar, every moment you keep expecting him to whirl and take on Bill, his familar sneer and growl coming back, a six-shooter, carefully concealed, coming into play as he blasts away. But it never happens. The “old” Munny does not resurface, and the properly old Munny is all that's left; he must take the beating and then drag himself out into the wet streets like a dog, because he literally has nothing left that he can fight back with. To a degree, too, he may see and feel in the flying boots of Little Bill as they impact his body every cowboy and rancher, every farmer and banker, every man and woman he ever wronged screaming their dark delight and their delight as his battered body is subjected to their long-delayed revenge. All the anger, all the pride, all the cocksureness has been leeched from him, both by time and by a patient wife who has tried her best to turn him onto the road of salvation, little realising that this could in fact lead him to his death.

In fact, the first time we see the old Eastwood character surface is when he's told that Ned has been killed. Then we see the spark return to those tired eyes, the fires light behind them. Now there's really something to avenge: now real life has kicked the adventure into the dust and he's staring at a woman sorrowfully telling him his best friend --- who was not even supposed to be coming on the quest and who had quit and was heading home --- has been murdered by Little Bill. Now, let the whole world beware, cos The Man With No Name is comin', and Hell's about three paces behind him!

Even the confrontation is kind of low-key, in keeping with the overall non-exciting, non-sensationalist tone of the movie. There's no two men facing each other in the street to see who's quicker on the draw. There's no prolonged battle or chase. Munny's rifle jams but he quickly produces his pistol and shoots all around him dead. Bill goes down easily, though he doesn't die right away, and Munny has the satisfaction of looking into his eyes before ending his life forever. He then leaves, unopposed, like an avenging wind blowing in from across the desert, or a cleansing fire sweeping all before it. At this point he's no longer a broken-down old man: he has regained something of his old self, spurred by the unnecessary and ignominous death of his friend, and he is once again a force to be reckoned with, an irresistable power against which nobody can stand. But when the job is done --- and he seems to take little pleasure in it --- he rides out of town and back to his farm, returning to the life he was leading before The Schofield Kid crossed his path.

I even love the music. Far from being the uptempo, exciting, stirring music of adventure that used to colour westerns, this is a far more downbeat, laidback and slow score --- when it's there: much of the movie has no music soundtrack at all --- and is almost more suitable to a lazy day on the river than to the taking of men's lives. The entire thing can almost be taken as a metaphor for a man sleeping in the sun, waking for a moment to fire off a shot that kills someone he needs to kill, and then tipping his hat back over his eyes to ward off the bright light, slipping back into a doze.

Message in the movie

Well it couldn't be clearer, could it? It is not cool to kill people and murder, even in the old West, was murder no matter how you dressed it up. But lying beneath this very simple premise is a much deeper one. Munny wants to leave his former life behind, but does he really? When he gets the chance to go hunting down these cowboys he originally declines, but then changes his mind. Why? Is it purely the money that has attracted his interest? Or is it something more? Does he, at the back of it all, yearn for the old days of adventure and excitement, and though he would never admit it to the spirit of his dead wife, chafe to be back in the saddle and feel a gun in his hand again? Has he, really, changed at all, or is he just pretending, to himself most of all?

So the message then might be: to thine own self be true. Munny knows he's a killer: he says it near the end --- “I killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time” --- and those sort of sins can't be blotted out by a few years of honest living. Does he in fact think that perhaps he's not worthy of salvation, that he is after all damned? Does he go to meet his fate, thinking, perhaps hoping, that he will meet his maker, and that in so doing he can make up for all the lives he has taken by offering his own? If not, then why is it that he allows himself to be beaten and kicked in the saloon, but later rides into town like an avenging angel? If this was within him all along, why did he not use it then? Does he, on some deep and subconscious level, want to be punished?

There's also the Kid: he wants to make his name, and at first pretends --- boasts --- that he has killed five men, when in fact he has never even taken one life. When he does kill, it affects him so badly that he never wants to handle a gun again. He tells Munny “I ain't like you” and it's with a certain amount of horror that he could have become like his erstwhile hero, and thankfulness that he has not. So The Schofield Kid finds his own kind of salvation, almost despite himself, by seeing what sort of man he could end up being. He discovers that despite his bravado, he has not really got the stomach for killing.

So the message returns to being one of forbearance: murder is wrong, no matter in whose name or under what banner you fly it. When Munny shoots Little Bill down, he doesn't care that the sheriff isn't armed. To him, at this point, honour means nothing. It's just an excuse, and he doesn't need any excuse to kill the man who has murdered his best friend. He kills Skinny for the same reason, though it's fair to assume that the owner of the saloon probably had little choice in whether or not Ned was displayed outside his business. Munny doesn't care: to him, they're all tarred with the one brush and he will extract his cold vengeance from them all.

But if there's one clear message that stands out above all of these, it's this: the “Wild Wild West” was not the easy-going, goodies-and-baddies, go-fer-yer-gun rough and ready utopia that Hollywood spoonfed us through the early and later part of the twentieth century. It was a hard place, a tough place, unforgiving and relentless, bleak and pitiless and cold and life could be short and if it wasn't then it damn well was hard. All these smiling cowboys twirling their Colt 45s and tipping their hats to the ladies are nothing more than the construct of film-makers and the writers of western novels, and in the same way that movies such as “Schindler's list”, “Saving Private Ryan” and “Apocalypse now” showed the true, harsh, cold and bloody face of war, “Unforgiven” shows us the unvarnished, drooling, snarling, spittle-faced, shit-caking-your-pants and blood congealing on dusty streets that must really have been the West as it was carved out of the bones of America. Men --- and women --- died to tame that land, and this movie, while it doesn't completely pay homage to them, reminds us that they were real people, not actors and movie props and amalgamations of legends, stories and often outright lies.

