The Doctor and Jo turn up in what appears to be a cargo hold of a boat in 1926, except it's not, as the plesiosaur that turns up halfway through the episode demonstrates. The crew catch the Doctor and think he's a stowaway, so the usual chasing-about ensues and ends with the Doctor being locked up. Fortunately, Jo's an escapologist, so they're soon free... to walk in on the same conversation they walked in on before!
Meanwhile, traveling showman Vorg and his lovely assistant have arrived on the absurdly-named Inter Minor to spread the gospel of entertainment to the gray-faced bureaucrats that live there. He has a device called a miniscope that contains a bunch of captured creatures from all over the Universe. But something's wrong with the machine; a strange blue box has lodged itself in one of the control circuits!
The Doctor and Jo eventually work out what's going on and escape from the human pen, only to wind up facing off against the Drashigs, the best monsters (as opposed to aliens) from the Pertwee era (mostly because their competition is an Ogron pillow-god and a bunch of fake dinosaurs, but I digress). Back in the real world, the bureaucrats decide that Vorg can't transport livestock to their planet without a permit, and so the logical thing to do is bring in an enormous eradicator gun and vaporize the thing. Because apparently murder is an appropriate punishment for customs violations. The gun doesn't work because the miniscope has plot armor, but one of the bureaucrats later decides to sabotage the gun and lure the Drashigs out into the real world to create a panic. The Drashigs chase the Doctor throughout the mini-scope's interior and eventually out into the real world, where they're destroyed by Vorg, who just happens to know how to fix and use an eradicator gun. The bureaucrat who sabotaged the gun conveniently gets killed and eaten, Vorg starts conning the locals into giving him enough money to leave, and the Doctor and Jo set off on another adventure.
Things that make no sense about Carnival of Monsters:
Why is the clock in the cabin wrong? It re-sets every 15 or so minutes like the rest of the ship, so it should be right...
The miniscope contains Ogrons, Drashigs and Cybermen (only sighting of a Cyberman during Pertwee's run!!), which are all from different planets, but it also has the SS Bernice and a dinosaur, which are both from Earth. Given that Vorg says he knows Tellurian carney-lingo (see next complaint), it's plausible, but still... Earth gets overused in Doctor Who.
The TARDIS doesn't translate carney-lingo. Presumably it doesn't translate Pig Latin or Cockney rhyming slang, either. (Not a complaint about the serial, but rather a question about how the bloody thing works.)
What is wrong with the Functionaries?
Why didn't the ship shake like crazy when the Functionaries manhandled the miniscope away from the cargo thruster?
Why are there panels that allow the mini-scope's occupants to travel from one "circuit" to the next?
Given the amount of booze Major Daly consumes in his time-loop (the guy is drinking at the very least two glasses every twenty minutes), shouldn't he have a very severe case of alcohol poisoning by now? Or does that somehow get re-set too?
Okay, now that that's over with...
This serial is easily the greatest Third Doctor serial I've ever seen. No wonder RTD tried to re-make it as "The Long Game" with limited sucess (and that was still one of the better Ninth Doctor stories). Come to think of it, Joss Whedon did something kind of similar in Buffy's "Lie to Me," but only tenuously "kind of." It's written by Robert Holmes, who will shortly produce even greater things in the form of Seasons 12-14. It features Ian Marter, soon to be Harry Sullivan, and Michael Wisher, soon to be Davros, and the two never meet here. Despite the silly cliffhangers, this is a fantastically fun and remarkably complex story that anybody who's never even heard of Doctor Who before can watch and enjoy. There are a few gimmicks that the fans will appreciate - the cyberman cameo, the line about television not being political (Barry Letts' run as producer marked the only time the show was ever really political), the line about the sonic screwdriver only working on electronic locks (clearly it gets an upgrade or seven in the next two hundred years), etc, but you could still use this to introduce Doctor Who to an unfamiliar audience. The only downside is that they'd come away thinking it's all this good...
10/10
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Who Review: "The Eleventh Hour"
"The Eleventh Hour" is about KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS the Eleventh Doctor saving the planet in 20 minutes without the sonic screwdriver or the TARDIS. All well and good.
