"Smaller than a Lantern, and dimmer too". This FAQ is empty. Denser and Wackier: An Idiot's Tea light. Last Alteration: Sunday 07 April 2013. A Video Review Show which can be seen here and on Geekvision. (intro to my Who blogging, please read before commenting / previous: Episodes 5/6: “Rise of the Cybermen”/“The Age of Steel”) So I started by Googling the phrase “idiot’s lantern” because it’s such a perfect euphemism for television, even better than “boob tube,” but I’d never heard it before, and I wondered whether scriptwriter Mark Gatiss invented it. While his work with The League Of Gentlemen is awash with references to classic British horror films, Gatiss himself also has a pronounced fondness for the Quatermass serials, A For Andromeda, Night Of The Big Heat, The Trollenberg Terror and any other monochrome effort featuring an overabundance of research stations, indecipherable signals from outer space, and men in long coats from ‘The Ministry’. Apparently there was some kind of meeting that I wasn’t invited to where it was decided by committee that The Idiot’s Lantern was a lode of rubbish!! 8 The Impossible Planet. The Idiot's Lantern tag sponsored by: Top 25+ "The Idiot's Lantern" products on Amazon. A For Andromeda was broadcast by the BBC in 1961 and involved intergalactic signals that ultimately resulted in the ‘construction’ of a female humanoid; a sequel, The Andromeda Breakthrough, followed in 1962. Recent BBC Four remakes of The Quatermass Experiment and – slightly less successfully – A For Andromeda have stayed true to the original storylines but have given them a thoroughly modern interpretation. The supporting cast is uniformly good with Jamie Foreman giving an excellent performance as a typical 1950's father. For a brief but intensely frustrating couple of days, this review became the subject of much derision and even outright insults on discussion forums, which did bother me a bit, not least because I remember the days when if you disagreed with a review in a fanzine you had to sit down and write your own retort, then type it, then post it, then wait at least two months for it to be published, by which time you had probably decided that you would probably have more constructively used that energy on going for a walk or something. 13 Doomsday. The Idiot's Lantern Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Now of course it’s a bit different; again, that’s something that we’ll be coming back to. And so to The Idiot’s Lantern, a story which does something quite different, perhaps even unique in showing a family which is inherently broken. Writer. Gatiss’ enthusiasm for Professor Quatermass and his flickeringly-telerecorded chums is easy to understand; even despite the mannerisms and technical limitations of the age, these are all terrific shows that display remarkable imagination and superb direction, often relying on little more than lighting and shadows to create a sense of terror. 344 likes. TV-PG | 45min | Adventure, Drama, Family | Episode aired 10 November 2006. Aside from a small amount of material from A For Andromeda (and all of The Andromeda Breakthrough), nothing exists of any of these productions. Series 2. Inside the shop the television starts to talk to the owner, Mr. Magpie, using the form of television … You can hear me talking to Emma Burnell and Steve Fielding about politics and Doctor Who in The Zeitgeist Tapes – the show where politics and pop culture collide – here. Unambiguously ‘inspired’ by the success of the Quatermass serials, The Trollenberg Terror – about a mysterious mist masking an alien invasion – was broadcast by ITV in 1956 and remade for the big screen in 1958. The editor was concerned that this might constitute actionable libel, which I’m not sure it actually could, but if you’re reading, Mark, and you’re upset, send me them all on CD and we’ll forget all about it. 1979-01-01 New Doctor Who, of course, has both of these to spare – well, comparatively – and as such there was never any question of being unable to match a well-realised script with suitably well-realised visuals. Yes I know. “The Idiot’s Lantern” (season 2, episode 7; originally aired 5/27/2006) (Available on Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Instant Video.) Incidentally you can read a lot more about my love of all things creaky, black and white and science fiction in Can’t Help Thinking About Me, available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here. It turns out that the old tale of television sucking your brains out is all too true!! No me neither. Rising out of the misty bog, shacks and longhouses are built upon stilts or other shacks and longhouses, all surrounding a great marble lighthouse like cold travelers around a … Incidentally, while the opening gag was cut from the published version, this was left in. While The Unquiet Dead was where the first series really found its feet, this run has already seen an undisputed fully certified moment of greatness in The Girl In The Fireplace, so there was less pressure for The Idiot’s Lantern to do something truly spectacular. Episodes Three to Six, barring some footage taken in dress rehearsals to make trailers with (long gone and reputedly not that exciting), never were, and the theories for this decision vary between industrial action, a projected international sale falling through, and the general poor quality of the recordings of the first two; in particular the second, where a giant radioactive fly landed on the film recorder partway through and remained indelibly burned into to the image of the bulk of the episode. Alternatively, the one with a … Rose Tyler - Series 2 Episode 7 - The Idiot’s Lantern Rose items are in very high demand and very very rare. By the second series of Doctor Who, there was no way I was accepting a randomly assigned episode to review. The Idiot's Lantern: Behind the Scenes. Only a couple of years later he’d have been right at home in the fifties-tinged world of massive viewing figures for Heartbeat and The Darling Buds Of May, but his attempts to bridge the two with Doctor Who never quite hit the mark. What strikes me about The Idiot’s Lantern now is