Big Bang Day - got round to listening to some of it

[brixtonbrood]

And the Torchwood episode, as you would anticipate from something in which Torchwood takes on particle physics, scaled new heights, or possibly depths, of bollocks. I won't spoil the sheer WTFery of the alien's evil plan, but there were at least two moments of mindboggling gibberish (although IANA particle physicist, and it is barely possible that, modern physics being what it is, the gibberish was indeed meaningful science - this being Torchwood however, that's not the safe way to bet). The TBO may have been an attempt to cover up the blinding obviousness of the plot twist. The story attempted to deal with the after-effects of the end of series 2, which meant that Barrowman had to do big emotional acting, with predictable consequences. Ianto and Gwen were good though, but unfortunately whenever Torchwood writers try to delve into Ianto's emotional state they feel the need to refer back to his big character defining emotional episode, which means that the audience suddenly has "OMG Cyberwoman vs. Pterodactyl" flashbacks, which is inimical to the deep emotional effect that they're trying to produce. And Martha was both badly acted and badly written - and not helped by the fact that she's spent an awful lot of time in her last few appearances calling out for help from Jack / the Doctor because she / UNIT just can't cope without them. By contrast, the Steve Punt thing (The Genuine Particle) was really quite fun, I thought it hit the rather tricky tone required for experimental physics based comedy rather well (or at least it didn't fail embarrassingly), and Reece Sheersmith and Nicola Walker are always Good Things. Both available on i-player until Tuesday. Did anyone listen to any of the other stuff? Would you recommend it? [edited in a vain attempt to put some carriage returns in - no idea why it's not working, sorry for unreadability]

Comments

[damiancugley.livejournal.com]

I guess the Punt production had the twin advantages of being comedy (so it is OK to be creative with the science) and not being loaded down with lamentable character studies—the problem of TV sf since Star Trek: The Next Generation, where the necessity to wheel on all the regular characters and express their special quirks takes up time that might be spent on exploring some strange science concept or whatever it is that sf is supposed to be for.

Physics Rocks programme

[pureofthought.livejournal.com]

I recorded this as well as the two programmes you mentioned while I was on holiday and have just listened to it. Several celebs - mainly comedians but also Alan Alda - talking about why they like physics. Interesting mainly because the celebs seemed to know at least something about the subject, and because I kept imagining a similar programme in which the celebs were Paris Hilton and the like.