So... who put that perception filter there? Couldn't have been Prisoner Zero, otherwise KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS Amy would have realized that there was a missing room in her house all of a sudden. Or maybe that's not how the perception filter works. Maybe it makes you not even notice that you're not noticing stuff, which makes sense, but Amy can still see that the TARDIS wrecked her shed. (Ah, but the TARDIS was broken, the TARDIS crash-landed, etcetera.)
Here's a bigger question: Prisoner Zero winds up getting caught because Amy knew what it looked like. So, um, remind me why a shapeshifting alien on the run for 12 years would reveal itself to anyone, ever? Or why it would stay in that one house? (Answer: KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS.) Or how it got the freakin' perception filter to begin with... Is it a perception filter? Can't be, because the nurse can see it in any of its other forms. That whole thing with the perception filter, I'm trying to say, was weird and just a tad... unnecessary?
Okay, enough complaining. What I liked about the episode: KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS, the fish-custard scene, the duck pond scene, "I'm the Doctor. Basically... run." The computer-virus-saves-the-world thing was interesting, but the basic setup felt like a rehash of "Smith and Jones," just in the suburbs instead of on the Moon, and hey, it's a lot better because of this.
11 steals his outfit from a hospital. Where have I heard that before?
I love that the Doctor mentally traumatized his companion before she even set KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS foot inside the TARDIS. That's a nice touch.
Also: This was awesome. I've done a bit of whining about teeny bits of the plot, but it was awesome.
Okay, last thing. 10 was 5 on espresso, yes, but now it's 11's turn to be 5, by which I mean he's a very young actor filling a very large pair of shoes, and that the outgoing producer was very big on flash and fun. Steven Moffat's clearly the second coming of Robert Holmes, which means 11 needs to eventually be 4. Wheeeeee. Confused yet? KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS.
So... who put that perception filter there? Couldn't have been Prisoner Zero, otherwise KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS Amy would have realized that there was a missing room in her house all of a sudden. Or maybe that's not how the perception filter works. Maybe it makes you not even notice that you're not noticing stuff, which makes sense, but Amy can still see that the TARDIS wrecked her shed. (Ah, but the TARDIS was broken, the TARDIS crash-landed, etcetera.)
Here's a bigger question: Prisoner Zero winds up getting caught because Amy knew what it looked like. So, um, remind me why a shapeshifting alien on the run for 12 years would reveal itself to anyone, ever? Or why it would stay in that one house? (Answer: KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS.) Or how it got the freakin' perception filter to begin with... Is it a perception filter? Can't be, because the nurse can see it in any of its other forms. That whole thing with the perception filter, I'm trying to say, was weird and just a tad... unnecessary?
Okay, enough complaining. What I liked about the episode: KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS, the fish-custard scene, the duck pond scene, "I'm the Doctor. Basically... run." The computer-virus-saves-the-world thing was interesting, but the basic setup felt like a rehash of "Smith and Jones," just in the suburbs instead of on the Moon, and hey, it's a lot better because of this.
11 steals his outfit from a hospital. Where have I heard that before?
I love that the Doctor mentally traumatized his companion before she even set KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS foot inside the TARDIS. That's a nice touch.
Also: This was awesome. I've done a bit of whining about teeny bits of the plot, but it was awesome.
Okay, last thing. 10 was 5 on espresso, yes, but now it's 11's turn to be 5, by which I mean he's a very young actor filling a very large pair of shoes, and that the outgoing producer was very big on flash and fun. Steven Moffat's clearly the second coming of Robert Holmes, which means 11 needs to eventually be 4. Wheeeeee. Confused yet? KAREN GILLAN'S LEGS.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Doctor Who: the first 13 episodes
Doctor Who was a little sci-fi thing that started in 1963. It is still popular to this day, though I'm actually increasingly hard-pressed to explain why. It has run for a total of 31 seasons and has had more than 700 episodes.
In contrast, Firefly ran for 13 episodes over the course of half a season in 2002. And its 13 episodes were nowhere near as rediculous as these.
Enjoy.
Lines marked with a * are actual lines of dialogue William Hartnell said on the show. All but one of them made it to the air.
Episode One
The THEME TUNE plays for the first time. CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA, though in all fairness they might still be there from yesterday night, when news of JFK’s assassination broke. Anyway, we see a POLICE BOX in a JUNKYARD. It is humming.
