The years of the clown

In 1991 I was lucky enough to be at the first Manopticon convention inManchester.  It boasted two Doctors in attendance, the author of this Blog’s favourite: Colin Baker, and my Doctor:Jon Pertwee.

On first, rascally Baker told a Two Doctors anecdote about his co-star, Patrick Troughton which garnered prolonged, thunderous applause that must have shaken the venue’s foundations. “You hear that, Pat?” shouted Baker, casting his eyes heavenward, before grinning and adding “Good, Pertwee will hear this and think it’s for me!”

Whether Baker ever knew that Pertwee wickedly returned the favour the following day with an equally rapturously-received Troughton recollection from The Three Doctors is not on record.

The point is: everybody loves Pat.  Of all the ‘classic Doctors’, the Cosmic Hobo never seems to have endured the ‘cooling-off’ period which the others have; never had to suffer the slings and arrows of capricious fandom.   And anyone who’s ever seen Troughton, in anything, can see why.  Whether it’s opposite Christopher Lee in Scars of Dracula, or Gregory Peck in The Omen, is abundantly clear he could hold his own against the very best in the business.

Opposite the likes of Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury however, he didn’t just have to hold his own, but seemingly support entire last-minute and rewritten stories, brace hours of near-identical bases under siege and carry drab set-fulls of interchangeable characters.

There, I’ve said it.  I’m sorry: while I unhesitatingly agree that Patrick Troughton and the Second Doctor are a sublime creator and creation, but that doesn’t mean all his episodes were too; as hard as many might want to believe.  The reputation of Troughton’s run seems ironically enhanced by the fact that so little remains.  This scarcity of evidence has led many to smile fondly at the memory of masterpieces almost none have actually seen, even after the hard lessons not learned following the recovery of Tomb of the Cybermen.

We often forget how close the end credits of the tenth instalment of The War Games came to being our last Who ever.

I admit I’m shallow: the murky, stagey, shouty remains of the Sixties are never the first place I go when looking to watch some Who.  And I also know the dangerous ground on which I walk, recalling well that fateful interview that Matthew Waterhouse gave DWM, when he committed the cardinal sin of giving his honest opinion about a certain Troughton-era companion.  The vilification young Adric received in the following month’s letters page even caused DWM to distance itself from Mr Waterhouse’s personal views.

Despite some assertions that Troughton is not entirely ‘in character’ throughout, The Three Doctors remains one of my favourite Second Doctor stories.  Unhindered by his traditional monochrome baggage, he’s delightful: puckish, feisty and his irreverence and smoke-screen frivolity lend the story it’s funniest and most memorable moments.

I love the Second Doctor as much as any of the others, possibly more so as he always tried to give my own favourite a hard time, and I still love him.  But like any other incarnation, his stories are far from perfect, his companions far from flawless and his monsters some way from being universally convincing.  The Second Doctor: not the Messiah, just played by a very, very good actor.

Zeus Blog wishes to distance itself from the personal views of Mr Hughes.

AH

Sunday’s reported passing of classic series designer Ray Cusick offers yet another grim reminder that the success of the early series and its revival in the Twenty-first century owes much to the dedication and inspiration of a dwindling number of hard working men and women from as far as fifty years ago. Through to today while the story of Doctor Who’s own genesis is being committed to film, the likes of Ray Cusick have been a line connecting the early production plans for a fledgling children’s TV serial of little-known promise to today’s near-juggernaut of popular culture. Palpably, if one can attribute the success of Who in its first year to its most recognisable, imitable and recollectable invented image – the Dalek, and thereby attribute the successful return of the series in 2005 to the labours and loyalty of mature fans of the ‘classic’ series, then we can correctly say that the name Ray Cusick deserves to be held alongside those of Verity Lambert, Donald Wilson, Terry Nation and Sydney Newman as those Without Whom we would not be here as bloggers, viewers, creators and fans alike.

But beyond that impressive and enduring dalek silhouette lies an equally impressive body of work. Cusick was not only the designer of the Daleks, but the visionary of their city and world, the petrified forest and steel-lined corridors that dominate the early serial. Beyond Skaro Cusick’s imprint is also on the Sense Sphere and Mechanus, each featuring vaulted, Gaudiesque architecture that give organic lines to an otherwise stainless and hard-edged futurism. For better or worse Cusick’s work is also throughout the six episode travelogue that is The Keys of Marinus – anyone who owns the DVD to that story will know how vocally disappointed the designer was with his efforts there, but I can only admire the resourcefulness of a man who, faced with six location changes over the same number of episodes, a very tight budget and the usual turnaround expectations actually delivers. Moreover, there are clear examples in the series where it is Cusick’s eye for detail and design that save an otherwise unremarkable story – the enormous props for Planet of the Giants, for one. And before we connect Cusick with alien worlds fully, it bears noting that the early extra rooms in the TARDIS (The Edge of Destruction) were also the result of Cusick’s designs.

