DCI Gene Hunt - the man, the myth, the legend

Surely you know who Gene Hunt is? If not, what planet have you been living on?

I watched the entire series of Life On Mars back when it was aired in 2006/7. It's now 2010 and after the series finale of it's spin off, Ashes to Ashes, I decided to get my hands on the Complete Life On Mars Series 1 and 2 boxset.

Just finished watching the first two episodes and its llike seeing an old friend. Almost feels like we've never been apart. One of my laugh out loud moments was when Sam (John Simm) toes the white dog poo under Kim Trent's nose and recognises the fact that its a sight you no longer see in the Noughties. True... where do the white dog poo go? Also where the hell did it come from in the first place?
But the main laughs come from Gene Hunt - the sheriff of Salford CID. He dosen't care what you think, or if you're offended by his views. Because this is his kingdom and don't you dare step into his world playing king of the jungle. He's a big (6 foot odd!), old school copper whho doesn't necessaraly play by the book but makes sure the scumbags stay off the street, even if it does mean fitting them up if he hasn't got enough evidence.
Gene's character plays in stark contrast to Sam's law abiding, by the book policing, where he's sceptical of everyone and everything, and his clean, anal retentive approach is more sterile than an operating theatre. Gene's world has a bit of dirt in it but don't you remember your grandmother saying a bit of dirt never did you no harm? Sam's world is heartless, driven only by method and secure evidence. Gene, on the other hand, usess his mind and gut feeling - sometimes this proves more powerful. Throughout the series, Sam and Gene learn from each other but Sam is the one who learns the most from his experience. The world is much more colourful in 1973, especially wih the Gene Genie at the helm. Who would want to go back to the dull, bleak, lifeless society of 2006?

Gene represents a lot of our fantasies which we want from the world. I also believe Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) is IN a lot of fantasies of the lady viewers out there too... (including mine).

Our world needs Gene Hunt. If Gene was keeping the streets of Britain clean today, I reckon it'd function a whole lot better.

Whether you agree that we need Gene or your a fan of Life On Mars or Ashes To Ashes, you can support the cause. I know I am. I'm gonna get my mitts on a "You Are Surrouned By Armed Bastards" t-shirt from Shot Dead In The Head. They have a voucher live too at the moment, where you can get 10% off (subject to removal/change at any time). Use WC2010 at checkout for the discount to apply.

If your looking for more Gene Hunt goodness then why don't you check out www.dcigenehunt.co.uk - They've got tonnes of great stuff on there. Their quotes section made me chuckle and there's books on there that I'd never even heard of. It's such a great site that we've stuck them on the home page.

We support the Gene Genie. Do you?

MCHS class of 2010

I don't really know how to start this blog. After 5 years of being around the same people, they're all suddenly gone. Admittedly, I will see them again, but it won't be the same as being in school with them for 5 days a week. As you've probably guessed, this blog is dedicated to them, for being so brilliant.
I'm going to start by sharing with you, the first day at MCHS. It was quite scary actually. Me and Chris had been 2 of the 3 that had moved from Larkfield Primary, to Meols Cop. Saying that, we weren't always at Larkfield. We had previously been to B.D.S.S. Looking around the hall, we could see a lot of old faces (well... if you could call them old at 11 years old). This made us even more nervous.
Anyway, the usual happened, we were sorted into our forms etc. My brother was in the first form to be sorted. Mrs Yates' form. Then it was Miss Wood's form. Then my form. 7SG. Miss Girvan's form. I can remember having my name be called out, and then sidling up to the front with the rest of the form, weighed down by equipment in our school bags.
After that, I can't remember. Its all gone from me.I can only remember selected parts of year 7 now. I'm not very pleased about that. I wanted to hang onto every memory. I can't do that. But I can remember the year 7 residential to Keswick. I'll give you a running description.
We left the school on the Friday afternoon. There was a load of us because of course, the first trip away with school. Everyone wanted to go. Me and Chris were among the lot of us. Anyway, coach ride up there was rubbish. We had to listen to Mr Phillips go on, and on, and on. I think I may skip to when we got there. Yes I will.
We were all told to go and sit on the grass with our luggage, where we were going to be told what tent we were in. I ended up in a tent with Sophie and Lauren.The food was rubbish, and so was the beds but hey, it was an adventure. I'm sorry,I can't remember everything. I'll move onto the year 8.
Year 8 residential was hilarious. We had Paul tell a tree that he loves it. I was in a tent with Lauren (again
) and Sian. The nights were hilarious because I played a practical joke on Beki Shaw. I went to the back of here tent (at night) and started making stupid noises.
"Sarah, there's a space on the floor of my tent with your name on it. Do you really want to spend the night with me?" Miss Gleeson said after I had been caught. Of course, I knew everyone a lot better.
This wasn't in contrast to the year 9 residential. Year 9 was epic!
I was in a tent with Jess, Emmeline and Sian (who was annoying me by this point). Sailing was funny. Paul was in a boat on his own. He got 15 meters out of shaw and then capsized. And then there was the trapeze. Funniest memory ever!
Chelsea was up on the trapeze (I actually solute her for getting up there anyway because I couldn't). Once she got to the top of the post, she was too scared to jump off!
"Chelsea, if you don't jump off that I will take your hair straighteners away from you" Miss Gleeson said and Chelsea was moaning "Oh, that's not fair". It was hilarious. Chelsea is one of my form members.