Cut to a SCHOOL. Two TEACHERS discuss an odd student, SUSAN FOREMAN.
IAN: Susan’s strange.
BARBARA: Yes.
IAN: Let’s follow her home.
BARBARA: A perfectly normal response.
They follow her to the JUNKYARD. Inside, she disappears. They find the POLICE BOX. Just then, DOCTOR WHO appears. He’s an old man and he’s not at all friendly.
IAN: Have you seen a young girl?
DOCTOR WHO: What? No. There are no girls here.
IAN: You were about to open that police box.
BARBARA: We heard her voice from inside there.
DOCTOR WHO: So what? Go away.
IAN: Barbara, it’s obvious he’s got her locked up in there.
DOCTOR WHO: You’re the one looking for a young girl, you child molester.
SUSAN opens the doors for some reason. IAN and BARBARA force their way in. DOCTOR WHO is SUSAN’s GRANDFATHER, but he does not answer to I. M. FOREMAN, which is the name on the front of the junkyard.
DOCTOR WHO: Eh? Doctor Who? What’s he talking about?*
DOCTOR WHO patiently explains that the POLICE BOX, which is (gasp) BIGGER on the INSIDE, is a time machine called TARDIS. THIS DOCTOR, however, will keep calling it “the SHIP.”
DOCTOR WHO: And now I can’t let you go, because you know I have a time machine.
He then activates the machine, dragging all four of them into the PAST (maybe).
IAN: We didn’t believe it was a time machine until you kidnapped us!
Episodes 2-4
Conveniently for the characters, the SHIP has a DEVICE which allows its exterior to change so it can blend in with its surroundings. Conveniently for the show’s budget, the DEVICE is broken. It will look like a POLICE BOX for the next 47+ YEARS.
BARBARA: So we’re in the past. I’m a history teacher and I’m bored with this.
DOCTOR WHO: Well, I’m never taking you home. You’d tell the world about my time machine.
BARBARA: Yes, because a police box that’s bigger on the inside and can travel through time-
DOCTOR WHO: And space!
IAN: I’m a science teacher and I don’t believe any of it.
DOCTOR WHO: Oh, so this desert is what, just a set?
IAN: Yes. Yes it is. That backdrop over there is terrible.
DOCTOR WHO is about to respond when a CAVEMAN knocks him out and drags him back to the CAVE. After a very silly RESCUE ATTEMPT, EVERYONE ELSE is captured by CAVEMEN.
CAVEMEN: We will now speak rather articulately about local politics, but our dialogue will be interspersed with words like “Orb” for both “sun” and “God” to demonstrate that we really are primitives.
After TWO EPISODES of NONSENSE, IAN makes FIRE and scares the CAVEMEN. They run back to the SHIP.
DOCTOR WHO: Well, you’re all right. I’ll take you back home after all.
PLOT happens and he misses. The SHIP materializes in the middle of a JUNGLE. FANDOM argues about whether they are now in the PAST or the FUTURE for the next 47 years, because the next SERIAL is one of the most important in the show’s history.
DOCTOR WHO: Rather than try again, I’m going exploring.
BARBARA: Sure, why not? It worked so well last time.
SUSAN: I’m having second thoughts about being in this show already. There’s nothing for me to do.
EVERYONE leaves the SHIP. The CAMERA lingers on a RADIATION SENSOR. The RADIATION LEVEL is almost OFF the CHART.
Episode 5
The HEROES find some PILLS outside the SHIP, but decline to take them.
IAN: What happened to this jungle?
DOCTOR WHO: Looks like there was a nuclear explosion, Chesserman.
IAN: It’s “Chesterfield.”
BARBARA: Should we worry about radiation?
DOCTOR WHO: No.
They find a city.
DOCTOR WHO: Let’s split up.
They do. BARBARA gets menaced by a TOILET PLUNGER.
CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA.
EVERYONE IN BRITAIN: Holy crap! What was that!
Episode 6
It is NOVEMBER 22nd, 1963. The PRODUCTION TEAM is ready to begin filming the EPISODE five weeks before it will be broadcast.
DIRECTOR: Right, everyone, look shocked, fearful, and apprehensive.
FLOOR MANAGER: Holy #$%&! JFK’s been shot!
EVERYONE looks shocked, fearful, and apprehensive.
