Other Doctor Lives: Twenty Twelve: Series 1, Episode 4 – “Raising the Bar” (2011)

This episode goes pretty hard into cringe comedy, but it’s done quite well. I still enjoyed it, even if I felt the urge to watch some of the scenes through my fingers out of second-hand embarrassment!

The commission has kicked off their Raising the Bar campaign, aimed at getting youth excited about the Olympics. Unfortunately, the face of their campaign is Dave Wellbeck, former Olympic runner and horrendous public speaker. While Ian is busy dealing with an argument between Kay and the others over a wind turbine, Siobhan tries to convince Ian to drop Dave.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a talented athlete isn’t necessarily going to be charming, quick-witted, and engaging. And in Dave’s case, he’s pretty hopeless. He’s supposed to be traveling the country speaking to schoolkids, but he’s glued to his notecards, he can’t get his PowerPoint to line up with his speech, and he can’t get the timing right on his stilted jokes. He has a habit of peppering his presentation with, “But what is…?” questions, which he gets zero participation on—I laughed out loud at, “But what is friendship? Anybody here have any friends?”

By the way, at one of the schools Dave visits, the receptionist is played by none other than Georgie Glen, a.k.a. Miss Higgins from Call the Midwife. Fairly similar role, but in a different time period! It was fun to see her.

Our character of the week is Siobhan Sharpe, head of brand. She’s the commission’s rather shallow PR person, played by Jessica Hynes (Daisy from Spaced!) Siobhan is thoroughly unimpressed with Dave and is eager to cut the dead weight from Raising the Bar. As she puts it, “You want people to be inspired, they’ve gotta stay conscious first.” Unfortunately for her, Ian is a lot less cutthroat than Siobhan is and wants to give Dave more chances than she thinks he warrants.

The subplot about the wind turbine is fun too. Kay is eager to have it incorporated into the Olympic Park as a clear symbol of their commitment to sustainability. The problem is, that area gets hardly any wind, so it’d be a waste. “This is like building a very expensive boat in the middle of the desert,” gripes Nick, another member of the commission. Given that Kay is usually the one elbows deep in boring, unglamorous, principled work, it’s interesting that she’d bend her ideals for the sake of the image she wants to promote.

Some good bits in David Tennant’s narration today. Here are my favorite lines:

• “For many in today’s young audience, it will be the degree of crossover between the skills required to become the second-best athlete in your field and those required to be a public speaker that’s the biggest surprise” – The syntax gets a little convoluted here, but Tennant’s delivery makes it work
• “Meanwhile, Ian’s PA Sally Owen is protecting him from any unnecessary calls, irrespective of whether they’re from his wife or not” – hee!

Weapons (2025, R)

In recent years, we’ve seen horror films making more inroads at the Oscars. That’s especially true this year—hi, Sinners and Frankenstein! But while those films are the sort of “prestige horror” stuff that the Oscars have been starting to recognize, Weapons is what I’d call more of “standard horror” fare. Even though it’s only up for one major award, it’s still neat to see that kind of film get nominated!

One morning, Ms. Gandy arrives at her 3rd grade classroom to find out that only one of her students has shown up to school. Every other kid vanished the night before, leaving their homes and running off into the night at 2:17 a.m. The mystery turns the town upside down. Archer, the father of one of the missing kids, becomes obsessed with Ms. Gandy, sure that she knows more than she’s telling. Meanwhile, Ms. Gandy has been placed on leave and her last remaining student, Alex, was moved to another classroom. She’s been told to give him space, but she starts to believe something strange is going on at his house.

The movie is split into six sections, with each one following a different character on a slightly overlapping timeline. We see Ms. Gandy’s story, along with Archer’s, Alex’s, and a few others. The first time we switched perspectives, it was a little jarring to hop back in time a bit. But I got used to it as the format went on—it’s nice to fill in the blanks with what each character knows/discovers.

As I’ve said before, I don’t watch a ton of horror, so I’m not the best judge of what qualifies as a good horror film. Again, I can tell that this isn’t prestige horror along the lines of Sinners or Frankenstein. Personally, it feels kind of middle-of-the-road to me. There are some jump scares, some well-earned creepy bits, and some gore. The final section of the movie is the most engrossing for me, although I’m not altogether satisfied with the ending.