It's the real West here compadre, and if you don't like it, then you best just ride on out of town. This here place's called Truth, and it don't have too much of a population.

THE STARS OF THE SHOW

Morgan Freeman has never been a favourite actor of mine, and here I feel he does his usual, the quiet, low-key character who talks a lot but doesn't do a whole lot. If anything, he's little more than a catalyst to set the real William Munny free by his violent death. Hackman is good in the part of Little Bill, but does not really have enough screen time to make his presence felt properly, in my opinion. No, for me, there are only two real stars here.

Clint Eastwood (duh!) as William Munny.
There could, really, be only one man who could have pulled this off without making it seem like some sort of parody, or overblown. Both acting in and directing the movie, the man with whom westerns became as synonymous in the sixties and seventies as they did with Wayne and Cooper in the forties and fifties makes this a triumph. Not because it showcases him, his character, or even to be fair his acting, which really is nothing terribly great. But because he was the spokesman for the western, the original nameless stranger, the drifter who appeared out of the dust and blew into town, usually killed a lot of people and drifted out almost with as little fuss as he blew in. If anyone was going to hammer in the final nail to the coffin of a genre that had been overexploited, lampooned, copied and bastardised for far too long, Eastwood was the man.

Almost sneering at his own roles in movies such as “For a few dollars more”, “Pale rider” and “The good, the bad and the ugly”, Eastwood presents us with a man who has blazed a trail across the West, a trail of blood and fire, a trail of dead bodies and crying widows, and laced no doubt with gold bullion from many robberies. A trail seeded with treachery and betrayal, perhaps with some kind of love and certainly with a lot of hate, and all deeply drowned in almost bottomless barrels of cheap whiskey. He rides his horse almost like a man in a dream, or a daze, kind of unable to believe he's doing what he's doing at his age, and perhaps slightly amused by the turn fate has taken for him. But he also may --- subconsciously or not --- want to impress the young kid, or indeed, he may want to not impress him, to show him, rather like Cagney at the end of “Angels with dirty faces”, that he is no hero, no god, no legend, but just a man, and a bad man at that. Not someone to emulate, not someone to venerate and certainly not someone in whose footsteps the Kid should try to walk.

He surely sees something of himself in the brash young Schofield Kid, who brags about the men he has killed and keeps pestering Ned for stories of Munny's exploits. As I've already said, he may also want to prove to himself that he can still do this, or even that he cannot, and should he survive, he will be happy to (as he does) return to his life on the farm and take care of his children, although the end lines of the movie hint that he may have moved to San Francisco, no doubt on the back of his newfound wealth after receiving the reward.

Eastwood is perfect in the role of the man who has been more or less constrained to go back to his own life, knows he is not really up to the task, and is anxious to get the job done and go back home. However, his almost absent-minded amusement disappears like ice under boiling water when he has to man up and avenge his friend, when the reality of their situation makes itself plain to him, and he must once again don the cloak of vengeance, this time righteous, and for once, as he says himself, sobre.

Jaimz Woolvett as The Schofield Kid
Although he does not receive top billing --- when you're dealing with actors the calibre and with the reputation of the likes of Freeman, Harris and Hackman, you're always going to get bumped down the pecking order ---- I really feel that between them, this young actor and Eastwood make the movie. As I've already noted, and as I'm sure was intended by the writer, The Schofield Kid (a name he has given himself and which in all likelihood nobody, bar maybe Ned and Munny, call him by) is really a younger version of Munny. He's the way he used to be: eager to get out there and make a name for himself, unafraid to kill, bragging about his prowess while never having actually having killed anyone and daring anyone to cross him.

In other ways, he's like an excited puppy, just itching for his first big adventure, but sensible enough to mask that excitement behind what he believes to be a cold mask of indifference and calm. The fact that his eyes are narrowed in the way they are, much like Eastwood's are, has more to do with his short-sightedness than any conscious effort on his part to look tough seems to escape him, and he tells nobody about his infirmity. It's only Ned who works it out (mostly from the fact that when they approach him for the first time the Kid shoots in every direction); Munny either does not care to notice or misses it completely.

But such a disability in a serious drawback for a gunfighter, especially one heading down to collect a reward by killing two cowboys in Big Whiskey, so of course it's understandable that he would say nothing, and hotly disputes it when Ned calls him out on it. There's no avoiding it though: unless the target is close up The Kid is going to be useless in a gunfight. This is of course the reason, or part of it, why first Ned, then Munny, kill the first cowboy when they're up on a hill: there's no way The Kid could even see the target never mind shoot him. But when the second cowboy is in the john, it's closeup enough that the boy can redeem himself, and kill his first man.
The transformation The Schofield Kid goes through is a tribute to Woolvett's acting as well as the story. At the outset, he's a brash, confident, arrogant kid who claims he killed five men and sees Munny as a hero, someone to look up to and emulate, someone to impress and maybe even outdo if he can. As it becomes clear that Munny is not any more the legendary figure The Kid has held in his mind, he begins to grow contemptuous of him, and when they find Munny outside the saloon, barely hanging on to his horse after Little Bill has kicked the crap out of him, The Kid stares at his broken body wonderingly and tries to find an answer: how could this man, this desperado, this scourge of the railroad and thorn in the side of the law, have allowed himself to be beaten up so badly? He rationalises it by concluding that Munny must have been taken by surprise, not able to go for his gun. Had he been able to, the Kid feels sure whoever beat Munny up would be lying dead now.