DIRECTOR: Excellent!
DOCTOR WHO finds a Geiger Counter. The RADIATION is OFF the CHART.
IAN: We’re all doomed!
GIANT PEPPERPOTS with TOILET PLUNGERS on their arms ambush EVERYONE EXCEPT BARBARA. CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA.
PEPPERPOT: You – are – our – prisoner!
The HEROES get thrown in a CELL with BARBARA. DOCTOR WHO collapses from the radiation.
IAN: We’re going to die.
BARBARA: Wait! What about the pills we found?
DOCTOR WHO: They may have been anti-radiation gloves. Drugs. I can’t be certain.*
IAN: Oh yes. Someone should go get those.
SUSAN is chosen because of PLOT.
PEPPERPOT: Yes – we – will – let – you – go – but – come – back – or – everyone – will – die!
SUSAN: I kinda figured that.
SUSAN runs in place while STAGE HANDS attack her face with BRANCHES. Apparently the PRODUCTION TEAM did not build the JUNGLE SET this week.
Episodes 7-11
SUSAN recovers the pills and runs into a LOVE INTEREST ALIEN. However she is too young for him. She returns to the cells with the pills. RADIATION ceases to be a problem for ANYONE ever.
BARBARA: How come pepperpots have jail cells with benches?
DOCTOR WHO flubs more LINES. Eventually they ESCAPE.
LOVE INTEREST ALIEN: The pepperpots have agreed to give us food. Which we need, because of PLOT.
The PEPPERPOTS mow down the LOVE INTEREST ALIEN’S PEOPLE.
LOVE INTEREST ALIEN: This means war. But we are a peaceful people. But this means war.
IAN: We’ll split up. Some of us will go through the caves while others make a frontal assault on the city.
COWARD ALIEN: I’ll go through the caves.
LOVE INTEREST ALIEN: Barbara, I will now demonstrate knowledge of your planet and your people’s customs.
BARBARA ends up wearing his PANTS. They appear to be made of LEATHER and have HOLES cut in them. A MONSTER attacks them near the SWAMP. CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA. They go through the CAVES. COWARD ALIEN falls down a PIT and DIES. CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA.
PEPPERPOT #1: We – are – addicted – to – radiation. We – must – detonate – another - neutron – bomb.
PEPPERPOT #2: Begin – the – countdown. Also, – we – captured – Doctor – Who.
PEPPERPOT #1: Delay – his – execution. The – neutron – bomb – will – take – care – of – that.
PEPPERPOT #2: And – if – that – doesn’t – work – now, – we’ll – get – two – chances – a – year – for – the – next – four – years!
CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA. The OTHERS arrive and rescue DOCTOR WHO. The PEPPERPOTS are destroyed thanks to PLOT.
DOCTOR WHO: Good-bye! Good luck rebuilding your entire civilization!
He sets the CONTROLS for EARTH, but an EXPLOSION happens. Offscreen, the PRODUCERS resurrect the PEPPERPOTS because they are POPULAR.
Episodes 12-13
Inside the SHIP, the CREW recovers from the EXPLOSION.
DOCTOR WHO: Check the fornicator!*
SUSAN: I think you mean “fault locator.”
NO-ONE behaves rationally.
IAN: Everything is Doctor Who’s fault!
DOCTOR WHO: I’m going to throw you off my ship!
SUSAN stabs a BED with SCISSORS. DOCTOR WHO drugs EVERYONE with TEA. Later, an ALARM goes off, prompting the DOCTOR to MONOLOGUE about how STARS are formed. Amazingly, he delivers his SPEECH word-perfect.
SUSAN: Hey, this switch is stuck.
The FAST RETURN SWITCH (clearly labeled as such by a felt-tip marker) is JAMMED, sending the SHIP further and further back in TIME.
BARBARA: The ship’s alive! Every crazy thing that’s happened to us since we left the pepperpot planet is really the ship telling us that there’s a problem.
DOCTOR WHO: You know I really believe I have underestimated that young lady in the past, Chartow.*
IAN: That is not my name.
DOCTOR WHO: Anyway, we’re all friends now. Let’s go adventuring!
EVERYONE IN BRITAIN: Boooooooooooo! We want more pepperpots!
FIN.