It’s a great shame that in their own fiftieth anniversary in December the designer of the Daleks will not be present to share the accolades and celebration. Much has and wil be made on how or whether Cusick was short-shrifted by Terry Nation over due recognition and reward for the blueprint of a million childhood toys spanning half a century; but within fandom there can be no doubt. Raymond Cusick’s work on Who alone ensured the series’ popular appeal and created a striking visual stamp that is as much of its own era and country as the Mini Cooper, the Beatles mop-top and the Op Art of Bridget Riley, and which continues to be admired and cherished today. An enduring design speaks for itself, and that of the Daleks will forever speak of their undisputed visionary engineer.

PA

“I have been a stranger in a strange land” Exodus 22:2

Here’s the thing: I used to – even until quite recently I’ll admit, believe that a deep and enduring interest in Sixties Who was the last refuge of the ageing fan. When all fascination for the action and wit of the Seventies, the flash and sting of the Eighties and the promise of the Nineties had dried up, the retiring and increasingly embittered Who enthusiast would at last turn his or her dried and cynical self away from the recent past and find solace in the fuzzy monotone folds of the Hartnell and Troughton years, there to shuffle themselves to an endless sleep or, worse, bitterly reject the innovations of later Who – that of my generation and those immediately following, as cheap and flimsy, lacking the weight and interest of the Early Years. My suspicions were deepest when fans younger than myself started the same drift – easy enough to explain in older followers, I thought, who might have genuine memories of the black and white show as televised on various local stations or even in the Mother Country, but younger fans? Surely this was just an attempt to be cool and rebellious? A wilful spurning of the values and energy we’d enjoyed as teens and later?

I can’t speak for those fans, but I can speak for myself. In the past two years I’ve become a Sixties Who lover. Of course I’ve got older, having crossed the boundaries of middle age. I love the Seventies and Eighties no less, I hasten to add; but I now love the Sixties more than I ever did. To me they are indeed broader, deeper, and more intriguing. They are the innovative years, and their Doctors are fascinating and alien, their companions all the more human for the contrast. Sixties stories with their reduced score and longer episodes are drawn out, contemplative, with nervous pauses and great moments of silence. They are of an era of stage, both in location and performance – their performers (Hartnell in particular) are more clearly cut from the stage and occupy the studio floorspace with an eye to an intimate audience. There’s little that’s post-production here; the special effects are either practical or in-camera, the spaceships are models and the monsters makeup and costume. It is low-tech, but I really don’t mind that. It was known to be low-tech in its own time; its success was due to its imagination, as it has ever been.

And what imagination! The idea of space and time in the Hartnell era is markedly different – the Doctor and Susan refer to themselves as outsiders, travellers, and (because of course the term hadn’t been invented yet) there is no mention of either of them being masters or Lords of Time. They don’t even have control over their Ship – pointedly so in The Edge of Destruction where the machine (for it is in this era) turns on them in a strange attempt to warn them of a more imminent and external danger. The threat from outside is a recurring motif – the alien, the distant world with an unnatural ecosystem, the altogether unfamiliar. The Universe is an immediately unfamiliar and sometimes hostile place, something for all companions to first explore, then negotiate with week after week, before finally finding their place in it – there’s no overfamiliarity with the cosmos or knowing meta-commentary of the new series companions here; the likes of Ian and Barbara, Vicki and Steven are themselves interlopers, small figures on an enormous and threatening landscape. There’s little cosiness here at all, I find – no recurring old friends to reconnect with or rely on for comfort, and there’s every reason to believe that when the Doctor promises Susan he’ll return to her at the end of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, he really won’t. And then there’s history, an extra dimension to be explored and negotiated, where the series’ early lessons of interference and free will are exercised (The Aztecs) and the Doctor’s morality – perhaps then a reflection of his own helplessness to turn the wheel of time, is brought to the fore (The Massacre.) To accompany a mad man in his time travelling box may be one thing, but to be effectively trapped in one beyond the control of its mercurial and sometimes aloof owner is quite another. For the first few stories of Doctor Who’s first year the adventures of Ian, Barbara, Susan and the Doctor are as much about surviving their journey in the Ship itself, and of course in doing so, surviving each other.

