Boring Behind The Scenes Anecdote: I have a lot of software that I’ve written to help me do this blog, because Software Development is my passion, and I’m a very lazy man who’d rather spend a day writing a bit of software that then saves me doing two minutes of cutting and pasting from a database. So I have an app that shows me the programmes grouped by day, and I’ve got a button which generates the outline text for any blog entry, including title and episode, Media Centre Description, and the recording time and Genome Link (if Applicable), then creates a draft WordPress entry, scheduled for the next free day (which is why I do one a day) and opens the page for editing.

Today, this button failed me. It said there was an error, and wouldn’t publish anything. I made sure other pages would publish properly, which told me the problem was with the data for one of today’s programmes, then I checked the line number of the error, and it told me that the Channel Call Sign field was blank, causing the error.

Luckily it was a simple fix to stop the error happening, but it also meant I could fix up the missing fields.

It seems like I’ve been tweaking my software a lot recently, as I spent quite a lot of time over the last few days adding subtitle editing to my viewing app, so I can tidy up the subtitle files that I generated for Sea of Souls in Word. Although that did mean I spent more time fixing subtitles than I did putting the entry together. Oh well. Priorities.

Back to today, and the offending recording is the next episode of Totally Doctor Who which is missing almost all the usual metadata. It’s also only 21 minutes long, which means it was truncated for some reason.

It opens with the end of The Underdog Show as Julian Clary reminds us that owning a dog is a big commitment, “so do think long and hard about it first.”

There’s a trail for Tracy Beaker as they’re repeating the whole thing.

Then, Totally Doctor Who and Barney and Kirsten look at Gridlock. They have fun in the vehicle set.

And there’s a nice pull-back and reveal showing how they’re shooting it. These kinds of shows were so important to me as a child, and it’s great that my kids also had this kind of thing.

Lenora Critchlow is a guest int he studio.

Barney talks to Russell T Davies about how he supervises the creation of a Doctor Who monster.

Team Totally this week is about creating foley sound effects, under the guidance of Julie Ankerson.

Who Goes There this week is a woman with a straw.

More chat with Russell, and he draws a monster from a later episode – it’s a scarecrow. Russell’s a very good artist.

There’s a Mastermind challenge – or rather a “Monstermind” challenge, between a Junior Mastermind finalist whose specialist subject was Doctor Who…

And Russell T Davies. Who gets slightly harder questions, and doesn’t win.

Here’s the episode on iPlayer.

Media Centre Description:

Recorded from BBC ONE on Friday 20th April 2007 16:58

BBC Genome: BBC ONE Friday 20th April 2007 17:00

That recording was truncated, and stopped about 20 minutes in. Luckily, I have a repeat broadcast immediately after it – you can spot the switch when the CBBC logo appears on the screenshots. The repeat recording starts with the end of Newsround.

After this there’s a trail for Shaun the Sheep.

Then the repeat of Totally Doctor Who and this one has the correct metadata.

Media Centre Description: Barney Harwood and Kirsten O’Brien look at everything Doctor Who with exclusive behind the scenes clips, and the next instalment of our exclusive Doctor Who animation. We test head writer Russell T Davies’s Doctor Who knowledge and chat to Lenora Crichlow, aka Cheen whilst Team Totally take on a Foley challenge.

Recorded from CBBC Channel on Friday 20th April 2007 17:58

BBC Genome: CBBC Channel Friday 20th April 2007 18:00

After this there’s a trail for the Reggie Yates quiz Get 100.

There’s also a short Totally Doctor Who trail, then the recording ends during an episode of Jeopardy.

The next recording is the next episode of Derren Brown: Trick or Treat. This week’s member of the public chosen to receive either a Trick or Treat is Andy, an IT Consultant. He chooses “Trick” and I remain convinced that the cards used are so Derren can force that on everyone.

Before we get any more of him, there’s a stunt featuring the work of artists Jake and Dinos Chapman.

They’ve got one of their “artworks” – Arachnokitty. The stunt is that it’s wrapped in brown paper, along with two other identically sized frames and blank canvases, which are put on three easels.

Then Adrian Searle, chief art critic of the Guardian, is given a large knife, and, without knowing which is the right painting, is asked to approach on, and slash the canvas. He’s asked to do this twice, and of course neither one is the actual “artwork”. I found this quite inert, firstly since I couldn’t really care if the Chapman’s piece was destroyed, but secondly because, if I were doing this, I’d just use a fake, in case something goes wrong with the trick. So I didn’t feel like there was much jeopardy.

Back to Andy the IT Consultant. “For his “Trick”, I’ve decided to give Andy a surreal experience of split-identity, and in order to plant the seeds of that confused sense of self, I set up a few encounters for him to experience whilst we film him.” One of which is a homeless person with a ventriloquist’s dummy, who swears at him in the street.

And a man bumps into him, then starts calling him a dummy.