Then he throws on an extra layer of contempt by stating proudly that nobody would take his gun from him! This contempt grows as he watches his idol, now seen to have feet of clay --- or worse, just mere human flesh ---- struggle to survive and come out of his fever, and as the question rises as to whether he will make it or not, The Kid seems only concerned that should Munny die, the two of them left would be hard-pressed to finish the job. At this point, he doesn't care whether Munny dies. All respect he had for him is gone, and he is no longer looking at a legendary gunfighter, but some old broken-down farmer clinging to his pathetic life.

Finally, after he has seen what Munny does when Ned is killed, The Kid realises that he is after all the legendary figure, but now, rather than be impressed, awed or humbled by being in his presence, he is afraid, even a little disgusted. That a man could do that, so coldly, so clinically, chills him and he knows that, having experienced his first ever kill and not wishing to ever go through that again, the last thing he wants to be is like this man standing before him. Better a life of obscurity and have a clear(ish) conscience than to end up a raging monster like William Munny.

The wheel has finally turned full circle. At the end, The Schofield Kid has found the man he was looking for when he first rode to Munny's farm, but now he no longer wants to find him, wants him to just leave him alone and let him try to forget he ever knew such a man, much less wanted to become like him. They say never meet your heroes: now The Schofield Kid knows why.

Two sides of the same coin?

It's interesting the way Little Bill and Munny view women. The sheriff, gazing down in mild concern at the cut whore, shrugs and wonders if she'll die, but as mentioned above he's more worried about what he'll have to do if this turns out to be a case of murder: even dead whores deserve justice. But more to the point is that when he's warning Ned, as he whips him, that the whores are not going to support his story he tells him “Well now I ain't gonna hurt no woman.” It's important to Bill that it be seen there are lines he doesn't cross, and hurting women is one of them, although with a temper and arrogance like he has, I would hazard that there is more than one woman who has felt the touch of the back of his hand, perhaps even his fist, in the past.

Munny, on the other hand, when accused of shooting women and children, does not deny it. He does not excuse it, he does not try to explain it and he does not even condone it; it is simply a fact, a fact that he cannot ignore. He evinces no sorrow or regret that he did such a thing, broke one of the oldest and most sacred conventions of the Wild West. This may of course not be a truism: Hollywood would have us believe that there was an unspoken code in the nineteenth century West that women were off-limits, although certainly they could be in for a good beating if a cowboy was upset with his woman. But kill them? We are told not: both women and children were objects to be guarded, protected.

But really, how true is this? We can never know, without having lived through it. Contemporary accounts are unlikely to mention such a thing, if it happened, and as I say the movie studios, western writers and TV executives have all constructed this rose-tinted view of what must after all have been one of the most brutal and lawless times in American history (remember, it encompassed the Civil War), and want us to believe that a code of chivalry existed. But did it, then or ever? We hear lots of tales of knights rescuing damsels back in the dark ages, and even here, Beauchamps's book would tell us that English Bob shot a man over a lady's honour. And yet, while surely there were those who would defend the weaker sex, down throughout history women have been oppressed and used by men, so why imagine it would stop with the opening of the New Frontier? In a world where there was little if any law, who was going to stop you?

Whether this then remains the truth or not, it is the version of the truth we have been fed, and we all see cowboys tip their hats and hold doors for ladies, while they flutter their eyelashes and curtsy, perhaps giggling coquettishly. The ladies, not the cowboys! So to Little Bill (and most everyone else) the idea of killing women and children is abhorrent, and yet Munny seems unconcerned. No, that's not even right: deep down he does regret it, but he knows it happened and he can't change it so why worry about it, or worse, lie about it now? He doesn't even, to his credit, try to blame it on the drink, though he has told The Schofield Kid that he was “drunk most of the time” in the old days. Chances are, he knew full well what he was doing. Perhaps he enjoyed it, revelled in it, but even if he didn't, he sure as hell isn't going to shrink from the memory of the acts he perpetrated in his youth now.

It can also be seen as a tool; a tool, if you like, of terror. When you meet a man who stands there, rifle in hand, dead men at his feet and calmly agrees that yes, he killed women and children, you know you are dealing with one hard bastard, and your fear of, and respect for him as an adversary increases. You know you have little chance against this man, to whom not even the innocent and unarmed are a barrier, as Little Bill has seen, when Munny shoots down Skinny, who has no weapon, and thinks nothing of it. Perhaps sometimes it's good to remind people that you have the reputation you have for a reason, that it's not all stories and tall tales grown out of proportion and distorted by the passage of time and failing memory, or the need to impress, or make someone into something he is not. William Munny, the cold, narrow eyes of this avenging dark stranger say, in a soundless voice of death, was the man they say he was, and tonight, for a brief moment, he is that man again.

So Little Bill wants it to be known that he has not, and would not, (he says) hurt a woman, and William Munny calmly and coldly admits that not only would he, but he has. And it is the latter who walks out of the saloon, leaving the sheriff and his deputies dead on the floor.

Motifs and Themes

I'm not that avid a movie-watcher and it's seldom I'll latch onto a theme in one, but here it's impossible to miss. Rain. Rain and storm and wind and in the end, too, fire. But rain mostly. When we first meet Munny, at his farm, the weather, while not exactly what you'd call clement, is at least dry. As he and Ned set out on what will be their last quest together, the storm gathers behind them, almost as if it is following them, like a murder of crows or a whatever of vultures, knowing that where they go, death follows and there will be much feasting. For probably two of the three hours the movie runs for, the sound of falling rain is a constant motif throughout. It seems almost endless. We see Little Bill emptying buckets of water that have caught the rain falling through the leaky roof of the jail, and when he goes to apprehend Munny in the saloon it is teeming down.