I’ve been saying for some time now that when this formula is applied correctly, classic Doctor Who can be astonishing, akin more to the theatre of its age presented in challenging locations, where the drama is as much caused by human conflict, madness, fear, paranoia, intolerance than its bizarre circus of humanoid aliens, who often work best as a reflection of the darker side of human nature: avarice (the Voord), intolerance (the Daleks), revenge (the Monoids). Sixties Who is humanist drama, and, bereft of Time Lords or a Doctor who sees the Universe of time and space as his plaything, it is an existential one as well. Like the best Science Fiction it speaks of the human condition, and like much of the media of its decade the Hartnell Era is informed by Britain post-war, it is by nature and to its credit a product of its time.

If you want to see where Doctor Who began and where it could yet go, you should watch its beginnings.

PA

WE HAVE BEEN PERSUADED TO RETURN!
Well of course we would. Who ever doubted it. In 2013? The Fiftieth Anniversary? To fall silent and wait for others to fill the void or do the hard work? 2013 is going to be a BIG ‘UN, even if the likelihood of this year’s TV input includes a mere eight episodes, a 60-minute ‘tentpole’ anniversary episode and a 90-minute Genesis of DW docu-drama. Even without a Christmas Special noted yet (which would be part of the 2014 programming block, surely?) there’s plenty going on and plenty to talk about. And we haven’t even mentioned further potential animations on the DVD schedule or the re-released BBC Books with new covers (including the novelisation of Remembrance? Well worth it, but… weird) We might even get a local fanzine out before year’s end – wouldn’t that be something? Us, stay away? Keep taking those crazy pills, missus.

KEEP TAKING THOSE CRAZY PILLS, MISSUS
Good Lord, Gallybase. NINETEEN pages on (for Gog’s sake don’t Google him!)RogueCyberman (no I’m not Linking! I’m not Linking!) and his dodgy dodgy attempt to stir up interest and links to his adult pay site though a constant feed of claims in non-existent missing episodes? If you want to know the story it’s on the Past Doctors board, and it’s a litany of lies, being discussed and given undue longevity. Seriously, avoid. Shameful, exploitative and oily.

SHAMEFUL, EXPLOITIVE AND OILY
The expansion of the DW Expanded Universe continues to expand like the Cybercontroller’s waistline! I dunno. eBooks based on peripheral (sorry, sorry – ‘core cast’) characters from the Who Universe like River Song and Paternoster? Not for me, sorry. I’m you’re your ‘THIS GUY is the main character, not the second-banana’ type, which is why I refuse to acknowledge Eccleston as a true Doctor (he’s more a locum.) Granted, I’m in a minority and this sort of thing is probably very popular and the kids love it, don’t they?

THE KIDS LOVE IT, DON’T THEY?
Annnnimation! The way of the future! Now that The Reign of Turn- er, Terror is out and The Ice Warriors teased through a ‘Coming Soon’ (tho no firm suggestion of animation at ‘time of writing), could it be the floodgates are finally opening?

THE FLOODGATES ARE FINALLY OPENING
Oh but hey – Scott Gray’s new strip in DWM with its fun Kiwi inclusions again! A character with the surname Clutha? Lovely bit of Otago-ite namedropping there (look it up, northerners!), and then there’s the (CAUTION: SPOILERS!) cute ‘NZ’ on a certain blackboard courtesy of (non-Antipodean) Martin Geraghty. With this story being DWM’s ‘tentpole’ anniversary release of 2013, we wonder if there are more local cameos to come?

MORE LOCAL CAMEOS TO COME?
A serious case of Crossed purposes in the Waikato Times? Interview with Jon Preddle turns from request for an Arabic translation (found, apparently – God bless crowdsourcing!) to odd suggestion that Sir Peter Jackson directing a NZ episode writ by Neil ‘Mama’ Cross at behest of Matt Smith. It’s bobbins as far as we know, which is about as much as anyone else. But you know these newspapers…

YOU KNOW THESE NEWSPAPERS…
Sigh. That bastion of the Fourth Estate the Birmingham Mail reports that there’ll be a full-on multi-doc story for the anniversary oh yes there will. Oh yes there might, of course, but let’s not jump to the same conclusions reported here, folks. Worse still, don’t go believing the Daily Mail’s avowed hand-on-heart confusion between The light At The End (Big Finish’s ‘tentpole’ anniversary release of 2013) with whatever shows on the telly. Fact-checking and retractions are a twentieth-century media thing. This is what we invented the internet for, isn’t it?