In contrast, Firefly ran for 13 episodes over the course of half a season in 2002. And its 13 episodes were nowhere near as rediculous as these.
Enjoy.
Lines marked with a * are actual lines of dialogue William Hartnell said on the show. All but one of them made it to the air.
Episode One
The THEME TUNE plays for the first time. CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA, though in all fairness they might still be there from yesterday night, when news of JFK’s assassination broke. Anyway, we see a POLICE BOX in a JUNKYARD. It is humming.
Cut to a SCHOOL. Two TEACHERS discuss an odd student, SUSAN FOREMAN.
IAN: Susan’s strange.
BARBARA: Yes.
IAN: Let’s follow her home.
BARBARA: A perfectly normal response.
They follow her to the JUNKYARD. Inside, she disappears. They find the POLICE BOX. Just then, DOCTOR WHO appears. He’s an old man and he’s not at all friendly.
IAN: Have you seen a young girl?
DOCTOR WHO: What? No. There are no girls here.
IAN: You were about to open that police box.
BARBARA: We heard her voice from inside there.
DOCTOR WHO: So what? Go away.
IAN: Barbara, it’s obvious he’s got her locked up in there.
DOCTOR WHO: You’re the one looking for a young girl, you child molester.
SUSAN opens the doors for some reason. IAN and BARBARA force their way in. DOCTOR WHO is SUSAN’s GRANDFATHER, but he does not answer to I. M. FOREMAN, which is the name on the front of the junkyard.
DOCTOR WHO: Eh? Doctor Who? What’s he talking about?*
DOCTOR WHO patiently explains that the POLICE BOX, which is (gasp) BIGGER on the INSIDE, is a time machine called TARDIS. THIS DOCTOR, however, will keep calling it “the SHIP.”
DOCTOR WHO: And now I can’t let you go, because you know I have a time machine.
He then activates the machine, dragging all four of them into the PAST (maybe).
IAN: We didn’t believe it was a time machine until you kidnapped us!
Episodes 2-4
Conveniently for the characters, the SHIP has a DEVICE which allows its exterior to change so it can blend in with its surroundings. Conveniently for the show’s budget, the DEVICE is broken. It will look like a POLICE BOX for the next 47+ YEARS.
BARBARA: So we’re in the past. I’m a history teacher and I’m bored with this.
DOCTOR WHO: Well, I’m never taking you home. You’d tell the world about my time machine.
BARBARA: Yes, because a police box that’s bigger on the inside and can travel through time-
DOCTOR WHO: And space!
IAN: I’m a science teacher and I don’t believe any of it.
DOCTOR WHO: Oh, so this desert is what, just a set?
IAN: Yes. Yes it is. That backdrop over there is terrible.
DOCTOR WHO is about to respond when a CAVEMAN knocks him out and drags him back to the CAVE. After a very silly RESCUE ATTEMPT, EVERYONE ELSE is captured by CAVEMEN.
CAVEMEN: We will now speak rather articulately about local politics, but our dialogue will be interspersed with words like “Orb” for both “sun” and “God” to demonstrate that we really are primitives.
After TWO EPISODES of NONSENSE, IAN makes FIRE and scares the CAVEMEN. They run back to the SHIP.
DOCTOR WHO: Well, you’re all right. I’ll take you back home after all.
PLOT happens and he misses. The SHIP materializes in the middle of a JUNGLE. FANDOM argues about whether they are now in the PAST or the FUTURE for the next 47 years, because the next SERIAL is one of the most important in the show’s history.
DOCTOR WHO: Rather than try again, I’m going exploring.
BARBARA: Sure, why not? It worked so well last time.
SUSAN: I’m having second thoughts about being in this show already. There’s nothing for me to do.
EVERYONE leaves the SHIP. The CAMERA lingers on a RADIATION SENSOR. The RADIATION LEVEL is almost OFF the CHART.
Episode 5
The HEROES find some PILLS outside the SHIP, but decline to take them.
IAN: What happened to this jungle?
DOCTOR WHO: Looks like there was a nuclear explosion, Chesserman.
IAN: It’s “Chesterfield.”
BARBARA: Should we worry about radiation?
DOCTOR WHO: No.
They find a city.
DOCTOR WHO: Let’s split up.
They do. BARBARA gets menaced by a TOILET PLUNGER.
CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA.
EVERYONE IN BRITAIN: Holy crap! What was that!
Episode 6
It is NOVEMBER 22nd, 1963. The PRODUCTION TEAM is ready to begin filming the EPISODE five weeks before it will be broadcast.
DIRECTOR: Right, everyone, look shocked, fearful, and apprehensive.
FLOOR MANAGER: Holy #$%&! JFK’s been shot!
EVERYONE looks shocked, fearful, and apprehensive.
DIRECTOR: Excellent!
DOCTOR WHO finds a Geiger Counter. The RADIATION is OFF the CHART.
IAN: We’re all doomed!
GIANT PEPPERPOTS with TOILET PLUNGERS on their arms ambush EVERYONE EXCEPT BARBARA. CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA.
PEPPERPOT: You – are – our – prisoner!
The HEROES get thrown in a CELL with BARBARA. DOCTOR WHO collapses from the radiation.
IAN: We’re going to die.
BARBARA: Wait! What about the pills we found?
DOCTOR WHO: They may have been anti-radiation gloves. Drugs. I can’t be certain.*
IAN: Oh yes. Someone should go get those.
SUSAN is chosen because of PLOT.
PEPPERPOT: Yes – we – will – let – you – go – but – come – back – or – everyone – will – die!
SUSAN: I kinda figured that.
SUSAN runs in place while STAGE HANDS attack her face with BRANCHES. Apparently the PRODUCTION TEAM did not build the JUNGLE SET this week.
Episodes 7-11
SUSAN recovers the pills and runs into a LOVE INTEREST ALIEN. However she is too young for him. She returns to the cells with the pills. RADIATION ceases to be a problem for ANYONE ever.
BARBARA: How come pepperpots have jail cells with benches?
DOCTOR WHO flubs more LINES. Eventually they ESCAPE.
LOVE INTEREST ALIEN: The pepperpots have agreed to give us food. Which we need, because of PLOT.
The PEPPERPOTS mow down the LOVE INTEREST ALIEN’S PEOPLE.
LOVE INTEREST ALIEN: This means war. But we are a peaceful people. But this means war.
IAN: We’ll split up. Some of us will go through the caves while others make a frontal assault on the city.
COWARD ALIEN: I’ll go through the caves.
LOVE INTEREST ALIEN: Barbara, I will now demonstrate knowledge of your planet and your people’s customs.
BARBARA ends up wearing his PANTS. They appear to be made of LEATHER and have HOLES cut in them. A MONSTER attacks them near the SWAMP. CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA. They go through the CAVES. COWARD ALIEN falls down a PIT and DIES. CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA.
PEPPERPOT #1: We – are – addicted – to – radiation. We – must – detonate – another - neutron – bomb.
PEPPERPOT #2: Begin – the – countdown. Also, – we – captured – Doctor – Who.
PEPPERPOT #1: Delay – his – execution. The – neutron – bomb – will – take – care – of – that.
PEPPERPOT #2: And – if – that – doesn’t – work – now, – we’ll – get – two – chances – a – year – for – the – next – four – years!
CHILDREN ACROSS BRITAIN hide behind the SOFA. The OTHERS arrive and rescue DOCTOR WHO. The PEPPERPOTS are destroyed thanks to PLOT.
DOCTOR WHO: Good-bye! Good luck rebuilding your entire civilization!
He sets the CONTROLS for EARTH, but an EXPLOSION happens. Offscreen, the PRODUCERS resurrect the PEPPERPOTS because they are POPULAR.
Episodes 12-13
Inside the SHIP, the CREW recovers from the EXPLOSION.
DOCTOR WHO: Check the fornicator!*
SUSAN: I think you mean “fault locator.”
NO-ONE behaves rationally.
IAN: Everything is Doctor Who’s fault!
DOCTOR WHO: I’m going to throw you off my ship!
SUSAN stabs a BED with SCISSORS. DOCTOR WHO drugs EVERYONE with TEA. Later, an ALARM goes off, prompting the DOCTOR to MONOLOGUE about how STARS are formed. Amazingly, he delivers his SPEECH word-perfect.
SUSAN: Hey, this switch is stuck.
The FAST RETURN SWITCH (clearly labeled as such by a felt-tip marker) is JAMMED, sending the SHIP further and further back in TIME.