The next trick sees Derren in New York, paying for stuff in shops using blank pieces of paper instead of banknotes. Again, It’s hard to know quite what’s happening here – the only thing is that Derren talks a lot to the people, and as he’s handing the paper over he says “I was a bit intimidated by the subway system. I didn’t want to go on it, and then someone said, ‘It’s OK, take it. Take it, it’s fine.'” And this seems to be enough to get some of the merchants to accept the paper. It doesn’t work on everyone, so fair play to them for keeping in one example of it failing.

The main trick with Andy is to invite him to an old Music Hall, and get him on stage with Derren and the ventriloquist’s dummy, and he asks Andy to ask the dummy a question he couldn’t possibly know the answer to (he asks what his mother’s maiden name is, which seems almost trivial for the production to know, since they’ve been following him around for weeks). But since the dummy “whispers” in Andy’s ear, it’s all seemingly hypnosis and suggestion.

The bit ends with Derren putting the dummy back in his box, and Andy saying it’s dark and he can’t see anything – implying he’s thinking he’s been put in the box. Like last week, I find this unsatisfying. Because I’m a hypnosis denier, I’m not really sure anything is actually happening beyond someone playing along with a bit. It’s hard for these sequences to have much meaning when I don’t accept the basic premise. And there’s the usual reassurances at the end. Including a misspelling of “genuinely”.

Here’s the episode on Channel 4.

Media Centre Description: Psychological illusionist Derren Brown involves members of the public and celebrity guests in a fiendish version of the Halloween game. This week, an IT consultant has his controlled lifestyle upended by being given the experience of a split personality. Plus, Derren invites art critic Adrian Searle to vandalise a priceless artwork by Jake and Dinos Chapman, and goes shopping in New York with a wallet full of blank pieces of paper.

Recorded from Channel 4 on Friday 20th April 2007 22:00

After this, the recording stops after a couple of minutes of Peep Show.

The next recording is a film I’ve never watched. It’s Kung Fu Hustle, a martial arts film that is just a little over the top. It’s not a genre I know much about, and it’s not helped that most of the characters are (or start out as) pretty awful people. But the Kung Fu action is amazing, and slightly ridiculous, and you can see how this has fed into the Superhero revival that was happening at about the same time this came out. I felt like the title sequence was a hat-tip to Tim Burton’s Batman titles, as the camera roves around a mountainous landscape before pulling out to reveal that it’s the title.

I thought the Axe Symbol that was used by the Axe Gang to summon help was a definite reference, and the music cue at the time sounded a lot like the score to Batman Forever.

And a scene where three of the Kung Fu Masters do some sparring starts with a cue that sounds spookily like one that would appear in (I think) Avengers Endgame. This was not a reference, I am fairly sure.

But I refuse to believe this wasn’t deliberate.

There’s even a sequence where the film’s lead (and its director and writer) Stephen Chow, has remarkable healing powers, much like Wolverine (although I don’t think we’ve ever seen Wolverine being quite so lippy).

Media Centre Description: Riotous martial arts comedy. Set in pre-revolutionary China it follows the chaos that ensues when a small time street hustler’s desire to be a big time hoodlum gets him caught up in a war between some vicious gangsters and the residents of a street that they are trying to take over. The stunning fight choreography provides the visual impact of a Tom and Jerry cartoon brought to life.

Recorded from Film4 on Friday 20th April 2007 23:35

The next recording starts with the end of Lawn Dogs about which I know nothing, but on the basis of this couple of minutes, it looks bonkers.

There’s a trailer for The Underdog Show final.

And a trailer for The Graham Norton Show.

Then, an episode of Star Trek – Wolf in the Fold. I’ve already talked about this, and the following episode, when I looked at my tapes. It’s a good one.

Media Centre Description: Victorian England meets futuristic space travel when three women on the planet Argelius are apparently murdered by Jack the Ripper – in the form of the Enterprise’s chief engineer. With Scotty in the dock, the crew of the Enterprise find their own lives are at risk from an evil being feeding on the epidemic of fear and panic.

Recorded from BBC TWO on Saturday 21st April 2007 01:38

BBC Genome: BBC TWO Saturday 21st April 2007 01:40

After this, there’s a trail for Maxwell.

And another one for The Underdog Show and one for the next episode of Superstorm.

Then the recording stops as another episode of Star Trek is starting.

The final recording today is that episode of Star Trek – The Trouble with Tribbles. Another classic episode.

Media Centre Description: Classic sci-fi drama series. A Federation under-secretary demands special security for a shipment of precious cereal when the Enterprise plays host to Uhura’s curious new pet – a tribble.

Recorded from BBC TWO on Saturday 21st April 2007 02:28

BBC Genome: BBC TWO Saturday 21st April 2007 02:30

After this there’s a trail for Radio 1 Presents The Arctic Monkeys, and for Superstorm and Maxwell.

Then the recording stops after a couple of minutes of Malcolm in the Middle.

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