THIS IS WHAT WE INVENTED THE INTERNET FOR, ISN’T IT?
Oh well, look. Time for some fun. If you’re after some miniature Detectivesauruses and maidservants to complete your lead mountain (because 28mm scale is where it’s at, daddio) then head on over to Crooked Dice in a month or so and check out their potential listings. The kids love it, let’s have more lizard ladies, comedy Sontarans and a little less explanation. Elsewhere, Drathro looks like he’s for the chop. Only the good, as they say

ONLY THE GOOD, AS THEY SAY
RIP Mr Bernard Horsfall. A decent Thal Taran, a mysterious Time Lord, a Supreme Chancellor Goth, and to this blogger’s mind, the only Lemuel Gulliver you’ll ever need. Already missed. Well played, sir

WELL PLAYED, SIR
But we thumpingly applaud, in full Citizen Kane style, the casting of David Bradley as William Hartnell in Mark Gatiss’ feature-length adaptation of the Pitch Sketch. A great look, and let’s face it – enough people were fooled by the trailer for last season to think that was the character Bradley was playing in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. Is it possible to have a dress rehearsal for a retrospective lookeelikey documentary through drama I’m drifting…

Hey, you know what’s cool? The new title sequence and redone theme music. Oh and Star Wars coming back. Muse? I could pass, but hey.

Roll the clip!

The recent death of Mary Tamm after a long battle with cancer marks a solemn conclusion to a brief but memorable tenure with Doctor Who. Tamm’s Romana, as much as Hartnell’s First Doctor is the definitive incarnation of her Time Lord, the blueprint devised by Graham Williams and Robert Holmes without which we would not have had the re-interpretation (some might say continuation) by Lalla Ward, and mimeses portrayed by the likes of Michelle Ryan and Alex Kingston.

Sometimes dubbed the “ice maiden”- partially from her debut on the snowbound planet Ribos, Tamm’s Romana was refinement and composure at a critical time for Tom Baker’s portrayal of the Doctor. It has become trendy of late to dismiss much of the Williams era for offering too long a leash to its star, of indulging the more ridiculous and self-conscious side of the Fourth Doctor. Tamm’s circumspect high-achieving student was an excellent foil to this Doctor, as much a counterpart as her would-be opposite Leela. While the character would inevitably be ‘softened’, an aspect Tamm was reportedly less than keen on, her attitude to a universe she has yet to experience first hand changes through the Doctor’s influence. We should acknowledge that the transformation is as much in Tamm’s hands as its result – a regeneration and the tightest unit in Who history. All in six stories.

This isn’t to ignore the importance of Tamm’s and Baker’s working relationship, which by all accounts was as mutually easy as that of the star and Lis Sladen. The two shared a similar sense of humour, a common intelligence and regard, and the playful element of their infamous BBC inside ‘Christmas Who’ tape speaks for itself. The Fourth Doctor and First Romana were recently reunited by Big Finish for the second season of Fourth Doctor audio adventures which, alongside roles in Gallifrey and two Companion Chronicles, mark the only Who outings for Tamm in character; having made the transition from the series after a short tenure, her career continued without the curse of the Who Girl stereotype. As with the recent passing of Caroline John, it’s bittersweet consolation that we have not yet heard the last of a much loved and admired companion.

No, I can’t quite believe it either. I must be mad. So what’s new?

SOMETHING FOR THE DADS
Courtesy of Dave.

NEST TAKES A REST
After three years of faffing about in Deepest Darkest Sussex with a crotchety housekeeper as his de facto companion, it seems Paul Magrs’ AudioGo Fourth Doctor is taking the year off. This may be no bad thing, especially given courtesy of Big Finish we’ve had eight new Tom Baker audio stories this year already, with the promise of Tom’n'RomanaOne next year AND more Tom’n'Leela in 2014. Not to mention that 2013 will, apparently, see Magrs return to the series and the possibility of James Goss doing something unrelated with the Fourth Doctor also for AudioGo. Or not (who knows?) If ever there were a Time Lord equivalent of a bus…

…which reminds me; if Magrs doesn’t arrange for Iris Wildthyme to meet the Fourth Doctor then there is no justice!