BARBARA: The ship’s alive! Every crazy thing that’s happened to us since we left the pepperpot planet is really the ship telling us that there’s a problem.
DOCTOR WHO: You know I really believe I have underestimated that young lady in the past, Chartow.*
IAN: That is not my name.
DOCTOR WHO: Anyway, we’re all friends now. Let’s go adventuring!
EVERYONE IN BRITAIN: Boooooooooooo! We want more pepperpots!
FIN.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Raving and Drooling
Whenever my computer shuts down, it deletes all of its auto-fill-in thingymacwhatzits from the auto-fill-in gizmomabob field. This means that I have to re-learn entire web addresses every time my computer shuts down.
Oh, and my computer shuts down on average about once every 1.5 weeks because it has to finish installing automatic updates, which is another way of saying "raping my hard drive until there's absolutely no memory left for any more Iron Maiden songs."
I'm getting a new one this summer. And there will be much rejoicing.
(Why do I leave it on all the time? Because it takes about 15 minutes to boot up, that's why.)
Eagle-eyed readers will note that in between talk of hard-drive rape (rule 34! and no, I'm not going to look for it) and blatant hyperbole, I mentioned something about more Iron Maiden songs. No, I do not have a double-top-secret advance copy of the most retardedly-named Maiden album since Virtual XI (and if we're going with Dickinson-fronted material, that award goes to Somewhere in Time, which I must admit is actually better than it sounds). (Wait, how can a sound recording be better than it sounds? Answer: shut up.) I'm just embellishing my existing collection of all things Maiden, this time by adding the album with the most retarded cover. And because that one's a gimme, I'm not going to tell you non-metalheads which one it is. More relevant for this blog, of course, are the Doctor Who serials I ordered along with it in order to get super saver shipping (tm and all that nonsense). That's right, serials. The usual running price on Amazon is stonking high, but I found a few for less than $10 apiece and bought two of them. One is supposed to be one of the better ones of the Pertwee era. We'll see.
Oh, and my computer shuts down on average about once every 1.5 weeks because it has to finish installing automatic updates, which is another way of saying "raping my hard drive until there's absolutely no memory left for any more Iron Maiden songs."
I'm getting a new one this summer. And there will be much rejoicing.
(Why do I leave it on all the time? Because it takes about 15 minutes to boot up, that's why.)
Eagle-eyed readers will note that in between talk of hard-drive rape (rule 34! and no, I'm not going to look for it) and blatant hyperbole, I mentioned something about more Iron Maiden songs. No, I do not have a double-top-secret advance copy of the most retardedly-named Maiden album since Virtual XI (and if we're going with Dickinson-fronted material, that award goes to Somewhere in Time, which I must admit is actually better than it sounds). (Wait, how can a sound recording be better than it sounds? Answer: shut up.) I'm just embellishing my existing collection of all things Maiden, this time by adding the album with the most retarded cover. And because that one's a gimme, I'm not going to tell you non-metalheads which one it is. More relevant for this blog, of course, are the Doctor Who serials I ordered along with it in order to get super saver shipping (tm and all that nonsense). That's right, serials. The usual running price on Amazon is stonking high, but I found a few for less than $10 apiece and bought two of them. One is supposed to be one of the better ones of the Pertwee era. We'll see.
Monday, April 12, 2010
WHY??
Why is it that every. Single. Pop song I hear today makes me want to claw out my ears with a rusty ear-claw-outer, now available from New Market Enterprises for only $799?
Now that that infographic is in your head, here's something completely different to consider.
And by something completely different, I of course mean more of the same.
It's very clever, I think, and very accurately demonstrates that... er... bands I like are good and bands I don't like are not. Yeah, that's it.
I think it's self-explanatory, but for those of you who never made it past the third grade, there are three large black circles, labeled "Talent," "No BS," and "Popular." Bands inside the "Talent" circle have talent. Bands inside the "No BS" circle are "authentic." Bands inside the "Popular" circle are those that are not relegated to the genre radio stations out there in the ether.
I hope you can read all that. And of course it's not very complete, because there is so little music that I actually like.
Now that that infographic is in your head, here's something completely different to consider.
And by something completely different, I of course mean more of the same.
