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Monsters & Mullets: She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword (1985)

Just a quickie guide before we get into this, the “feature-length” origin adventure of She-Ra, barbarian princess of tie-in toys. Mattel passed up the opportunity to produce the Star Wars tie-in toys, a decision they never came to regret despite the series’ immense and lucrative popularity. Oh, ha hah, I kid. How I kid. The Mattel muckity-mucks spent the next few years sacrificing Barbie dolls to Ba’al in exchange for another shot at the Lucasian stupid-money.

Then, in the very early ‘80s, Mattel’s lead designer slapped some clay muscles onto a doll made of knocked-together parts from some random line and Mattel declared his creation “good.” Then he named it He-Man, generic enough to be marketed really easily, and the Mattel called it “very good.” And thus, in 1982, was He-Man brought into the world. It was a world obsessed with swords n’ sorcery, delighted by all things barbarian, and right then, totally digging on Conan (the Schwarzenegger film was one of 1982’s major hits).

The toy line sold well, but Mattel wanted more. So they created a tie-in animated series and BOOM. Lucasian stupid-money achieved.

Doctor Who: The Movie (1996)

I like Paul McGann.

I saw him on stage recently, and he invested a fairly two-dimensional and heavy-handed character with a dignity and gravitas. And I like him on Luther, in his thankless role as sad-sack non-rival to the riveting Idris Elba. He's got massive presence, and I respect that he doesn't vanish under the weight of thankless roles.  Let's see how he does in the infamously terrible Doctor Who movie.

I couldn't be bothered to go search for or make screen-caps, so I've re-enacted key scenes from the Doctor Who movie with action figures and such props (index cards; candy wrappers) as came to hand.

Godwin's Other Law

Now I’ve returned from holiday, I’ve watched the latest Doctor Who episode: Let’s Kill Hitler. I’d been uneasy about it ever since I heard the title, and it was probably unfair to prejudge it that way. It’s probably also true that I went into it expecting the worst, but it still bothered me, a lot, and I wanted to talk about why.

Steven Moffat has said that he didn’t want to treat Hitler as an icon of evil, that the best way to handle him would be as a joke. I understand what he’s getting at, and he’s right that Mel Brooks has done exactly the same thing. But – and it does make a difference – Mel Brooks is a Jewish man who actually lived through the Second World War. He didn’t just live through it, he served in the US Army, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and saw exactly how German occupation ravaged Europe. If he wanted to make fun of Hitler, I think he earned the right.

And maybe Steven Moffat has that right too, but Let’s Kill Hitler wasn’t even about Hitler. It didn’t have anything to say about World War II, or all the moral tangle around it, it just wanted to use Nazi Germany as an exotic backdrop for its knockabout fun. I can see why – it looked great. As Leni Riefenstahl demonstrated, the Nazis knew a thing or two about putting together a kick-arse mise en scene.

Friday Five: Detectives

We realized early on that we hadn't devoted much time on Friday Five to crime. So we tasked ourselves this week with listing our favorite detectives, in any medium. Predictably, however, the conversation soon devolved from "detectives we like" to "detectives we'd hang out with" to "detectives we'd do." As if we needed more proof that we're base and perverted people.

Join us after the jump in discussing the style, abilities, and general shagability winningness of our favorite snoops, shamuses, gumshoes, PIs and, uh, dicks.

Top Five: Genre TV

We had so much fun assembling and arguing about our top five genre novel picks last week that we've decided to make Top Five a weekly feature. 

This week: genre tv!

How Rez Taught me to Stop Worrying and Love Torchwood

In my extremely delayed misspent adolescence, I went clubbing quite a lot. I love the more euphoric end of the dance music spectrum and, though I was rather late to the party, Dreamcast classic Rez (now on Xbox Live Arcade) looked like it would be right up my street. Rez, for those who’ve never played it, is a trippy rail shooter with a techno soundtrack.

The only trouble was, I AM UNSPEAKABLY RUBBISH at twitch games. I am so rubbish that I couldn’t actually get past the first level of Rez to hear the rest of the bangin’ tunes. Let me give you an idea of just how bad at twitch games I am. When I was playing Half Life 2, I got so stuck I looked up the cheat codes to give myself unlimited health and ammo and I STILL COULDN’T FINISH THE GAME.

Oh GLaDOS, Don't Ever Change!

(Be warned - massive spoilers for Portal 2 and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles will follow.)

