The Weekly Hat – Number Thirty-One
The last content to be posted on Behatted.com, then. At least for a while.
The comic, I remain hopeful, will return. But this probably is the last Weekly Hat forever. I’ve enjoyed the structure and feeling of having a deadline (and, more importantly, of just about meeting it every week), but I’m not sure there’s a huge audience for UK-centric news digests attached to webcomics. And this does take a fair few hours work by the time I’ve finished researching, writing and publishing it.
So, this be it. Thanks to everyone who has read and/or commented. If you like reading text pieces by me, Feeding The Black Dog will be powering onwards.
In the final Weekly Hat…
- The Festive Execution: My last chance to spout off about an issue. I’ve chosen the death penalty.
- Media And Stuff Extra – The End Of Time: David Tennant’s final episode in Doctor Who. Long-awaited lengthy musings.
- Media And Stuff: Fortunately, there were other things on TV this week. I’ve also been to the cinema and the theatre!
- Behatted Photo of The Week: An obvious final choice. So obvious, I’m surprised I haven’t done it before. (No, it isn’t me.)
The Festive Execution
Unexpectedly, news sources spent the post-Christmas period poking at an old debate: The Death Penalty.
This, of course, was the news that the Chinese sentenced a British national to death for heroin trafficking. Various appeals were made, mostly on the grounds of mental health and the gentleman in question having been somehow “tricked”, but all were unsuccessful and the execution was subsequently carried out.
Never one to miss a chance to offend liberals, the Daily Mail waded in to declare that “heroin traffickers deserve to die”, successfully getting traffic from people on Twitter upset and surprised by their unusually hardline stance. I’m starting to worry they might be descending into self-parody myself.
Seriously, the next time a major catastrophe happens in the UK, with a mass of innocent fatalities, I half expect the Mail to step up and announce that every single one of them who wasn’t white and British had it coming. After this and the Stephen Gately saga, it wouldn’t overly surprise me.
Still, distasteful though we may find it, we are silenced here by the Special British Politeness that demands we remain quiet and respect other cultures. If China want to execute people, we are inclined to let them, albeit with a small show of distaste so they know we are totally above that.
After all, the USA, whom we share many things, are also occasionally prone to knocking off the occasional criminal and we let them keep doing it. So perhaps it’s a bit late to start whinging. But still, a civilised government shouldn’t kill people, etcetera. Not even the “paedos”.
But it’s easy for those of us who live, work and socialise with the liberal middle class to forget that we are not necessarily representing the will of the country. As the tabloid press are happy to leap in and remind us every so often, there is data to suggest that the majority of the country is all about the death penalty.
Or, at the very least, they wouldn’t exactly hurl themselves in the way if it were to be reintroduced for a select group, such as the afore-mentioned paedos, serial killers and terrorists. However, I was genuinely surprised, for a moment, to read the Mail championing death to drug-pushers. I guess since it is apparently happening right now in other countries, it can’t be that out there a policy.
Still, I tend to think if we must have a death penalty, we should save it for the people actually doing horrific things with their own two hands. I’m sure this makes me soft on crime, but I embrace my wet liberal credentials with both hands.
Media And Stuff Extra – The End Of Time
Well, after idly building up to it for months, I didn’t think I should let David Tennant’s departure from Doctor Who escape uncommented. Hell, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve done one Weekly Hat more than I planned entirely for the purpose of doing so.
So it’s odd that, in all honesty, I don’t feel a huge essay is really needed. Perhaps it’s because the final part of The End Of Time will probably be one of the most written-about TV shows in the first quarter of this year. (Especially here on the internet, where we nerds live.)
So what can I add to the discussion that millions of bloggers, and even a few trained journalists, haven’t already spotted? Probably not much. Suffice to say, it flowed and worked much better than the first half for the most part, having gotten past the need to set everything up. Acting mostly good, effects impressive by BBC standards and positively magical when compared to old Doctor Who episodes.
The final twenty minutes or so, in which the Doctor does an ‘I’m dying!’ tour of his companions… well, it’s always nice to see them again, and most of the segments weren’t without their charm. In particular, Captain Jack’s scene, containing the entire contents of their prosthetics cupboard and the most obscure old-character cameo of all. So it depends whether you find it all a bit self-indulgent or feel that, after five years, these writers and actors deserve a bit of a coda before handing over to a new production team who will probably not bother with most of that lot.