The film scored a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Amy Madigan, who plays Alex’s great-aunt Gladys. Given that her performance got the Academy’s attention, it’s safe to say that Gladys isn’t just a regular townsperson. Her cheerfully-eerie persona puts an off-kilter slant on every scene she’s in. And while it’s the sort of performance that’s helped along by her character design—the severe bangs on her bright red wig, her caked-on makeup—Madigan is very good in the role.

There are some familiar faces here as well, including several Marvel alum. I like Julia Garner (who I saw recently as the Silver Surfer in The Fantastic Four) as Ms. Gandy. Even before everything kicked off, she had issues, to put it mildly—between the trauma of the kids’ disappearance and getting branded as the town pariah, she’s not handling things well. Meanwhile, Archer is played by Josh Brolin and the always-reliable Benedict Wong plays Marcus, the school principal. I knew I recognized Paul, a police officer who has a connection with Ms. Gandy. He’s played by Alden Ehrenreich, a.k.a. young Han Solo. I must not have cemented this guy in my brain yet, because this isn’t the first time I’ve recognized him but been unable to place him. The film also features appearances from Justin Long and Tob Huss (Bos from Halt and Catch Fire.)

Warning

Graphic violence/gore, sexual content, language, drinking, disturbing images, and strong thematic elements (including child abuse/neglect.)

Blue Moon (2025, R)

Like Train Dreams, I went into this film not really sure what to expect but wound up enjoying it quite a bit. It’s another Richard Linklater/Ethan Hawke collaboration, a one-night-in-the-life biopic about lyricist Lorenz Hart. It’s well-written, an intimate story about a friendship breakup that’s equal parts moving and cynical.

It’s the opening night of Oklahoma!, the first Broadway musical Richard Rodgers did not write with his longtime partner Lorenz “Larry” Hart. Larry leaves the show at intermission to bolster his spirits at Sardi’s: talking the bartender’s ear off, promising he isn’t going to drink, and preparing himself to congratulate Richard and his new collaborator, Oscar Hammerstein II.

As far as troubled geniuses go, Larry feels both familiar and specific. He’s an alcoholic whose work is often misunderstood by the critics, whose ideas about musical theatre are out of step with a lot of the general audience (not to mention his own writing partner.) He likes incisive satire and distrusts honest sentiment, and he’s of the unfortunate opinion that Oklahoma! is a piece of trite drivel that will be far more popular than anything he and Richard wrote together. He’s deeply insecure and desperate not to show it. He’s brimming with ideas for a new four-hour-long musical epic, but Richard just wants him to commit to showing up when he says he will. 

I really like the different connections we see throughout the night. Larry and Richard are the big one, of course, but theirs isn’t the only relationship we see in the film. Larry and Eddie, the bartender, know each other well and have an easy back-and-forth together. It’s clear that Eddie cares about Larry’s well-being and worries about his drinking, even as it’s Eddie’s job to serve him. While waiting, first for the arrival of his young lady friend Elizabeth and then Richard and his entourage to show up, Larry gloms onto a young GI playing the piano at the bar and a fellow drinker/writer who turns out to be E.B. White! And when Elizabeth finally comes? We already know Larry’s obsessed with her—he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen about her being 20 and him being 46, and that he’s pretty sure “tonight’s the night.” When she gets there, she asks almost immediately when he’s going to introduce her to Richard Rodgers, and yet it’s clear that they do have a special connection. Their repartee is effortless, and there’s just something about the way they interact with each other.

The film got two Oscar nominations: Best Original Screenplay and Best Leading Actor, for Ethan Hawke. The screenplay nod is self-evident. The dialogue sparkles in ways that stories about theatre writers often do, with a nice mix between witty banter and revealing monologues. The characters and their relationships depend just as much on the script as they do on the acting. As for Hawke, he’s very effective as Larry. It’s quite an “actorly” performance, and the movie loves using forced perspective/other film magic to show how short Larry is, but behind the hooks, there’s a lot of honesty here too. Larry is a man who’s deeply in pain and doing everything he can to distract from it—that comes through loud and clear in Hawke’s performance.

I enjoy the other performances too. I’ve loved Bobby Cannavale since The Station Agent, and he’s great as Eddie, playing very well off of Hawke. It took me a while to place Elizabeth, but she’s played by Margaret Qualley of The Substance—she’s wonderful in the role. I also like seeing the always-welcome Andrew Scott pop up as Richard.

Warnings

Sexual references/discussion, language (including homophobic slurs,) drinking/smoking, and strong thematic elements.