When I was younger and fonder of beige, I really quite enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation and Data’s whole Space Pinocchio storyline. I loved Asimov’s Bicentennial Man too, before it got all Robin Williamsified. As I got older and learnt words like ‘subtextually’, ‘narrative’ and ‘imperialist’ I might have noticed that, subtextually, it was rather an imperialist narrative. Everyone who isn’t us can become like us if they just try hard enough, and what’s more, they should really want to. But it didn’t matter. I’m just a sucker for that kind of redemption story.

Then, three years ago, along came Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Cameron. For those of you who haven’t watched T:TSCC – and you really should, because it’s fabulous – Cameron is the new Terminator sent back in time to protect John Connor. And it seems, at least at first, that they’re going to do the same thing with her that they did with Schwarzenegger’s Terminator in T2, teaching her all about the value of human emotion, kindness, compassion and… oh, you know the schtick.

Eleven Lovely Libraries

Some of our favorites (with a lot of help from the Twitter hivemind):

The Scar (China Miéville): Pretty sure that Mr. Miéville's snuck in on every one of our lists, but the trend isn't stopping now. The free-floating 'pirate' city of Armada carefully captures every book from every ship it encounters. The result is an jaw-dropping collection, packed with the random literary detritus of a hundred cultures. 

Savage City (Sophia McDougall): Ms. McDougall rewrites two milennia of human history for her trilogy in which the Roman Empire never fell. Perhaps the most endearing part of this divergence is the continued existence of the Great Library at Alexandria. Not only is it delightfully un-burnt, it has expanded into a sprawling institution with new outbuildings reflecting centuries of expansion. Notably, women are still not allowed in without an escort. 

Sandman (Neil Gaiman): Twitter overwhelmingly declared Neil Gaiman's The Library of Dream to be their favourite fantasy library. And what's not to love? Lucien carefully preserves not only every book that's been written, but also every book that's ever been thought of - completed or not. It must need to add a new wing every year for NaNoWriMo. (Thanks to @falldogblue, @JonOliverEditor, @Neverwhere and @LizUK)

Spartacus: Blood & Sand by Rob Berg

I was very honored when I was asked to take part in V Days of Rome. Then I got excited when I realized it would be the perfect opportunity for me to plug Spartacus: Blood and Sand, a television drama set in Ancient Rome that expands on the historical tale most famous now for being a movie starring Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier. 

Blood and Sand seemed to come out of nowhere on Starz, a premium channel not previously known for its quality original content and quite rapidly established itself as one of the best and most addictive shows on the magic picture box. Over at my website,http://www.robwillreview.com, I've reviewed every episode of the show to date (including its 6-episode prequel miniseries, Gods of the Arena, which only finished airing recently), but because they're specifically tailored to people who already drank the gladiatorial Kool-Aid, I'd like now to specifically address those of you who may not know as much about the series.

Without further ado, here, in no particular order, are my top 10 reasons that you absolutely must, must, must drop whatever you're doing this very instant, go out and buy the DVD or Blu-ray, and gorge on the deliciously sexy, gory, jawdropping, twisty, twisted, surprisingly literate, epic, stunning opera of awesome that is Spartacus: Blood and Sand...

Rome (2005, 2007)

Dear dirty dumpling Rome.

In theory, Rome shouldn't be a quarter of the success that it is.  It's grim and it's gritty and it's dark and it's seriously depressing.  Happiness is never more than ephemeral, no good deed goes unpunished, and shit rolls downhill with the destructive momentum of a cartoon snowball speeding down a cliff-face.  The series was hugely expensive, hugely complicated, and ultimately finished by a catastrophic accident. 

Rome began life as the bastard love-child of John Milius, who hadn't had a major hit since 1982's Conan the Barbarian, Bruno Heller, who'd never had a hit at all, and William J. MacDonald, an American lawyer cum producer.  And yet, somehow, they managed to convince HBO and the BBC to co-produce what would explode into one of the most expensive television series ever made. 

And disaster, in true cinematic fashion, struck.  Rome was decreed too expensive and cancelled after its second season.  Then a cruelly puckish twist of fate would ensure that no third season could ever be produced: on August 9th, 2007, a fire broke out at Cinecitta Studios, Rome's historic film studio, eventually ravaging 3,000 square meters of the complex - primarily the Rome sets. The gods of finance handed down judgment, the set was deemed too expensive to rebuild, and the series went permanently dark on a particularly grim and frustrating cliffhanger.

So how does the ruinously expensive, I, Claudius-inspired white-trash Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead-esque Rome fare?

It's fucking awesome.