But though the rain may be Munny's companion, it is not his friend, and is no respecter of reputation. It pisses down as he is kicked out into the sodden street, and as he lies there, almost unable to breathe, and it just as gleefully sheets down in torrents as he approaches the site of his humiliation, passing the corpse of his friend displayed outside, and again, when he rides off into the dark, sooty night, even though fire rages about him, making him seem like some avenging devil or even Jesus at the Harrowing of Hell, the rain drowns out all other sound, sluicing down as if to drown the world.

The end result of which, I feel, is that the overall mood of the film is not only sombre and dark, but miserable. As I said, these are not the deeds of heroes being recounted. This is not “How the West was won”, or “Stagecoach”, or even “High noon”. There is no glory here, no satisfaction, no triumph. Munny has been forced back into the life he has tried so hard to leave behind, forced to remember what he used to be like and to use that knowledge, that skill and expertise he had thought, or hoped, had deserted him, to bring the old William Munny back for one last fight, or properly I guess, execution, as he never gives Little Bill a chance to draw. He doesn't care that he's unarmed; to him, the laws that govern others, the secret unspoken codes mean nothing to him. They don't apply, and he ignores them the same way we ignore a fly buzzing around our face.

But it could be said, too, that the rain is a metaphor for the sorrow of his wife, perhaps watching from the world beyond, as she sees that in the end all her attempts to change her husband were for nothing. He held out for a long time, but eventually he decided of his own free will --- nobody forced him --- to go back to the life he used to lead, to be the man she had tried to make him see he did not want to be, and that at the last, he gave in to temptation and let the devil claim him. Or, looked at another way, it could be that this is a cleansing rain which, like the fire he leaves burning behind him, will wash away the sins of his past, sweep the board clean, allow him another chance at the life he wants to lead for the sake of his departed wife.

Or, you know, it could just be that it rained all the time they were filming. But even if it was unintended --- and I think not --- it's a powerful image, a sobering backdrop and one that grounds the film in the most basic of reality, reminding us that sometimes, quite often, life just pisses on you.

It's what you do when that happens that ends up making you into the man, or woman, you are destined to become.

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Yes, yes, I know Christmas is just a distant memory, but I had no idea how many versions of "A Christmas Carol" had been made before I began this, and now it's run into January, and I still haven't watched all of them! Getting there though. Hey, just pretend it's still Christmas. Or next Christmas. Whatever works for you...

Okay, so much for finishing all the 20th century versions! I somehow forgot this classic, perhaps because it's not called either “A Christmas Carol” or, technically, “Scrooge”. Bloody Wiki! Anyway, one of the very best versions from the eighties and the only live-action comedy based on the tale.

Year: 1988
Medium: Colour
Starring: Bill Murray, Robert Mitchum, Karen Allen
Directed by: Richard Donner
Length: 101 mins

Brief comments: Well who doesn't know this cheery, funny take on the story? One of the classic comedy movies of the late eighties and yet another vehicle for the multi-talented Murray, directed by Richard “Lethal Weapon” Donner. How could you miss? A modern take, it features Murray as the president of a TV network (for once, the only film in which the main character is not called Scrooge) who are putting on a live performance of “A Christmas Carol” (which they annoyingly refer to as “Charles Dickens's classic Scrooge”!), and who of course does not know the meaning of Christmas. Hilarious and quite action-packed without going over the top, Donner reining himself in so as to preserve the main and important lesson in the movie, it features cameos from some serious players.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Murray is both hilarious, nasty and a little pathetic in the part, in the role of Frank Cross (his office, for instance, holds a legend: “Cross: a thing they hang people on”!) but his infectious humour shines through the film and, as expected, he steals the show. Has to be a 9, only dropping one point because he's not called Scrooge.
Marley: Not really a Marley, but Cross's boss comes back from the dead to warn him about the visitation he is to get, and the venerable John Forsythe shines in the brief part, with some very good special effects. Must be an 8.
Cratchit: Kind of none, though Cross's secretary Grace is placed in that role, along with her son who does not speak until the very end (a Christmas miracle), and for her portrayal, even if it is classic token-black-actor/actress nonsense, I need to award her a 7.
Tiny Tim: No much to say. Kid is quiet all the way through and not that much in it. 5
Others: A host of other cameos and bit parts, including Herman the down-and-out, Loudermilk the mad worker who gets fired by Cross and then has a series of increasingly bad times before going all Die Hard with a shotgun. Mitchum as the owner of the network is, well, Mitchum, and Allen as Cross's love interest, Claire, another shining light. So we need to add another 5 each, making 20
The Ghosts:
The Ghost of Christmas Past: Fucking brilliant! Tom Waits in a taxi cab! Stunningly original, fun and right to the point. No hesitation in awarding him a 10.
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Psycho fairy godmother, reminds me of Cyndi Lauper. Superb and out of her mind. Another 10
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Big scary animatronic hooded guy, but for the scenes and the effects, which are very good, a decent 8

Faithful to the novel: Not in the least. Based very very loosely on the tale, and although the stage performance mirrors the novel, that's only ancillary to the main storyline so I can only give a 4 here
Emotion level: Very much so, right near the end. Say 8
Puke level: Zero
Horror level: Zero
Soundtrack: It's okay; standard American feel-good movie soundtrack, though I guess I have to award points for closing on a song that is not a Christmas one (“Put a little love in your heart”) and yet very appropriate. Say, I don't know, 7.

So our total is 96. Starwise we're looking at Murray, Mitchum, Allen, Lee Majors, Robert Goulet ... you know what? There are too many stars here to add them all, and anyway, a host of stars doesn't necessarily make a great movie (although this is) so let's say a modest 15 for them all. But then, it's the only (live action) comedy version, so there's another 10 for that. That makes up to a
Grand Total of 121, the highest yet! And to be fair, it deserves it.

