Pete Messum Reviews...

So, seeing as the Big Finish audios have now been confirmed as 'canonical' by Steven Moffat, we can regard this story as just as important as The Day of the Doctor, only in audio form. This also features five Doctors with their companions, as well as archive dialogue for Doctors 1-3. This is Doctor Who before the regeneration number system got messed up, so we can expect a simply enough story, can't we? No. This story is a jumbled mess of paradoxes and alternate time lines. It's Doctor Who at its most creative and complicated, and with it being on audio form it makes it a little harder to follow. Essentially, the plot makes no sense. However, it doesn't need to make sense. There's a great atmosphere and it feels so right to hear the Doctors and their companions being forced together as part of a huge plot by the Master - who is superbly played by Geoffrey Beevers. All cast members are great, and for fans new to the audio adventures, this a good example and pla...

Christmas specials in Doctor Who are a mixed bag, although I thoroughly enjoyed last years' (The Snowmen) so much that I thought this was going to be just as entertaining. I've only watched this story once, so this is my INITIAL IMPRESSION of the episode. The Snowmen was a brilliant, fun and entertaining piece of television, and the best episode of the 2012 series of Doctor Who. However, it's predecessor - The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe - was the biggest load of Christmas smeg I have ever sat through. Urgh. I was so glad to see those end credits, and the trailer for series two of Sherlock almost made up for it. It was a horrible piece of television with inconsistent and boring characters, poor jokes, clichés, and more forced moments than you could shake a sonic screwdriver at. I absolutely hated it. Worst of all, it had no plot at the end of the day, making a complete mess of an episode. It made A Christmas Carol look like a masterpiece. Well, A Christmas Carol actu...

One year after its first instalment, Peter Jackson brings us the second part of his The Hobbit trilogy, entitled The Desolation of Smaug . This is the film everyone wanted to see. Who cares about Gollum when you have Smaug the dragon – the most impressive dragon anyone could tackle on the big screen. Whilst this film deviates from the book in many ways, it adds a fresh perspective and a bit more detail to the journey of Bilbo, Gandalf and the Dwarves, and fills in as to why Gandalf is absent for large amounts of the original book, as well as including old favourites such as Legolas. The story begins where the last film left off, with Bilbo, Gandalf and Dwarves being hunted down by Azog and the Orcs (absent in the novel) as they get closer to the Lonely Mountain. However, it becomes clear that a great evil known as the Necromancer is rising to power (which is essentially bringing Sauron back from the dead to lead into The Lord of the Rings trilogy). Along the way they encounter Be...

2012 was a year that many people will remember for a long time, with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the London Olympics and Paralympics, Marvel's Avengers Assemble setting Box Office records, etc... Oh well. I have seen 13 films from 2012 (that I can remember) that I have decided to put in a top 13 list, with a score for each film. DARK SHADOWS - A rather tedious film full Johnny Depp-isms and boring plot revelations that are utterly pointless. The entertainment factor is ruined by a rather boring plot that has no structure and little emotion. Eva Green is excellent as the witch though, and the actress playing Vicky is very good but extremely underused, which is a shame considering she was the most interesting and complex character of the entire film. Oh, and the less said about the narration and the ending, the better. (3/10) HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA - I was dragged to see this by some friends against my will, and I regretted paying to see this film. It was a re-hash of lots of...

The Hunger Games was released lasts year, and had a pretty massive amount of hype surrounding it. Personally, it didn't appeal to me. In fact, neither book nor film perked my interest. However, everyone who's read The Hunger Games seems to love it like hell. I had the head of English at my school come up and say it got her into Science Fiction. Well, I'm going to avoid a rant about how she's missed Firefly, Star Wars and Doctor Who in terms of great science fiction, but the point still stands. The Hunger Games is such a popular franchise, even if the three best that I have mentioned could kick its butt any millennia (although Attack of the Clones isn't great until the climax). Anyway, is it any good? As of yet I have only started reading the books, so if I miss something, I apologise. The first problem is that the actual origins of The Hunger Games is barely explained, and unless you've read the book, it will go over your head. I watched this film with my mum ...

***SPOILER ALERT** The mid-season finale to Agents of SHIELD was certainly an explosive one. After a solid nine episodes of set-up (not including Coulson's death in Avengers Assemble (2012)), finally it seems to all come together. Raina and Michael Peterson return, along with a rather shifty character seen at the end of episode five. Centipede is behind all this. They have perfected the extremis/super soldier serum and were responsible for the robotic eye implants. It seems almost everything seen so far has been leading up to this. The episode focussed heavily on Michael Peterson from the Pilot episode, which I thought was a little too much at first, but as the credits rolled I knew very well why. Killed off in a traditional Joss Whedon manner. Why can't Steven Moffat be like that? His death scene was a definite shock, as was the entire ending to the episode. Its definitely clear that there is something suspicious about Skye's parents and the agent who gave her to the or...

This was an interesting episode to watch, although pretty much all of it was clichéd material, as Jason was turned into some kind of were-dog thing. The scene between Jason and Areadne in particular reminded me of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, when Lady Tottington visits Wallace. Its a story that has been done time and time again, and it added nothing new to it. The scene with Pasiphae and Minos was so randomly placed it was odd, and there needn't have been any other characters than our three regulars and Areadne. Needless to say, next week's episode looks much more interesting. 5/10