CASTING CLOSE TO SHORE
We’d not be so ignorant as to overlook the wondrous casting of David Warner, Dame Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling in the forthcoming series (even if it is for the mixed blessing of a Mark Gattis script…) but isn’t all of this casting happening worryingly close to the last minute? Corrections and admonishments welcome!

THAT SAID…
Still struggling to summon enthusiasm for NewWhu this year. Maybe if, I dunno, we had an airdate to count down to?

OLD TUNES, NEW HYMNBOOK?
Is it us, or is Benjamin Cook (‘DWM‘ to those of you reading at home) better at new series interviews than classic series ones? Aside from Tom Baker, who gives so much of himself, and Sylvester McCoy, the recent interviews with Sophie Aldred and William Russell have been a bit… ‘meh’, as the kids say these days. It’s a far cry from passing Alex Kingston DWM‘s own pack of Doritos on set in Utah…

COUNT THE SHADAS
When last ZeusBlog covered the ongoing saga of Shada there were no versions out on general release save for the TSV novelisation and the old bonkers VHS boxset. Now of course there’s a book by Grobbits, an audio of the Grobbits book read by Lalla Dawkins, an unofficial and never-to-be-released personal animation made at the behest of Ian Levine (seen by a rare few) and, yet to be released, the official 2Entertian (insert new name) version, out soon. Will it be picked up by a fan audience? The ones who aren’t completists anyway I mean? Time will tell, but ooh – try and get a proper conversation going on GallyBelly about it and you just know how these things turn out!

And finally…

TWO WRONGS?
Now, everybody knows that scoring reptiles from the dawn of time is the devil’s job, but occasionally, you get it right. John Williams produced a memorable score for Jurassic Park that, while technically proficient, didn’t for us strike the required Carey Blyton-esque angle. Until now, of course (bravo, sir). Back in Whoville marrying scales, both musical and Eocene is still a challenge. You might not have liked The Hungry Blood/Cold Earth much, or maybe you did, but try and tell us that this sequence, rescored with music from that infamous Silurian plodder from yesteryear Warriors of the Deep, doesn’t make the whole thing suddenly work!

 The Pertwee UNIT roster grows ever thinner, a fact that saddens more with each passing. Few if any fans would have known the extent of Caroline John’s recent illness, her death and funeral being kept strictly between family and friends. As fans we might pretend ownership of Doctor Who and all who appear in it, but times like these serve to remind us that, indeed, beyond the screen and the stage there are real lives, private and sensitive, with families and loved ones to whom our idols and familiar faces mean something altogether different, and much, much more.

As Doctor Elizabeth Shaw, John’s time in the series was admittedly brief, but notable for being an era of change – the first full-colour Doctor, grounded literally and figuratively by his Time Lord masters, and saddled with a semi-military institution with whom he would occasionally spar and pit his will in frustration. A brief tenure for sure, but Season Seven remains a classic, its strength exemplified by the fact that two of its stories (Spearhead from Space and Inferno) have been and will be ‘revisited’ respectively, while Ambassadors of Death waits in the wings, the colour being patiently put back into its cheeks. Liz may be gone, but we’ll see her again very soon, and a new generation of fans will meet her fresh and as close to how she was meant to be seen as modern technology will allow. Inferno is a revelation in itself, offering John a rare dual role, and to this writer at least, seems an appropriate release to have a dedicated extra to its outgoing co-star.

‘Outgoing’ is not a term you might otherwise describe Liz Shaw. Cambridge-based, and as much conscripted into UNIT’s service as the Doctor, her partnership with the Time Lord is characteristically professional; not yet is there the fatherly warmth shared between Pertwee’s Doctor and Jo Grant, but then Liz was not cut from the same cloth. A professional, she required a professional respect from the Doctor, and looked to him less for protection. Feminism, that modern equivalent more often attributed to Sarah Jane Smith is as equally a character trait of Liz Shaw – we just weren’t around enough to see it come to the fore; or perhaps amidst the sound and drama of Season Seven it’s in there, another element in a fascinating and changing shift in the series format. For herself Caroline John was far from outgoing as far as her character was concerned. John eschewed the fan convention circuit until the early 90s, mistakedly assuming that fans either wouldn’t know her or be interested in Liz. The opposite proved true, happily, and John’s return to Who‘s fold was heralded as interesting and welcome as those of Tom Baker and Paul McGann. For her change of heart Liz Shaw was embraced by fan creators, given her own spin-off series in the PRoBe fan videos (recently re-released on DVD), and the character appeared in both the New Adventures and Missing Adventures. Of these it’s Gary Russell’s The Scales of Injustice that gives Liz her first ‘departure’ story, trusting a more fitting exit than the between-seasons disappearance the TV series offered. Alternatively, Jim Mortimore’s Eternity Weeps closes Liz’s story even more, daring to write her out in a story with Silurians, science, and the Moon, where the TV series also last left her in a too-brief mention in the Sarah Jane Adventures.