Anyways, I shall leave you with these memories for know while I think of some more,
Sarah x

Matt Smith

Matt Smith as the Doctor

After watching Matt of The One Show earlier this evening. I have to take back half of what I said in my previous blog. I must again, list why.

a) Matt maybe weired but he generally seems like a nice person.

b) After coming to terms with David's departure from Dr Who, it has just occurred to me that Matt didn't walk up to him with a gun and demand that he leave so that he could take the controls of the Tardis. David left because he wanted to.

c) I think people are being quite unfair. I admit, I was against him at first, and I know all the David fan girls are too. I also think that they don't like him because he's the next Doctor. This is unfair. They are doubting him before he's had 1 minuet to show people the personality of his Doctor (which apparently, is based on Albert Einstein).

d) I won't love Matt the same way I love David, but I can't help liking him now after seeing his true personality. Aside from Dr Who, his personality is funny and enthusiastic. What more can you ask from someone who has had a lot of bile posted about him on the internet.

Okay, I Know I Need To Explain My Self Now, Being A David Tennant Lover

The above title is precisely the point. David said that he wishes Matt the best of luck and wants people to support him. Aren't we, DT fan girls, suppose to respond to this comment by doing what David says, and support Matt? I know that when David is not on the TV, we are like fish out of water, but David will be back in Single Father. As much as I'd like to see David back as the Doctor, it won't be for a while. Mean while, Matt has taken the helm. As far as I'm aware, I think Matt will be a good Doctor ans surprise us all.

"We Know David Said To Support Him, But He Will Never Be As Good As DT" I Here You Say.

I know as everyone that Matt will never be to the same standard of David, but I also know we need to give him a chance. I don't know about anyone else, but I, personally, am going to be watching Matt on Doctor who and I will be supporting him. Just like David said to do. Above anything else, I know David and Matt will be thrilled that Matt has one more supporter because I know I thats what David and Matt want.


SarahDTfan

Doctor Who: It Just Won't Freakin' End

Having a blog where I can talk about anything is actually a bit overwhelming. To make things nice and easy, I've decided to start off by writing about my favorite television show-- no, NOT My Little Pony. Or Chuck, The Intersect. Or Torchwood. Or Family Guy.... okay, so maybe I have more than one, but this time it's Doctor Who.









The above picture, featuring Matt Smith in costume as the Eleventh Doctor and Karen Gillan as new companion Amy Pond, provoked a surprising number of responses from me. I thought I would share some of them with you.

