The Sandman: Volume III (1991)

Dream Country (1991)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Kelley Jones / Charles Vess / Colleen Doran |

Page Count: 152

"Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes…"

Volume III of X in the Sandman saga sets aside the multipart work in favour of some standalones. There are still references to things outside of each individual story, so they're still a part of the series story arc, but they can be removed from it and enjoyed separately.

The publisher claims that each collection 'can be read in order or as individual volumes', but that's just publisher bullshit to sell more copies. I would argue that it's best to read them in order, always, even the standalones.

The first story will likely appeal to anyone who's ever tried to pen a narrative (or even a blog review) of their own and found themselves staring in despair at a mocking blank page after half an hour of fruitless toil.

Doctor Who: Paul McGann (1996)

Doctor Who: Paul McGann (1996)

The Eighth Doctor | TV Movie, approx 89 mins.

Doctor Who: The Movie (1996) was a joint production between Britain and America that was intended to kick-start a US approved version of the long-running UK TV show.

It's set in San Francisco (but filmed in Canada) and stars Paul McGann in the lead role, dressed like he's just stepped off the set of a Victorian era George Pal movie. But besides the famous title music and iconic TARDIS exterior, he's the only aspect of the production that feels like it belongs.

The shift in style to a more 'serious drama' and a misguided pandering to the perceived target audience meant the show was stripped of almost everything that made the original TV venture interesting in the first place.

A Midsummer Night's Dream (c.1595-96)

A Midsummer Night's Dream (c.1595-96)

Author: William Shakespeare  |  Page Count: 120

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a confusing first read for a lot of people; it certainly was for me many years ago. It seems as if there are too many characters to keep track of, but there really isn't.

A common hurdle is that a large portion of the play focuses on two men and two women. The two men are both in love with the same woman, a woman who loves just one of the men. There's a second woman in love with one of the men that loves the first woman. You follow? That, believe it or not, isn't the confusing part.

The real head-fuck comes when the King of Faerie, Oberon, or more precisely his loyal aide, the pernicious fairy Puck, gets involved. There's a mix-up with a love potion and then everything goes tits-up. If you can see it performed on stage do so, because it really helps.

Meteor (1979)

Meteor (1979)

Dir. Ronald Neame

A disaster movie that doesn't have just an ocean liner or skyscraper under threat, it has the entire world! Even so, it's mostly standard fare, except for an unexpected edge that I won't reveal. It doesn't prevent the script from being predictable, but it does provide a viewer with an interesting angle from which to examine certain events.

Sean Connery is the practical, opinionated and steadfast Scot saving the world from a natural disaster in an ever-decreasing time frame. A solution may exist, but dare they use it? Ooh.

In the process, Sean even manages to build a cultural bridge between the American/Russian divide using his renowned sex-appeal. If he could bottle that he could make enough money to buy all of England and cast it off into the sea.

The recurring cutaways to the approaching meteor, a chunk of jagged rock five miles wide and travelling at 30,000 mph, is made even more ominous by a booming bass line; it's silly but fun. The cutaways to other parts of the world should've had a similar result, but for some reason they were mostly kind of stupid.

I laughed when someone asked "Can anything go wrong?". You damn fool. Of course something will go wrong, there's forty minutes of film left!

Mrs Biggs (2012)

Mrs Biggs (2012)

Dir. Paul Whittington | 5 episodes, approx 50 minutes each.

An ITV miniseries based on the life of Charmian Biggs (played by Sheridan Smith), wife to the most well-known of the Great Train Robbers, Ronnie Biggs (played by Daniel Mays). If you don't know the historical aspect, in 1963 Ronnie and fifteen other men robbed an English Royal Mail train that was carrying £2.6 million (approx £48 million in today's money) and they did it without using guns.

The series begins a few years prior to that event, though, in 1957. Charmian Powell is an innocent, dependable young woman who holds a steady job and has a strict, controlling father. Ronnie is a part-time petty crook, a Jack the Lad, Jimmy Chancer, etc, and also a bit of a charmer. The inevitable happens.

The journey from youthful innocence to reluctant accomplice avoids pure melodrama. It's often difficult to sympathise with a criminal and easier to have those feelings for a criminal's wife, but covering up the truth even for noble reasons is still an immoral act. The series doesn't force you to abandon the judgements you'd naturally have toward that kind of behaviour, so you're free to dislike Charmian's choices if you choose to and still enjoy the ride.

The Sandman: Volume II (1991)

The Doll's House (1991)

Author: Neil Gaiman | Illustrators: Mike Dringenberg / Chris Bachalo / Michael Zulli | Page Count: 228

"[I]f it touched you, you could wash and wash until your skin was tattered and bloodied, but you'd never be clean again."

Volume II of X in the Sandman saga is where the series really begins to separate itself from the larger DC Universe; it feels like a self-contained world populated by a collection of believable people, not dependent on past histories. Morpheus grows into a more three dimensional character, not the insubstantial entity he was before. Everything's more focussed and immediate.

The stories also undergo a drastic change, being much better developed in terms of their depth and interconnectivity; while some of the subject matter is darker and more adult. I found one part of the story to be uncomfortable reading, but at the same time the very idea that it could ever happen was intriguing.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Season 3 (1994–95)

Star Trek: DS9: Season 3 (1994–95)

26 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

S3 is DS9 coming of age, so to speak. Set approx two months after the end of S2, it finally begins to feel like the crew are becoming a team, interdependent, loyal, more than just co-workers thrown together in a metallic grey space-doughnut. The actors began to exhibit what was missing from previous seasons, the most difficult ingredient of all: a level of convincing heart and warmth toward each other, just like a family should have.

It's just as well, too, because 1994 was also the year that TNG ended its run (with S7), meaning the DS9 crew had to carry the weighty Trek flag alone.

With no new TNG adventures airing, it's surely not a coincidence that the station received a proper, non-runabout class starship. Smaller than the Enterprise D, it's a rather unassuming vessel at first, but quickly proves itself in battle. (Trek space battles had never been that exciting, to be honest, because a TV budget didn't allow for the kind of logistical set-ups that we'd see in the movies, but DS9 made some attempt to address that with battles that were faster, more aggressive and altogether more spectacular.)