Year: 2000
Medium: Colour
Starring: Ross Kemp, Warren Mitchell, Ray Fearon
Directed by: Catherine Morshead
Length: 72 mins

Brief comments: Finally, a Scrooge tale that is completely different! I'm no fan of Ross Kemp, and had considered not including this since it's a modern take, but then I thought well so is “Scrooged” and I'm doing that, so what the hey! Kemp is Eddie Scrooge in this modern look at the story, and it's nice to see the only contemporary version other than Bill Murray's comedy take a good hard swipe at the tale, and do a fairly decent job too. I like the way Scrooge chooses to see his first visitation as an opportunity to engage in a “Groundhog Day”-like reliving of the previous day (Christmas Eve) and seems to intend to profit by it, though he has as yet learned no lessons. The murder-mystery woven into the plot is very good too. The lessons taught at the end pull right at the heartstrings, and it feels, you know, real.

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Kemp is great in the role, a tight, pitiless, tough-as-nails moneylender whose idea of a Christmas present is to steal someone's TV and throw it over a balcony. Admittedly, he doesn't have to stretch his limited acting talent, as the part is not a million miles away from the other bad guys he's portrayed, but he does it well. I like the way he starts changing after the visit from the second ghost, but seems still to be doing it for the wrong reasons, so still needs one more shock. A high 8 for him.
Marley: Refreshing to see a black man in the role, and the modern idiom used is good too. Little cheap to use him as a two-for-one with the Ghost of Christmas Present though. I would say 9, except for the doubling-up, which loses him a point, so 8.
Cratchit: In the role as Scrooge's henchman, pretty well played. Not at all annoying. 8
Tiny Tim: Again, not at all annoying and best of all, he doesn't sing! 8
Others: Scrooge's love-interest Bella is very pivotal to the story, so she gets a 7 for her role; Marley's mother, never a character in the original for obvious reasons (Marley is much younger here, as is Scrooge) another star turn, so 6 for her, and the single mother, whose telly is taken by Scrooge at the beginning, another star, so 7 for her. Finally, Liz Smith does it again, third appearance for her in Scrooge movies, so she deserves a 5 for her part.
The Ghosts: The Ghost of Christmas Past: Scrooge's father (nice twist) played by the lovable Warren Mitchell (Alf Garnett), and the fact that he appears on Scrooge's TV set is both clever and a nod back to his son's confiscation and then destruction of the single mother's television. 7
The Ghost of Christmas Present: It's Marley, which while it's unexpected takes a lot of the impact away, as we've already met him. Not sure why they couldn't get a separate actor for this part like everyone else. 4
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Great twist, making him a kid. Even better twist, to make him Scrooge's as yet unborn son! 10

Faithful to the novel: In a general way, though the story is quite different. Innovative, and keeps the general idea there, but does it in its own way. I would have to say only 7
Emotion level: The only one I have actually cried at. Have to award this a 10
Puke level: Zero
Horror level: Despite it being a modern take, surprisingly zero
Soundtrack: Almost non-existent, so I'm afraid a low 3

So our total then is 98. However we also have to add in the stars, but though Ray Fearon is apparently a soap star I don't know him, so all I can really add is Kemp and Mitchell, so another 10 there. That would give a total of 108, but to be honest I was expecting so little from this version and was so blown away by it that it deserves another 10, so the
Grand Total is 118, which would normally have lifted it right into the next round, but it's pipped by three lousy points by Bill Murray's "Scrooged", which goes through. Pity: I would have thought this would have had a good chance against some of the others. Honourable mention though.

Year: 2001
Medium: Colour (Animated)
Starring: Simon Callow, Kate Winslet, Michael Gambon, Nicholas Cage
Directed by: Jimmy T Murakami
Length: 81 mins

Brief comments: Too many mice in this animated version. Again, the colours are very washed-out and dour looking. There's a lot of extra material added so that the proper story only gets going in about the twentieth minute. Somewhat rushed, given that it's over an hour long. Those fucking mice! What is the point??

CHARACTERS
Scrooge: Voiced by Simon Callow, he's nasty enough certainly but unaccountably kind ot the bloody mice, which is totally out of character. He's not nearly old enough. 4
Marley: Considering what they could have done with the animation, quite poor. The Marley on the doorknocker (oddly enough, this event happens after his ex-partner has visited Scrooge!) is more scary than the one who comes to see him. Very poor. 3
Cratchit: Annoying as ever. Bit of a caricature if I'm honest. 4
Tiny Tim: Not too annoying. Doesn't sing, so 5
Others: Not really. Even Robert Llewellyn (“Red Dwarf"'s Kryten) as Old Joe can't rescue this trainwreck.
The Ghosts:
The Ghost of Christmas Past: Decent enough; changes from young girl to old woman, good touch. 7
The Ghost of Christmas Present: Basic, but he does have the horn of plenty thing. 5
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come: Quite scary for a cartoon. Decent enough. 7

Faithful to the novel: Hardly. There's a lot of extra stuff added as said, and the idea is that Belle was Fan's friend, which was certainly never mentioned. Fan died I believe before Scrooge even met her. Scrooge seems to think giving out oranges on Christmas morning is a grand gesture; he doesn't offer any money to the gentlemen collecting for the poor. The odd storyline with Belle and the hospital is ludicrous, and the reconciliation is just a mess. Talk about shitting on the story! Something of a confused interpretation. I've never done this before but I'm giving this a minus rating. -8.
Emotion level: Zero
Puke level: I would say zero but the fucking mice add in a -6
Horror level: Zero
Soundtrack: Not bad, what there is of it. Touches of The Alan Parsons Project in the music that accompanies the Ghost of Christmas Present, some nice piano music intervals, some choral singing and two songs specially written for the movie. Okay I guess. 7

So the total then is 28. The stars add another 30 which lifts it to a very undeserved
Grand Total of 58.

