Come into the cold room. There's something that needs to be done.

Let's talk about crushes.

I've had loads and I won't bore you with the details; crushes of every shape, size and attribute.  Gad yes, I'm a terror in my imagination.  But there's one that I never, ever got over and never ever will.

The woman who could make wearing a fetish outfit seem like a statement of power.  Genius.  Kick your arse any time you crossed her and do it charmingly.  There's a huge swathe of internet devoted to her, just like all my other transmissions.  But let's do this properly, eh?

Who the hell else did you expect?


Emma Peel.  Shouldn't have worked.  Her name is an objectification; the production team thought that the new character in The Avengers should have 'man appeal' - see?  Fortunate for them, they cast Diana Rigg and wrote her as if her gender wasn't even obvious.  It was, mind.  It was REALLY obvious.

She's only ever slightly impressed

I could write for pages here, but it would make everyone become uncomfortable.  She's an amazing character, played by an amazing actor, wearing fascinating 60s outfits.  She beats the living daylights out of diabolical masterminds (NB, not Diabolical Masterspies, that would just be wrong) and solves crimes with her best friend as a way of unwinding after a long day at work.  It really helps that her best friend is the legendary John Steed, played by the even more legendary Patrick Macnee.  Basically, they drink fine wine, eat complex pastries, drive fast cars and save the world repeatedly.  And they think it's a good life to have.  They radiate happiness, enjoyment, vitality.  They are larger than life and it never gets them down; everything is a little bit of a joke to them.

That's what they think of you.

Why a Ghost Transmission for a show that's so feted already?

There's a real danger of this blog turning into a sob story.  I've written a lot about growing up weird, me and half the bloody western hemisphere it seems.  These Transmissions were the ones that helped me (and lots of others) through that, as I'm sure you've noted.  Steed and Mrs Peel were there, you can believe it; dressed like maniacs, never getting flustered, winning the fights and the arguments, being visibly twenty times more intelligent than everyone else in the room.  Yeah, they were establishment, but the irony was that they were so establishment that they seemed to become intensely surreal and outsider-y. They were so hip they were unheimlich, to coin a Freudianism.  They were the 60s/Edwardian fusion equivalent of Lux and Ivy (just as a hint at forthcoming attractions).

I wanted that life; I wanted a best friend to solve mysteries with.  I wanted the cars, the clothes, the flat where people would turn up at random around 3:00 AM with either a bottle of champagne or a knife in their back and a cryptic note clutched in their hand.  I knew that I had to create something like this for myself. To my intense delight, over the last few years, I've created something vaguely like this lifestyle, or at least a functioning everyday analogue of the rum and uncanny.  Frankly, I couldn't be happier with it.  Though hopefully, no-one's going to come round impaled on anything sharp.

What I look like in my head, yesterday.

They remade the show twice.  Once as The New Avengers, which is pleasingly kitsch; the most interesting elements of which feature a much darker, more reflective tone, as Steed (now minus Emma) muses on the adventures he's had and all the blood on his hands.  Well, it was the 70s; IRA attacks, economic downturn and the slightly tacky version of the Cold War had changed our perspectives.  It became silly, like someone's odd dream of the series, like a fantasy based on a fantasy. 

Then, of course, they remade it as a film, with Uma Thurman and the world winced.  She wasn't very good.  She seemed like she was on the verge of tears all the way through.  She wasn't in control. She wasn't, essentially, Emma.  TERRIBLE CONFESSION: I actually quite like the film, though I'd much prefer it if it was just a peculiar spy story, not an ersatz Avengers.

And look!  I got through all that and never once mentioned A Touch Of Brimstone.  If you understand that reference, there's no help for you. 

Rebels and Devils 2: the Hour of the Geek (first bit)

...and if anyone gets that reference, they earn a shiny handshake from me.

What this means, beasts, is that I'm allowing myself a break from my usual ironic cool (ha!) and taking the opportunity to wallow in raw fanboyness.  Yeah, it's the first bit of my Doctor Who ramblings, so y' can all stop reading there.

REASONS TO LOVE WHO

1) The Parting of the Ways: Captain Jack Harkness.  Kisses Rose goodbye fairly passionate like.  Turns and kisses the Doctor goodbye too, in the same way.  No-one comments. 

There were, and indeed, still are idiots who go on about the new version of the show having a (and I'm quoting here) "gay agenda" which makes me think of a particularly interesting boardroom meeting. This scene is basically a massive fuckyou to all those people.  Like the Stonewall adverts say, deal with it.

2) Same episode: guns, technobabble and fighting can't save the world.  No, the world gets saved by three ordinary people on a council estate who suddenly realise that they can do anything they fucking well want to and no-one can tell them that it's not possible.  And when someone you love is in trouble, you'll change the whole universe to save them.

3) The Age of Steel: in which Mickey, the insecure loser, finally takes charge of his life, assumes the role of defender of emotions (it makes sense when you watch it) and sacrifices everything he cared about in order to do something HUGE with his life.  And then turns up six weeks later with a massive grin in order to save the day, having broken every single law of physics in the process.

4) The Girl In The Fireplace: "What do monsters have nightmares about?" - "Me."

The idea that there's someone who isn't a god or a divine force to be prayed to, someone who pays attention and stops the monsters right there in their tracks?  Well, that's just an idea.  But we created it.  As a species, as a sub-culture, as people who like the idea.  Someone you could be a bit like.  Someone you could emulate.  And every time you do, if you do it well enough, the world gets a bit more like the fantasy one in your head.  

5) City of Death: "Well, you're a beautiful woman, probably"

Because when bad people are confused, they're so much more fun.

6) The End of the World: the only things illegal at the end of the world are weapons, teleportation and religion.  I think there might be a message there.  The teleportation bit is a plot point, mind, but the fake villains are called the Adherents of the Repeated Meme. Dawkinstastic.

7) Bad Wolf: "You have no weapons, no army, no plan." - "Yeah.  And doesn't that just scare you to death?"

Improvise.  It's what I do all the time.  The faster you get at making it up as you go along, the more likely the world is to go along with your mad stories.

8) The Doctor Dances: "That's what you humans do.  You go out there into the stars and you meet all these new people and you...dance."

Or, in other words, the future is going to be fun, if we do it right.

9) Love and Monsters: lots of people hate this one.  They're missing the point; it's about outsiders, the lost ones who get preyed on by the monsters.  It's about a man coming to terms with something terrible that happened to him as a child.  And then it's about hope:

"...they tell you that it's all grow up. Get a job. Get married. Get a house. Have a kid, and that's it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It's so much darker. And so much madder. And so much better."

I can't really say much more on the subject than that.