Inspired by the success of Doctor Who, the BBC are launching an adventure series featuring his sidekick, the Boy Wonder: Robin Who.

In other news, if someone who creates a crossword is a setter, is the crossword itself a settee?

On Monday, following on from last year’s live remake of The Quatermass Experiment, BBC Four screened a new version of 1961’s A for Andromeda. I’m not going to be nice about it, so let’s start with the positives.

Tom Hardy was good in the lead role, although, as with Quatermass, he seemed a little young for the part – perhaps the idea of a middle-aged science fiction hero is too much even for BBC Four. I see from his IMDb entry that Hardy is no stranger to bad sci-fi, having played the Captain Picard Mini-Me villain in the dreadful Star Trek: Nemesis. Also in A for Andromeda was Jane Asher, who did this sort of thing in the superior Nigel Kneale play The Stone Tape in the 1970s. Her presence did allow me to relabel it I for I-slept-with-Paul-McCartney. (You probably had to be there.) Other positives… Nice to see the Beeb making science-fiction?

The negatives, then. It was a load of technobabble-ridden poppycock. For no apparent reason, a new satellite supercomputer snooping station was sharing a facility with some sort of biology laboratory (Asher: “The machine can produce any kind of tissue!” Me: “Used?”). This was particularly unfortunate as the combination of fantastic computer and life lab allowed a malevolent alien force a route to Earth, which Asher and the MoD (represented by David Haig from The Thin Blue Line, the best episode of Blake’s 7 and, yes, Doctor Who) seemed, bogglingly, quite happy to allow. There was also a geek who should’ve gone to SpecSavers, but he got killed early on as part of a not particularly relevant subplot – I’m not sure by whom as I was looking away at that moment, but it was probably Colin Stinton from Broken News to whom he’d been selling secrets (of the military rather than celebrity “I saw Jane Asher picking her nose” variety, I assume). Meanwhile, two months pass and Tom Hardy’s comedy beard and moustache combo doesn’t change a hair. Oh, and there’s a quick bit of obligatory sex.

The finale was very Quatermass too, and far worthier than a dramatic fight or, say, a laser gun battle. Instead, the alien was talked round and killed herself. Despite being less than a third of the original running time, it felt overlong, with padding posing as dramatic pauses. “Bringing it up-to-date” seemed to involve some jerky camerawork and mentioning e-mail.

I’ve saved the worst for last: throughout the whole production, a giant mirrorball, apparently made from aluminium foil, spun round and round in the middle of the set, as if to shout “Look, it’s science fiction! Science is shiny!” Most distracting.

My favourite line in the whole thing was:

Where there is intelligence there is Will,
and where there is Will there is ambition.

Ta. Shame the rest of it was a load of old boots.

For an alternative view, ask Millennium Elephant.

Writer-director Eli Roth’s second film, Hostel, is an improvement on his enjoyable but relatively unremarkable debut Cabin Fever. Hostel seems closer in content and style to British horror films of the 1970s than the usual American slasher fare – and, occasionally, a voyeurism that it also shares with 70s horror – but with a slickness that’s suitable modern. That an executive producer is Quentin Tarantino, whose Pulp Fiction plays on the television when the protagonists arrival at the eponymous hostel, is no coincidence.

The film follows two American backbackers, competently played by Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson, who travel to Slovakia with their Icelandic friend. There, an apparent utopia of drink and sex masks a violent and deadly truth, as one by one the travellers disappear. Slovakia is unfortunate enough to be picked on as the location and as a result gets somewhat misrepresented – although it’s not always clear in the film who’s telling the truth.

Effectively directed, suitably eerie, and with a satisfying finale, Hostel also has its fair share of gore – although not notably more than other recent horror films. It is a touch more sadistic, but just about justifies this as a necessary part of the plot. It lacks a clear message beyond “Americans need to get out more” – although given what happens to the Americans in the film, it may have the opposite effect. Nevertheless, it’s a strong challenger to Saw for the best recent American horror movie.

Apropos of nothing, I thought I’d mention one of those passing (and very tenuous) Doctor Who/Liberal Party connections that one comes across from time to time.

Henry Ainley was well known on the London stage at the beginning of the twentieth century. He made a few early ilms, including a silent version of The Prisoner of Zenda and As You Like It in 1936 (pictured right), his final film, which starred a young Laurence Olivier (with whom, it’s been claimed, Ainley had a brief fling) and John Laurie, who would later join Dad’s Army. Ainley grew up in Morley, Leeds and had several children, one of whom was Anthony Ainley, best known as the Master in 1980s Doctor Who (and was the first panellist I ever saw at a Who convention).

Also from Morley was sometime Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. Asquith lost his East Fife seat in the 1918 General Election but returned to the Commons in a 1920 by-election in Paisley. After that victory, Ainley sent him the following note:

This letter needs no acknowledgment please; it is merely a thanksgiving of congratulation from one Morley man to another; “the Lord hath wrought great glory.”

Google tells me the quote is from Ecclesiasticus, chapter 44. Ainley also performed a poem by Asquith’s son Herbert on BBC Radio in 1931.

Today, I am mostly channelling Jonathan Calder.