So that makes "Scrooged" the winner of the penultimate set of the first round. Barely, but it scrapes through against Ross Kemp, proving perhaps that comedy is stronger than being tough? Anyway, one more round of this to go and then we'll be into the knockout stages.

Looking forward to your Star Trek month, even though I think you'll need 2 or even 3 to do it justice.

Btw a great review of Unforgiven a fantastic western and Richard Harris as English Bob:finger:

Also bear in mind that Sergio Leone impacted in the 1960s and not the 1970s.;)

Oh don't get me wrong: I'm not in any way trying to squeeze all of Star Trek into one month. That would be insane. All I'm doing is kicking off coverage of the three series I'm doing, reviewing as many of the movies as I can manage, and running features like top tens, the odd smackdown and anything else I can think of. It's gonna be fun, but I know the actual coverage of the Star Trek material will extend way beyond and probably for years to come. After all, there are a total of seventeen seasons between the three!
Thanks man. Glad someone appreciated it. That was a LOT of work!
My bad. I didn't see too many of the Leone movies...

You need to invest in watching Leone and Corbucci the two Sergios, as both redefined the western.

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Episode Three, in Which Arthur Learns some Uncomfortable Truths, is Reunited with an “Old Friend”, Walks the Surface of a Planet That Does Not Exist, and Mysteriously Hurts his upper Arm.

Zaphod Beeblebrox believes he has located the fabled planet of Magrathea, which used to be the centre of a vast planetbuilding empire which constructed custom-made planets for the galaxy's super-rich. Ford does not believe it: Magrathea is a children's tale, he tells his friend. It does not exist. Trillian is more interested in feeding her pet white mice, and is most upset when they escape after the ship has been, against all logic, attacked from a dead planet by an automated missile system. Unlike most missile systems this does not destroy the ship, but then that's because this ship is, remember, the Heart of Gold, which possesses the infinite improbability drive. When there seems no way to escape the missiles Arthur, in a rather uncharacteristic act of both bravery and logic, pushes the button that engages the drive. The missiles are thereafter changed into a bowl of petunias and a large sperm whale.

Having successfully avoided the attempt to stop them landing, the guys bring the ship down to the surface of Magrathea, Zaphod convinced that the wealth of the galaxy lies therein. Arthur is told to stay behind on the surface with Marvin while Trillian, Ford and Zaphod go down a tunnel and into the interior of the planet, Zaphod having remembered that the inhabitants all lived inside the planet. When Arthur asks him if this was due to some natural catastrophe or pollution, he returns “No. They just didn't like it very much!” It is Arthur who seems to make contact though, as the man whom they saw on the hologram advising them of the missile attack walks along the beach and invites him to accompany him.He calls himself Slartibartfast, and advises Arthur that the planet is alive with industry again, awoken from its millennia-long slumber to undertake one custom job.

Arthur is more than amazed to see that the special, custom planet under construction is none other than his home planet, the Earth. Or, as Slartibartfast corrects him, the Earth Mark II. He tells Arthur that the original planet which was his home was one of their creations. He is further amazed and aghast when he is told that the Earth (and the new Earth Mark II) were commissioned and paid for by white mice! Slartibartfast says that the destruction of the original Earth was “a shocking cock-up: the mice were furious!” Even after all he's been through, Arthur can feel his grip on reality slowly slipping away like quicksand beneath his feet.

QUOTES
The Book: “In those days, spirits were brave, the stakes were high. Men were real men, women were real women, and small blue creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small blue creatures from Alpha Centauri.”

Ford: “Magrathea?”
Zaphod: “Yeah!”
Ford: “You found it?”
Zaphod: “Yeah!”
Ford: “Zaphod, Magrathea is a fantasy planet. It's a fairy story that parents tell their children when they want them to grow up to become economists.”
Zaphod: “No. We're in orbit around it!”
Ford: “Zaphod, I can't help what you may personally be in orbit about, but ...”

The Book: “Arthur's next question is very important and valid, and Zaphod's response to it is wrong in every important aspect.”
Arthur: “Is it safe?”
Zaphod: “Of course it's safe! Magrathea has been dead for over five million years!”

Slartibartfast (in hologram): “It is most gratifiying that your enthusiasm for our planet continues unabated, and we would therefore like to assure you that the guided missiles now converging on your ship are part of a special service we extend to all of our most ... enthusiastic clients. And the fully armed nuclear warheads are of course merely a courtesy detail. We look forward to yoru custom in future lives.”

Zaphod: “Hey! This is terrific! They're trying to kill us! You know what that means?”
Arthur: “We're going to die?”
Zaphod: “Yeah! No! Maybe... look, it means there's something down there they don't want us to have. And if they don't want us to have it that bad, I want to have it worse!”

Ford: “Well, can you fly the ship?”
Zaphod: “No. Trillian?”
Trillian: “No.”
Zaphod: “Fine. We'll do it together.”
Arthur: “I can't either.”
Zaphod: “I guessed.”

Trillian: “Zaphod, do you think we could stabilise our X zero zero if we split the flightpath tangentially across the sum and vector of 9X7G8 with a 5/3 inertial correction?”
Zaphod: “Wha? Oh, yeah, yeah! Just do it, will you?”
Ford: “Hey it worked! Where did you learn a stunt like that?”
Trillian: “Going around Hyde Park Corner on a moped.”

Zaphod: “Hey! Did you do that Earthman?”
Arthur: “Well, all I did was ...”
Zaphod: “That's a pretty hoopy piece of thinking, you know that?”
Arthur: “Well, it was nothing really...”
Zaphod: “Was it? Oh, forget it then.”

