Exterminaten!

We went on my parents' boat at the weekend. They were off on it for two weeks but they wanted some help for the first full day which contained a flight of sixteen locks. They (correctly) figured this could be a bit much for the two of them alone and a couple of extra pairs of hands would speed things up and reduce effort. I didn't mind too much going along to help, but it would have been nice if they'd thought to mention the fact that the second day had a flight of eighteen locks. That just seemed to have slipped their minds. Must be the age.

So on Saturday night I find myself in a canal boat moored in the middle of nowhere, with no TV reception. And the last episode of Dr Who starting soon. Darnit!

We decided to go and find a local pub instead. It wasn't too far but it did involve climbing a fairly long hill. The pub was nice and had a big telly. There were a few people in the room it was in but we chanced our luck and asked if they'd mind putting Doctor Who on it. They said ok!

It started well but soon became apparent that the pub was going to be too noisy or the TV too quiet or both, even when we moved to sit up close. I was able to watch the whole thing easily, on possibly the biggest screen I've ever seen Dr Who on. But I only caught about a quarter of the dialogue. This wasn't ideal and by the end I was quite angry.

My ire was especially aimed at two middle aged fat bald blokes sitting just under the telly who talked through the whole thing, and a family with small children who talked and ran around constantly. C**ts, the lot of them. It's not like it wasn't a big pub with lots of other space they could have gone and sat in for an hour. I'd have happily moved if they'd wanted to watch football or something.

Once home in York on Monday, we watched the episode again off of the recorder and I really enjoyed it, though I'd be lying if I said it was full of surprises at that point. I particularly liked the German Daleks shouting "Exterminaten!". Not sure if that's genuine German but it was genuinely funny.

After that I watched "Remembrance of the Daleks" out of Sylvester McCoy's tenure in the 80s. It was much as I remembered except that in my head it was set in the 80s, not the 60s and I'd forgotten some (most) of the twists. It's actually a pretty decent piece of TV but it was certainly of a much smaller scale than the episode I'd seen prior to it! There's a particularly nice bit when someone who's been only seen from reverse in the first three episodes turns out to not be who you assume it is (ie Davros).

I also remember that seeing a Dalek glide up some stairs was big news and a big twist when initially shown. It doesn't look as impressive now I've seen the buggers fly through space.

And for the record, I don't think Davros is dead. He'll have slipped into an escape pod or something at the last second. Again.