John’s audio work needs mention, too, as it’s not yet complete. Later this year Big Finish’s last Liz Shaw Companion Chronicle, the fittingly-titled The Last Post will be released, and we have three other CCs to accompany it, effectively doubling Liz’s tenure. The actor’s reading of Elisabeth Sladen’s autobiography should also be noted; an effective and affecting reading that neatly ties the Pertwee Era together with a story shared by two companions from either end of the Third Doctor’s time on Earth. In this way we can hope that Doctor Liz Shaw will continue to live on in Who, not as a brief-lived companion, but as an essential catalyst to a changing Time Lord life, and another very strong, intelligent and independent woman in the Doctor’s life who fought her corner when she could, and chose not to be left behind, but to find her own destiny outside the Doctor’s shadow.

Caroline John’s portrayal of Liz is crucial to our understanding of the character – a clear break from the space orphans of the past, her Liz is an Earthly Woman, the essential human alongside an increasingly alien Doctor. We’ve not had a companion like her since, and Doctor Who is a sadder world without Caroline John in it.

Via Retronaut loveliness, Police Boxes where they once stood, overlaid on images from today:

http://www.retronaut.co/2012/05/ghosts-of-the-tardis-1930-2011/

Real and, actually, also quite magical.

Cushing was in it twice, but the series never managed to bag Dr Saruman Scaramouche Summerisle Acula in its ranks and, let’s face it, probably won’t now.
Ninety screams for you, Sir. From Doctor Who’s best.

Mel screams

Best viewed: Not at Work!

Here we are at the cusp of November with so many updates we simply have to be brief and fast in this return because a lot of other recent eventenings are frankly the fodder of longer articles. So stay tuned and consider yourself warned. In the mean-time, here’s six of the best from the past eight weeks!

A’COS’TED!
It’s Helloevening! And what better time than this to do fancy dress and angle for sweeties? Internet sweeties we mean. This year the ever popular trend of dressing your offspring as NuHoo characters (can we call them Moffat’s Moppets? Ed) is still ever popular. And from NuYoik ComicCon, here’s more cosplay. “What’s better than two Amys?” Asked Al and Rory this year. Well I can’t imagine this is. Cheers to Jono for the links.

IT’S NOT EASY BEING LEVINE
Spare a thought for Ian Levine, who had a rough week in late October with the news that not only have 2|e opted out of including his animated reboot of Shada on the official release, but also that his extra-length Dimensions in Time (merciful heavens!) had slipped its leash and run barking onto the torrents. They say he shut the culprit down before it got around, but surely it’d be a first if he was one hundred per cent successful?

HAVE YOU WORKED OUT WHAT IT IS, YET?
That Moffat. Moffaaaaat!! Hee hee (it’s not too late to reuse that gag is it? Ed) not only has he gone and dun it with a series that has more twists and turns than Chubby Checker on a turntable, but he’s gone and confused us all with when the blessed thing’s going to come back and for how many episodes. Seriously, can anyone give a straight answer on this? Paul?

DON’T HASSLE THE MOFF
But before we rage too hard, let us ponder: across the benighted interfields of the worldly wise web can there be a more benign and restrained playground than Twitter? The place of choice for those with little of import to say generally, and only 140 characters to do it with? Well, apparently so. Last month’s spat of upper cuts and Chinese burns between Smurfette and CHamiltonB (with GRoberts and T’Spillsbury standing by holding the producer’s jacket) was… well, you might be able to read it for yourself. Started innocently, if a little misjudged on the hilarity front, with a Golden Globes-related nudge from the Classic Series CHiBbers; then sort of… descended into bloody hell and eye gouging from there. What’s the collective noun for a gang of Twitter shout-downs? A ‘Yikes’, perhaps?

And finally…

RUDE AWAKENING

Season 21 was never like this. Oh, NSFW BTW!