just how colourful and vibrant it is, dispensing with the myth that the fifties were dull and grey just because television was – this was, after all, the era of gaudy supermarket packaging, the Festival Of Britain and Eastmancolor films – with a lively and eyecatching setting, helped in no small part by the fact it is overlaid with very modern special effects. Although forever hampered by budgetary and technological restrictions, interference from BBC ‘Top Brass’, witless scheduling, dodgy casting decisions and his own inability to see that contrived ‘celebrity’ cameos by people who weren’t even that well known were never a good idea, he always desperately wanted to produce something that could simultaneously appeal to both lovers of cerebral science fiction and family audiences while still staying on the right side of programme planners with their brow furrowed over the latest nonsensical bureaucratic edict. I mean, this looks very New York to me. Apr 2, 2014 - Explore Tamara Alba's board "The Idiot's Lantern" on Pinterest. Series Overview; 1 Rose. The Idiot's Lantern Trending ; Latest ; Profile ; Share. Watching The Idiot’s Lantern again has left me feeling distinctly unimpressed at this review. 10 Love & Monsters. DonQuixote 17:50, 22 April 2007 (UTC) Little Shop of Horrors Reference? The Doctor and Rose arrive in London in 1953 dressed for their expected visit to Las Vegas in 1958! So they all featured ‘evil’/possessed televisions as a plot device (and I’m not even certain without checking that The Beautiful People actually did, and Terror Of The Autons certainly didn’t)? Idiot's Lantern. 2 The End of the World. What The Idiot’s Lantern did achieve, though, was something far more remarkable. Sort of London-y New York, mind.” Be careful, though, the only things that go in the Main namespace are tropes and should be created through the YKTTW system. More pertinent is the fact that The Idiot’s Lantern, Gatiss’ most recent contribution to the revived Doctor Who, is a clear homage to this distinctive and often neglected strain of sci-fi. There’s no denying that he was adept at all of these, including on very rare occasions the last one, but what he could never really manage to do was to make them work together. The adventure is a typically odd Mark Gatiss story that plays like a restrained version of his own 'League of Gentlemen'. There are also people being dragged out of their homes by the police hidden under blankets. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. All Episodes (198) Next. Two men around a stove: the idiot lantern Rudi (Günter Pfitzmann) is horrified, his television - the idiot lantern - is broken. (TV: The Idiot's Lantern) Behind the scenes [edit | edit source] Grandma Connolly was released as part of the range of Character Options series 2 action figures. :D. Lizzie. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. With humour and an ending with a definite nod to the Fourth Doctor this is great fun. No need to waste time endlessly browsing—here's the entire lineup of new movies and TV shows streaming on Netflix this month. © Tim Worthington.Please don’t copy this only with more italics and exclamation marks. The Idiot's Lantern " The Idiot's Lantern " is the seventh episode of the second series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast on 27 May 2006 on BBC One. I’ve also removed a snarky comment about the standard of the scripts in the revived series as I don’t agree with it now and I’m not even sure I did then. Faceless people are stolen from their homes in the night and something evil is lurking in the television. As for the observation about the many other shows using similar plot devices, I now think this is absolute codswallop and would like to apologise to Mark. Doctor Who Magazine #559, It’s Good, Except It Sucks: Captain Marvel. View all posts by Tim Worthington. But behind the celebrations there are rumors of monsters on the streets, and the tormented Mr Magpie is hiding a strange and alien secret. The Marco Polo gag – at that point, certain rumours about a certain story possibly existing depending on which way the hailstones were hailstoning or something had yet to start circulating, so this felt hilariously far-fetched in its original context. As will the fact that even when The Doctor and Rose are alone with the family in their front room at night, there are still distant voices and cars and door slams on the soundtrack to reinforce the idea that there’s an actual world out there beyond what is directly happening on screen. As the coronation of Elizabeth II nears, the streets of London live in fear. As Rose realises, there are just too many televisions for the following day's coronation. ; One of Us: Geeked out with Demoversi when they both received pages here around the same time. Unfortunately, this opinion did not seem to be shared by a large number of online Doctor Who fans. I’d say this was entirely in keeping with the nature of the serial but that’s by the by. Not On Your Telly is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here. Post was not sent - check your email addresses! While The Unquiet Dead was where the first series really found its feet, this run has already seen an undisputed fully certified moment of greatness in The Girl In The Fireplace, so there was less pressure for The Idiot’s Lantern to do something truly spectacular. Occasional Broadcaster. Was this review helpful to you? This series just maintains its high standards. In fact, I’m not entirely convinced it was actually what I originally wrote. Should it be mentioned that the plot is somewhat similar to the film Little Shop of Horrors? Television is usually derisively called 'The Idiot's Lantern', or in America 'The Idiot Box'. Deliberately Monochrome: To emulate an old 50s television. Check out IMDb's highest-rated movies and TV shows of 2020, most-viewed trailers, top stars, memorable moments, and more! Add the first question. It's been about a week since Mickey left and it was my birthday. Use the HTML below. Elysium Town: The Idiot's Lantern Character : A strange survivors cove, an island of safety and comfort in a thoroughly hostile