Immediate Reactions That Might Be Kind Of Mean

a) OMG, they found little chibi-versions of David Tennant and Catherine Tate!

b) The BBC was so offended by the insinuations that there was sex in the Tardis that they've decided to make it seem not only unlikely, but impossible. What are they? Ten years old?

c) No danger of this guy being drafted by the Royal Shakespeare Company to play Hamlet.

d) He's so funny-looking, not even John Barrowman will want to kiss him...well okay, that's RIDICULOUS. But still, he's kinda funny-looking.

e) Christopher Eccleston and my David Tennant are looking more handsome by the second.

f) This Karen Gillan girl is lucky that she's a companion for the Eleventh Doctor and not the Tenth, because if there was a young girl in the Tardis during the Tenth Doctor's era and it wasn't ME, well, let's just say that this Karen would have been "deleted." Incidences of Forced-Karen-Replacement are rare, but not unheard of in the wild.

g) What is this Sweet Valley High doing in my Doctor Who?
...and I could go on, but I imagine you get the idea.


David is all like "This is how you take a publicity photo, bitches."

For anybody who is completely and utterly confused right now, David Tennant (the actor who has been playing the Doctor for the past four years) has left the show; his final episodes were the 2009 Christmas specials, where his incarnation was killed of with much fanfare. Less talked about, but perhaps even more significant, is the fact that head writer Russel T. Davies has also left. While new head writer Steven Moffat steers the production of the next series, and David returns to Earth- not unlike salmon, returning upstream to spawn and die (and host Masterpiece Theater, which isn't terribly salmon-like but what can you do, metaphors are tough)- it's really not clear where the show is going.

Now, I'm not one of those maniac Doctor Who fans who are busy filling the internet with bile about how Matt Smith is terrible and should be shot. While I admit, that I was hardly thrilled with the announcement of his casting, in truth I know better that to judge a performance that I haven't seen yet. My comments about his lack of attractiveness are strictly about personal preference-- I know that lots of people think he's good looking. I mean, I don't understand them and I think they're probably crazy, but that's beside the point.


Look at these two pictures. Matt Smith's first photo with the Tardis, looking kind of
constipated, and David Tennant playing with an adorable kitten: Who is better?

It's not the actor playing the Eleventh Doctor that's my problem; What I've recently realized is that I'm uncomfortable with the fact that there is going to be another Doctor at all.

Why I Sort Of Want Doctor Who To End

During the years since DW's revival (or the RTD era as some fans call it), despite the gags and silly costumes there's been a lot of quite serious stuff. The show regularly deals with themes that were only touched on during the classic Who era, if at all. Most of the popular episodes, like "The Girl in the Fireplace" and "Blink" , are about mortality (when the Doctor says "Blink and you're dead", he's not just talking about the monsters of the week). "The Fires of Pompeii" dealt with the issue of power and responsibility that the show has traditionally shied away from- a core problem with the show is the fact that the Doctor never does anything with his time machine that YOU would do (like prevent World War II and the Holocaust, let's say), and they finally addressed that. Of course, saying "Some events are fixed and I can't change them" is a bit of a cop out, but at least they pointed out that "can't" and "won't" are two different things.

They've even taken the core concept of the show- The Doctor and his companion- and taken it to a place where it really makes no sense to return to the status quo. I really liked the end of series four, but what happened to Donna represents a complete breakdown of the Doctor/companion relationship, and I have to give them credit for going through with it. At the end, Donna was scared of him, and that's the last thing that he (or us) ever wanted to see. It's probably the only thing I've ever seen on television that was intentionally painful to watch, as opposed to just ending up that way due to incompetence. The idea that the Doctor could pick up a new person after being forced to acknowledge something so disturbing- that the relationship of equals between him and his buddies is a charade- is hard to wrap my brain around. Hasn't he learned that it's unfair to expose these people to so much danger, in large part from himself, just because he's lonely? Wasn't that the point?

This hurts me a lot more than it hurts you. Primarily because David has left the role
of the Doctor.

Of course, the ratings are good, and thus the show lives on; being Doctor Who, even after the new series and it's canceled, the story will probably pick up twenty years down the road. I understand that a TV show is not going to have the kind of beginning, middle and end that a good book does. But I can't help feeling that David's last series or so has constituted an actual ending, and to continue merrily along with cheerful new characters is kind of like a slap in the face.

SarahDTfan