(I swing between the two poles myself.)
Anyway, regardless, then he delivers a sad final line and finally regenerates into Matt Smith. The new Doctor then gets a surprisingly long scene to stamp himself on the viewer’s minds. But then again, after the hour-long homage to David Tennant we’d just had, perhaps it would have seemed a little cursory to have him pop up and say only a few words.
After the year-long departure of Tennant, it honestly seems refreshing to be past it and on to a fresh new Doctor with new adventures. And Smith seems fine. (Honestly, the internet commenters calling him the “Hollyoaks Doctor” really need to take a closer look at the cast of Hollyoaks.) So, I’ll be watching with great excitement, even if I no longer have a Weekly Hat to comment within.
Media And Stuff
- After my embittered whinge about the lack of good stuff on TV on the Christmas days themselves, I’ve located a few shows to watch over the past week (aside from Doctor Who, obviously). High among them in my regard was the Outnumbered Christmas Special, bringing the kids back for more irritating yet heart-warming yelling. It wasn’t the best episode ever, simply because the scale of farcical stupidity never quite climbed high enough, but it’s fun just listening to them yell again, and my appetite is certainly whetted for the upcoming new series. It is, however, always saddening to realise that the kids are growing up fast and the show probably can’t go on forever. The special is available on iPlayer, but only until the evening of today (Sunday 3rd January 2010), so watch quick.
- Top Gear also ended its year with their now-customary road trip, this time to South America. This series hasn’t been the best for the boys, with some of their longer films getting the balance slightly wrong between being entertainingly absurd and obviously staged. Worse still, some of them committed the cardinal sin of being outright boring. However, before I start to sound like I’m whinging, the South America special was a lot of fun. As with most of these longer road trips, the main point is nothing to do with cars, but seeing the presenters and their interactions under these circumstances. And they managed to do it, without too much dullness or sequences which seemed overly fake. Kudos. The special is on iPlayer, predictably.
- Also worth watching on the TV was the Big Fat Quiz Of The Year. It had a good line-up this year, by which I mean a line-up that didn’t include James Corden and did include Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell. In fact, even though several of the guests annoy me a little in other contexts, this was a perfect storm of funnyness. I thought it was great. Highly recommended. Viewable now on 4OD!
- Outside of the idiot box, I saw the new Sherlock Holmes move with Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law. My expectations for this experience weren’t… exactly low, but they weren’t lofty either. For the most part, I expected fun with just enough intelligence to stop it feeling shallow, and that’s what I got, with a healthy injection of strange Victoriana. Downey Jr’s portrayal of Holmes also intrigued me, because it seemed slightly informed by Hugh Laurie’s Gregory House (the cynical mystery-loving doctor who was, of course, originally inspired by Holmes). The more miserable aspects, such as the disability and the deep addiction, are played down, but the cool, distant, slightly quirky nature does remind. It’s as if they decided to stick to the House blueprint for “Making Holmes Cool”, but ditched some of the more miserable bits. Fun film, in short. The chemistry between Law and Downey Jr as Holmes and Watson actually surprised me with its goodness.
- Finally, I went to the theatre and saw an RSC performance of Twelfth Night, featuring Richard Wilson as Malvolio. My review here is twofold, as I don’t think it’s one of Shakespeare’s better plays, but this was as good a performance of it as I think I’m likely to see. Richard Wilson’s part was surprisingly small, although I can almost see the appeal of it still, he dd get a lot of the good or fun bits, while everyone else ran around. Hugo from the Vicar Of Dibley also popped up, with enormous hair and beard to disguise his identity. Anyway, if you like Shakespeare comedy, this could be worth a look. If you only go to the theatre twice a year and want to see something excellent for that special outing, I’m not sure I’d go for this.
Behatted Photo Of The Week
I did consider doing myself, but I’m not sure I can bring myself to inflict another photo of myself on the world. So, today’s final Behattee is the outgoing Doctor Who chap, Mister David Tennant (human). Accompanied below by our beloved lead character, Len (hat).
Final Tiny Print: For the last time, I can report that the original picture here was taken from VagueOnTheHow on Flickr, and is covered under this Creative Commons Licence type thing. And, um, that’s it. Bye!
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