Day 664: Delta and the Bannermen Part 3

As the story comes to an end, with a wonderfully ludicrous series of events including bees, Allen keys, singing and, of course, the obligatory character who undergoes a metamorphosis in order to change his species for reasons of love, I consider the fact that I've fallen in love with this story, and how it seems to have come out of nowhere. But, to be honest, I should have seen this coming.

A few months ago, I put the Doctor Who 50th anniversary soundtrack onto my iPod. It's a set of music covering all eras of Doctor Who, and I'll often put it on as background music when I'm doing various bits of work at the Uni. Through this set, I discovered the song 'Here's to the Future' a weird hybrid of a 1950's tune with 1980's instruments. It's not a great song, but in terms of tone and energy, it's become a rather nice little thing to have as incidental music to my daily life when I'm in the mood for something rather happy (it formed part of my soundtrack to the most recent coup in Australian politics, reflecting my mood perfectly).

And it's thus this song that sums up Delta and the Bannermen for me. It's not a great piece of work, but it's happy and easy to enjoy, so I can't help but like it, and I look forward to the next time that I decide to watch it again. But for now, there's still around 150 days left until this particular quest is over, so We've Got Work To Do!

Day 663: Delta and the Bannermen Part 2

I'm continuing to enjoy this story as it continues to be a blaze of fun and stupidity. But there's also surprisingly dark moments within it, such as the moment when an entire bus of alien tourists is destroyed by the villain, on the grounds that they may have been harbouring Delta, the Chimeron Queen and last of her race. It's a thoroughly jarring moment, in particular as it's preceeded immediately by a quick comedy bit as the bus driver makes a brief 1950's reference, before attempting to drive away. But it works surprisingly well in the context of the story, as it shows the villains as completely and properly evil, and not the cartoonish style of evil that one would expect for this type of story. Thus, it has now become less of a story about having fun, and more about a story of fighting between having fun and dealing with serious and evil business. So let's hope that fun can win at the end of the day, as we approach the conclusion to Delta and the Bannermen.

Day 662: Delta and the Bannermen Part 1

The last time I watched this story, I rather looked down on it. It seemed to be stupid, with poor acting, poor writing, and half decent direction that can't really save it. So I wasn't expecting to completely love it this time around that I watched it. And what's more, I expected even less to love it for exactly the same reasons that I didn't love it the last time.

It's a story that knows exactly what it is, a stupid piece of harmless fun, and thus it decides to run with this approach and make something so completely stupid and illogical that it defies all sense. The end result is something that's frequently hilarious and oddly enjoyable. I'll give an example of what I mean: Billy is a mechanic from 1950's Wales who meets Delta, the Chimeron Queen. The two sit down for lunch together and briefly look in each other's eyes. They are now hopelessly in love. This moment is not overplayed with romantic music or a slow motion shot of the two locking their eyes together. It is instead underplayed so much that you overlook it completely. It's scenes like this that feel wonderfully ridiculous because of the way in which they have been plotted, and so you can't help but laugh at the sheer ham-fisted nature of the plot.

So why do I now love this story so? Because I think this has to have been done on purpose. The story is filled with moments like this, where ridiculous conclusions are made from ridiculous set-ups and nobody bats an eyelid at them. It creates an overall very funny story, and one which I'm now very much looking forward to re-watching in a new light.