Trillian: “What are you supposed to do with a manically depressed robot?”
Marvin: “You think you've got problems? What are you supposed to do if you are a manically depressed robot? No don't try to answer; I'm fifty thousand times more intelligent than you and even I don't know the answer. It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level!”

Marvin: “Life! Loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it.”

Arthur: “Night's falling, Look, robot! The stars are coming out.”
Marvin: “I know. Wretched, isn't it?”
Arhtur: “But that sunset! I've never seen anything like it in my wildest dreams! Two suns! It was like mountains of fire, boiling into space!”
Marvin: “I've seen it. It's rubbish.”
Arthur: “Only had the one sun on my planet. I come from Earth, you know.”
Marvin: “I know. You keep going on about it. It sounds awful.”
Arhtur: “Oh no. It was a beautiful place.”
Marvin: “Did it have oceans?”
Arthur: “Oh yes! Great big, wide, blue, rolling oceans.”
Marvin: “Can't bear oceans.”
Arhtur: “Tell me, do you get on well with other robots?”
Marvin: “Hate them.”

So this is it, we're going to die

Not surprisingly, Arhtur says this as it seems they cannot avoid the missiles that have locked onto them from the planet Magrathea. Well, you can hardly blame him really, can you?

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Episode three

Urquhart is back at the Palace, where the king is incensed to find the Prime Minister is still delaying announcing the date of the general election, which he announced some time ago he would hold. As he says in the quote section, Urquhart engages in some verbal fencing with the monarch, clearly enjoying his discomfort and happy to string him along. What he is not happy about, however, is that he knows that the King has been trying to organise opposition against him; principally members of the opposition, as well as some of his own party. His eyes are very cold as he tells the King he will not accept this attempt at a bloodless coup. He has had, as he probably had expected, no success in changing the King's mind ––– his Majesty now intends, apparently, to go on television, making his own television programme ––– and refuses to show Urquhart a draft of the script. He says it's still in production, but of course we know that's not true: he just doesn't want the Prime Minister editing, censoring or changing any part of it. Urquhart goes to see the King's ex-wife, the divorced Princess (who is never named) and explains the dangerous path that her ex-husband is now treading. He is fully aware that she has no interest in saving the king, or dissuading Urquhart from his path. In fact, she would probably be happy to see him destroyed ––- as long as her son, the king in waiting, gets to ascend the throne after he is gone. She makes this clear when they meet; Urquhart now knows that he has another very powerful ally.

With no interference from Urquhart ––– although he can't say it was from lack of trying ––– the King's broadcast goes out on television. He speaks about the poor, the homeless, the jobless, and a new spirit of caring that needs to be fostered throughout the country. His speech, if you will, is a direct challenge to and confrontation with the government and Urquhart does not like it one little bit. He puts a brave face on it the next morning, in front of the reporters, but once the door of 10 Downing Street closes behind them that smile vanishes and he flies into a rage. He is particularly savage with Stamper, blaming him for not keeping the tabloids and the popular press under his heel, as Urquhart had instructed him to do. Stamper is not happy: not only is he chewed out by his boss, it happens in front of Sarah, which adds to his embarrassment and humiliation. When he asks Urquhart for a private word, he is savagely denied. It seems like FU is laying all of, or at least most of, the blame at the feet of the man who used to be his right hand, and who (perhaps foolishly) believed he was also his friend. He is beginning to realise now that Urquhart has no friends ––– he has people he uses, as long as they are useful to him; and when he has no further use for them, he throws away like a crumpled up cigarette packet. In the case of Stamper, it would seem that Urquhart is either giving up smoking, or about to open a fresh packet ––– a pack with Sarah Harding's name on it.

Intending to take out his anger on Brian Brynford-Jones, the newspaper boss he sees as having betrayed him, Stamper is perhaps surprised to find that he ends up more pouring out his heart to him, talking about how "Francis has changed". He's obviously torn between loyalty and a pathological need for revenge. And yet, it's almost as if Stamper is Judas, agonising over betraying Christ, trying to find a different way but really knowing there is none. In the end, as we all know, Stamper will do what is best for Stamper. The friendship he had with Urquhart will be sacrificed to ensure his own survival: exactly as FU would have and will do in his position. He is however rather surprised to find that he may have friends where he did not realise he had any: Brian tells them that, were he to try to fill Urquhart's shoes, he may indeed have supporters and backers. Seems the whole country is getting a bit tired of Urquhart and his policies: a lot of people think it really is time for him to go.

The King's speech has gone over extremely well, so much better than he had expected to it to. But then, when you tell people what they want to hear, when you tell them everything will be okay without actually telling them how you're going to make everything okay, when you throw out grandiose phrases, ideas and promises without any real plan behind what you say, you'll always be popular with the people. Anyone could make such a speech: it's backing it up that's the hard work. It does however cause a serious swing against Urquhart's government, for which he is extremely annoyed and determined to redress the damage. David Mycroft has turned up, after his romantic tryst with his new best friend, and as he, Chloe and the King discuss the performance of the monarch on the television, and the pretty much overwhelmingly positive reaction from the public to that speech, they are unaware that they are being monitored ––– one can only assume by Urquhart or some arm of his government ––– as Chloe tries to push the King further down the political path, telling him in no uncertain terms ––– telling him word for word in fact ––– that Urquhart is his enemy. The King, however, knows that as a constitutional monarch there is only so far that he can go; he has no intention (he says) of taking on the government, much less the Prime Minister.

