nsb68

If you like a lot of earnest, desk-thumping middle aged men dressed mostly in brown or orange, shouting in each other's faces in a small room, being horrifically condescending to the token sensitive hysterical lady, with lots of overplayed 70s head-clutching, bulging-eyed hysteria on top of all that, plus a sprinkling of casual racism...you'll absolutely love this.

I should make it clear that the 70s is my favourite period for film and television, but this is very difficult to watch. I don't know whether those earnest men were actually shouting 'DAMN IT, man!' but it felt as if they probably were. There was definitely some 'fist slamming down on desk' action during all the SHOUTING. It's in a similar style to Doomwatch which I also find very hard to enjoy, for the same reasons. Unfortunately it has none of the subtlety or creepiness of the BBC's Christmas Ghost stories from the same era.

Not even a tiny bit frightening.

...but for all the wrong reasons. I find this series very difficult to love, and believe me I've tried. I bought the whole boxed set, optimistically hoping I'd enjoy it more than on my previous viewing many years before. Generally I love 70s tv, I don't mind the poor effects or the slow pace. But Doomwatch is like the tv equivalent of Radio 4 plays: lots of boring men pacing up and down in offices, shouting at each other, being terribly EARNEST and CROSS, addressing each other by their surnames (unless it's a woman of course), saying "Damn it man!" and either comforting hysterical sobbing women or being patronising towards them. The scripts are often concerned with 'terrifying' issues of the day which we now accept as 'normal life' (Tower blocks! Plastic! Jet lag!) It's all rather humourless and preachy, and the acting style is frequently pitched at borderline hysteria which can be extremely grating and often had me reaching for the volume control. Having said all that, it's well made in most respects, just very much of its time - a 'criticism' which can be levelled at many examples of archive television of course, but plenty of those stand up better today than Doomwatch does.

Like a local junior school remade Star Wars. Slightly redeemed by the easy-on-the-eye robot of the title...

Just one example of why I'm going off this series:

Flesh and bone tougher than brick apparently as a man is hurled through a solid wall and not only survives being smashed into meaty pulp but just gets up and walks away. I don't care what he's possessed by, it's still a human body vs brick and that's just dumb.

It's more 'comedy' than drama now, but unfortunately not funny in the slightest. An annoying dim witted gobby little girl, Hopper acting like a dick, children who miraculously pluck all the correct answers out of thin air, the stereotype 'comedy' black characters (three of them now), the Terminator style foreign hard man who's unstoppable, lots of people shouting in each other's faces, villains with no peripheral vision, the indestructible and superhuman heroes, the cheesy one liners and dreadful dialogue...

It's authentic 80s that's for sure, except I personally couldn't bear 80s movies first time round. Don't think I can take any more...

Ok ok I get it: I'm a bad person because I'm a man; I'm a bad person because I'm white. I'm probably a bad person because I'm middle class too. I'm suitably ashamed of myself. Now I've given myself a jolly good telling off can I have my favourite programme back please?

I've been watching since 1973 (but since the very beginning via DVD, VHS, tv repeats, conventions etc etc) and this was the first episode where I literally got so bored I walked away. What drama there was was about as threatening as Scooby-Doo.

The Doctor calls people "mate" now, and I don't think I'm going to be able to tolerate much more of her 'hilarious' verbal diarrhoea. The default mode of the Doctor since David Tennant seems to be motormouth stand-up comedian. That was never my view of the character but it's so ingrained now that everybody else seems to take that as definitive Doctor.

I need to say something nice about this awful episode... Um....the spaceship interior was gorgeous. I'd forgotten how much I missed gleaming white spaceship corridors. There.

Blah blah blah...big spiders...blah blah blah...he's a bit like Trump...blah blah blah...sad companions...blah blah blah...sonic screwdriver...blah blah blah...Doctor is 'funny'...blah blah blah...guns are bad...blah blah blah...pollution is bad...blah blah blah...big corporations are bad...blah blah blah...Doctor talks fast...blah blah blah...horrible rap music...blah blah blah...spider dead...blah blah blah...moral outrage...blah blah blah...team TARDIS...blah blah blah...the end.

I really don't mind that it doesn't follow directly on from the previous cliffhanger; I'm a patient guy, I can wait. But...this was just terrible. There's good 80s and bad 80s, and this was like the very worst aspects of the 80s. A bunch of awful self pitying teenage characters, a cheesy rock soundtrack and even a montage where a character becomes 'badass'. Nobody to like, nothing to enjoy. Oh, and if Kali was (presumably) separated from her mother as a baby or toddler, where did she pick up an Indian accent? Thank goodness this wasn't the first episode I watched or I wouldn't have bothered with the rest, which is generally superb.

I don't know where these credits come from but that's definitely not Paul Angelis, Terry Scott etc on the English language version of this. They are clearly American actors for a start.

The terrible dubbing and the crude animation (so unlike the beautiful work of the originals) spoils this film for me.

I wanted to enjoy this film but after about 20 minutes of struggling to decode Matthew McConaughey's slurring and mumbling words I was unable to follow it so admitted defeat and gave up. Maybe it's a great film otherwise, I don't know, but if I can't understand what the main character is saying there's no point watching.

If you enjoy seeing bad tempered men being constantly hostile and rude, shouting at each other for 100 minutes and saying "ass" a lot, you'll love this film.