layer. If anyone can pull this ambitious conceit off, though, it’s Mark Gatiss. It turns out that someone is tampering with history. The Idiot's Lantern. They have been out of print for many years and were rare when purchased for the episode. Here’s hoping that he fancies having a go at a First Doctor-style ‘pure historical’ story next time round. What The Idiot’s Lantern did achieve, though, was something far more remarkable. The Idiot's Lantern. All fans have to accept now that this shares a name and concept with the old series but nothing more, and that is a great strength. As the coronation of Elizabeth II nears, the streets of London live in fear. The Idiot's Lantern. As a consequence, I had some idea of what I was likely to want to say and what jokes and references I might want to use in advance of actually seeing the episode, and by extension this ended up a more confident, assured, focused and overall entertaining review than the one of The Long Game. Alexandra Palace, Alexandra Palace Way, Muswell Hill, London, England, UK. Doctor Who: "The Idiot's Lantern" Review A strange alien uses primitive television broadcasts to suck human brains out and leave her victims without faces. Doctor Who - S02E07 - The Idiot's Lantern - video dailymotion The Idiot's Lantern Original Airdate: 27 May, 2006 [Magpie's Electricals] (It is a stormy night. Incidentally this review was originally titled Coronation Treat. What’s especially amusing is that it starts with The Doctor and Rose stepping out of the Tardis expecting it to be even more gaudy and colourful still, under the misapprehension that they’ve landed in rock’n’roll-era America, and their incongruously clichéd costumes are a nice touch; in fact in both this and The Long Game, I was particularly impressed by how quickly they just charge straight into the story with no messing about. From this distance it feels all ‘surface’ and primarily concerned with how I felt about Doctor Who coming back, with very little room left to talk about how and why I enjoyed the episode to such a forum-enraging extent. Don't put in redirects for shows, books, etc.. No further footage from the other episodes, visual or audio, has ever been located. WebVideo/The Idiots Lantern; If you meant one of those, just click and go. This was a welcome hallmark of Russell T. Davies’ tenure and as we shall see, when they took their eye off that particular ball I really started to have problems…. Whether or not a popular actor, comedian, writer and cult television obsessive is in fact likely to own elusive recordings of live television programmes that were never even recorded in the first place due to a combination of strikes, technical problems and magnified insects finding their way into the film recorder is a question best pondered on another occasion. I’ll always laugh at the gawking faces and “Good lord, color television!” However, if I wasn’t doing these reviews, I know I’d be skipping straight to “Love … 7 The Idiot's Lantern. Idiot's Lantern. However the script was so well-realised that this didn’t really matter at all. Season 2 | Episode 7. Taken from the episode "The Idiot's Lantern." After all, if the rumours are to be believed, he has all of the missing episodes of The Quatermass Experiment hidden under his bed. The Doctor races to the top of Alexandra Palace and puts an end to The Wire's transmission. Big deal. *The Idiot's Lantern* Miss-Scifi!EDITED! View production, box office, & company info. It does seem odd in retrospect that I didn’t see fit to mention the feminist angle of the episode – which felt a little clumsy and unwieldly at the time but doesn’t so much now – or Rose’s pointed comment about someone who has so much ‘respect’ for the Union Jack not knowing that it’s actually called the Union Flag outside of sailing vessels. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Similar programmes. That’s not to say that the results weren’t often good, but as great as such stories may have been, they were really just an indication of what could have been achieved with more available time and resources. !4 and nobody was allowed to say otherwise. If you want to start a Main/TheIdiotsLantern page, just click the edit button above. The Idiot’s Lantern ★★ Mark Gatiss's tale of a face robber at the time of the Queen's coronation has fine period detail but no sense of place. Or, to put it another way, I was aware that there was going to be an episode written by Mark Gatiss, set in the fifties, and loosely inspired by the BBC Quatermass serials, and there was no way that I wasn’t reviewing that. Let alone that sodding review of The Empty Child. 12 Army Of Ghosts. (10 Nov 2006). And that’s straightforward ‘modern’, as opposed to the trying-to-appeal-to-all-ages dialogue and excessive application of cutting edge technology to be found in present day Doctor Who. The 2005 remount of The Quatermass Experiment – not entirely coincidentally featuring both Mark Gatiss and David Tennant – strove to simply rework the original scripts using modern equipment and technology to the extent of actually being performed live, and was a resounding success. Faceless people are stolen from their homes in the night and something evil is lurking in the television. Listen to music by The Idiot's Lantern on Apple Music. 371 Followers, 450 Following, 71 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from The Idiot's Lantern (@idiots_lantern) Massive Multiplayer Crossover: The Wire was part of Project Million and the accompanying MillionTopia event. Unfortunately, this opinion did not seem to be shared by a large number of online, The Camberwick Green Procrastination Society, (Music For) The Head Ballet: I’m Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek, Christmas With A Dalek! Not On Your Telly is a collection of columns and features with a slant towards ‘forgotten’ television, including plenty of pieces related to Doctor Who. But does their influence have any place in a programme that has purposefully reinvented itself and abandoned all of the perceived limitations and shortcomings of ‘classic’ BBC science fiction? 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