When the King angrily dismisses Chloe for suggesting that Urquhart is his enemy, and he should go on the offensive against him, David Mycroft, completely unaware that they are being monitored, tells the King that Urquhart will use any and every tactic against him in the coming battle. He agrees with Chloe that Urquhart is the King's enemy, and rather than have this news used against the King, he begins to tell his Majesty about his own homosexuality. It's a brave move, a courageous move, but unfortunately it will backfire spectacularly, as those who now listen in on the King's private meeting with his closest advisers are about to suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, have some major ammunition delivered right to their door. Sadly for them, and luckily for Mycroft, the King holds up his hand and says no: your private life is yours, none of my business, has nothing to do with your job. At that point, as much as the listeners must hate the King for preventing them from finding out what Mycroft was about to tell him, David must love the King even more for being so understanding and so circumspect.

Urquhart finally names the date for the general election, after resisting many calls to settle on a date, from the opposition to the king himself. However he is concerned that the groundswell of support for the king could reflect a backlash against his government, sweep the opposition into power, and he and his party into the gutters of history. Things are further exacerbated when Quilley of all people stands up in the House of Lords and makes an impassioned speech in favour of the measures proposed by the king. Always a bastion of the government, even this high house has now begun to turn on Urquhart and his unpopular government. Things go from bad to worse for Urquhart when off his own back Stamper sets one of the junior ministers, John Staines, to raise a point of order in the House of Commons. As this point of order concerns moral rectitude, decency, family standards, family values and so forth, it is rather unfortunate (and Urquhart knows this, and is fuming about it) that Staines is almost immediately afterwards arrested and charged with sexual crimes against underage boys. Staines has mentioned in his point of order speech that "foxhunters get a better view of things from their high horses, I suppose": it's pretty ironic that his own moral point of view is almost right away shown to be very much more flawed than those of the occupants of the House of Lords.

Urquhart has Sarah draw up a new plan ––– his response to the King's attempt to, as he sees it, drag England back into the days of the welfare state ––– but Sarah is facing problems at home, both from her husband, who has not surprisingly figured out what's going on, i.e. that this is not just a professional relationship ––– ("I can smell him on you!") ––– and from a mysterious voice on the telephone, which warns her not to poke into affairs that don't concern her, specifically enquiries relating to Mattie Storin, unless she wants to end up sharing her fate. Rather than scare her off however, the threat only spurs her to look deeper into the story behind Mattie. She ends up speaking to John Krajewski, Mattie's old friend from the Chronicle, who tells her what seems to be a lot of conspiracy theory: about offices and buildings being bugged; people disappearing, shadow projects, the usual thing. But John knows what he's talking about. He warns her she is in great danger if she is investigating Mattie's death; he tells her that he believes that Urquhart murdered Mattie (or had her murdered), and when she expresses ––– not surprisingly ––– disbelief at this theory, he says that he knows that Urquhart had his hand in the death of Roger O'Neill. But he can't prove any of it as Mattie's tapes were stolen when she died. He believes that he is soon to die himself, and says he just wishes they'd get on with it: he knows too much, and he is a loose end which will have to be tied up. He leaves Sarah in a state of disbelief, but growing suspicion and perhaps just a modicum of acceptance of what must be a dark truth to be revealed.

Urquhart calls in Bruce Bullerby, whose newspaper's coverage has been less than, shall we say supportive? He shows him some photographs, taken of him and the Princess, and Bullerby knows that he is being blackmailed. But it's not as simple as money ––– it never is with FU --- no, Urquhart wants something completely different. First of all, more support from "their friends in the media", a position Bullerby is quite happily to adopt. But that's not all. He now tells Bullerby to release and print the memoirs of Princess Charlotte. Bullerby is understandably reluctant to do this: after all, she only agreed to let him write her memoirs on the understanding ––– the strict understanding ––– they would not be published until after her own death. There are some very embarrassing, damning, humiliating revelations that have been made known to the newspaper editor, and the Princess, apart from her own embarrassment, has been warned that if she exposes royal secrets she could be very much in danger. The promise not to expose her memoirs until she dies had been given to her by Bullerby when they began this enterprise. Now he is being asked ––– ordered really ––– to go back on that arrangement, and to ultimately betray the Princess, who he has actually begun perhaps to have feelings for, or at the very least, not to hate. But as ever, when it's his skin or someone else's, Bullerby will sacrifice whoever needs to be sacrificed. It's the pictures ––– the embarrassing revealing pictures of him and the Princess ––– to be published, or the memoirs. It's his choice. He too now realises he has been played, used by Urquhart, as the man uses everybody.

Krajewski's prophecy turns out to be true when his body is dumped on waste ground, his killing seeming to bear all the hallmarks of an IRA execution. When Sarah hears this on the radio, she is understandably shaken: after all, the last time she saw him the journalist intimated that she might be next. And when she tells Urquhart about it --- and if she's honest with herself, looking deep into his cold, almost reptilian eyes, she must feel the hand of death on her shoulder --- it's pretty clear that the Prime Minister is not happy that she has been researching his ex-lover, and we all know how far he will go to protect his secrets…

Armed with his new weapon, his ace in the hole, Urquhart goes to the King, explaining that should His Majesty toe the line and withdraw from confrontation with the government, and with him personally, Urquhart will be able to "persuade" the paper to refrain from running the article, and thus save the reputation of the Royal family. But of course the price of this deal is the King's silence and allowing himself to be reined back in by Urquhart. The King, somewhat surprisingly perhaps, tells Urquhart to publish and be damned. He will not be blackmailed, and believes he has enough support among the people to be able to take on Urquhart. He tells him that people are tired of muck-raking and scandal, that his tactics will not work. Furious, Urquhart leaves, realising that perhaps once again, he has underestimated the young king. More drastic, serious measures will have to be taken if he is to retain his grip on power.