The Amazon Review Equivalent of Dry Humor Laced Performance Review: Michael Grade and Doctor Who

BLOT: (10 Feb 2011 - 01:16:38 AM)

The Amazon Review Equivalent of Dry Humor Laced Performance Review: Michael Grade and Doctor Who

Today, while checking to see if the UK [Region 2] Revisitations Box Set version of "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" was going to be released over here in the US, I saw a particularly rambly 1-star review and was curious. "Talons", a great example of the high-fun but low-budget elements of Doctor Who, is often taken as one of the best episodes. Considering how bad a few scenes come across (the rats being the big thing, you'll have to see them to [dis]believe them), there is bound to be detractions, but unlike the other 1-stars, this one seemed to take it more personally. So I clicked on the reviewers name and saw all of his reviews. All of which are either bad reviews of the various Doctor's adventures, or good reviews of bad episodes with the good review being for proving how bad it was. Then it finally caught my eye, what name he was using: Michael Grade. Grade was the man who killed Doctor Who all those years ago (well, the first time it got killed, not sure who pulled the plug in 1989 but he might have had some lasting influence or such). The entire oeuvre of reviews is whoever it is being in character and occasionally directly quoting Grade. I mean, I am assuming it is not Michael Grade, partially because the real Grade particularly hated "Warriors of the Deep" (see the second bullet point, assuming the Wiki hasn't been rewritten) and there is no slagging of it. Still, on a couple days in January and one in March, you get a handful of in-character reviews...and no one (besides me, and I left a comment) seem to catch the humor.

As much as I like real Amazon reviews, crazy little performance reviews always warm my heart.

LABEL(s): Doctor Who

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: February 2011