DORKWOOD

There is more gleeful plundering of Joss Whedon’s TV oeuvre as the team get involved with some rubbish demon/aliens (basically people with big fangy masks on) which are being kidnapped and made to fight in cage matches with disgruntled blokes a la Fight Club. That man who was Guppy in Bleak House tracks down an evil estate agent (redundancy ahoy) who is organising the whole thing because he is having a crisis of masculinity or some such. Why can’t he just buy an X Box 360 and pretend to shoot stuff like normal people, eh? Estate Agent ponces around with his shirt off for a while and I am surprised that him and Guppy don’t start feeling each other up given that the show is supposed to be shockingly sexy etc etc. Anyway, Guppy bonds with the fangy aliens and has a bit of a death wish, though not nearly enough of one for my liking.

Onto the double bill finale and Capt Jack and the boring Japanese girl get transported to the 1940s so Jack can snog a handsome RAF officer. Hubba hubba. The others get them back by opening a magic time portal, even though it is hella dangerous or something. At one point the snivelly Welsh bloke shoots Guppy. Hurrah! He doesn’t die though. Boo! Meanwhile a sinister looking bloke creeps around being sinister. I am sure that will be important for later.

It turns out that the magic time portal has destabilised the space time continuum. That old chestnut. What this basically means is that some people with the Black Death pop up on the streets of Cardiff (and people actually notice the difference? Hmm). Sinister bloke continues with his sinisterness and tricks WPC Fringeface (tm freakytrigger) into getting her dull, cheated on boyfriend just to the right place so that Mr Sinisterpaws can gorily stab him to death. Fringeface has a hilarious overacting sobby fit and they decide that the only option is for them turn back time like Cher but then – ohs noes - it turns out that this was Sinisterpaws’ plan all along and when they do they release a big CGI monster that rampages around Cardiff causing literally a dozen extras to run around screaming and die cheaply. Jack saves the day, and then dies and then comes back to life again. I missed the whole “he’s immortal, woo!” bit so it seems like they are making it up as they go along by this point. Then the TARDIS appears and Capt Jack runs off for his contractually obliged crossover. Hmmm, I would probably watch it again if there was nothing else on (or if I heard that they go all out and just turn it into gay prorn) but generally I am finding this show to be distinctly mediocre.