It's very clever, I think, and very accurately demonstrates that... er... bands I like are good and bands I don't like are not. Yeah, that's it.
I think it's self-explanatory, but for those of you who never made it past the third grade, there are three large black circles, labeled "Talent," "No BS," and "Popular." Bands inside the "Talent" circle have talent. Bands inside the "No BS" circle are "authentic." Bands inside the "Popular" circle are those that are not relegated to the genre radio stations out there in the ether.
I hope you can read all that. And of course it's not very complete, because there is so little music that I actually like.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Death to Hype
Following fast on the heels of that last post about an overhyped whiner who couldn't play a solo I can't copy and whose most far-reaching action was his own suicide, which prevented music as a whole from moving on from more overhyped whining with pathetic solos, comes a piece on why hype is a bad thing. (The previous sentence fulfils my required quota of Yahtzee-esque dialogue.)
See, rather than trot out Cobain's corpse for yet another thrashing, I'm going to use as an example someone who a) is still alive and b) I respect. In this case that someone is Mr. Steven Moffat, best known as the guy who made the phrase "are you my mummy" downright creepifying. (The previous sentence fulfils my required quota of Whedony dialogue.)
My first introduction to Mr. Moffat was on the bonus disc of the phenomenal and classic Doctor Who serial, City of Death, where he essentially said that Douglas Adams was a terrible script editor. A wonderful idea man, but a horrible nuts-and-bolts guy to keep the idealists in line. (Irony will shortly ensue, so remember that phrase.)
I remember thinking "well, who the hell are you to say that about my literary hero?" And then I saw "The Empty Child," and my question was answered. Even his Season 28 thing, "Girl in the Fireplace," while nowhere near as good as the other episodes he's written, was hands-down the best episode of the disaster that was Season 28. (Well, okay, maybe "School Reunion," but I'm trying to make a point here.)
I remember mentioning to Tom, who used to write for this blog, that it would be a wonderful thing if they made him the head writer for the show. And then about a week after I said that, the announcement broke that yes, indeed Mr. Moffat would be the head writer when the show returned in 2010. And there was much rejoicing. And then the irony I mentioned earlier kicked in. (Did you remember it like I told you to?)
After hearing the new theme and seeing the new title sequence, I'm now of the impression that Mr. Moffat is more like Mr. Adams than he'd care to admit. The new theme/titles are not encouraging, and suggest to me that, just like Douglas Adams in Season 17, George Lucas with the Star Wars prequels, Gene Roddenberry with the first Star Trek film, James Cameron with Avatar, AC/DC with For Those About to Rock, and really anybody with the thing they did after their masterpiece was in the can, I could go on for hours, Mr. Moffat has no one to tell him when to stop. This is a problem with having too much money/control. Idea men should never have that much. (This sentence fulfils my quota of paragraph-ending sentences in parentheses.)
Long story short, hype leads to people being put on pedestals, and people on pedestals never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever live up to expectations. (Ever.)
See, rather than trot out Cobain's corpse for yet another thrashing, I'm going to use as an example someone who a) is still alive and b) I respect. In this case that someone is Mr. Steven Moffat, best known as the guy who made the phrase "are you my mummy" downright creepifying. (The previous sentence fulfils my required quota of Whedony dialogue.)
My first introduction to Mr. Moffat was on the bonus disc of the phenomenal and classic Doctor Who serial, City of Death, where he essentially said that Douglas Adams was a terrible script editor. A wonderful idea man, but a horrible nuts-and-bolts guy to keep the idealists in line. (Irony will shortly ensue, so remember that phrase.)
I remember thinking "well, who the hell are you to say that about my literary hero?" And then I saw "The Empty Child," and my question was answered. Even his Season 28 thing, "Girl in the Fireplace," while nowhere near as good as the other episodes he's written, was hands-down the best episode of the disaster that was Season 28. (Well, okay, maybe "School Reunion," but I'm trying to make a point here.)
I remember mentioning to Tom, who used to write for this blog, that it would be a wonderful thing if they made him the head writer for the show. And then about a week after I said that, the announcement broke that yes, indeed Mr. Moffat would be the head writer when the show returned in 2010. And there was much rejoicing. And then the irony I mentioned earlier kicked in. (Did you remember it like I told you to?)
After hearing the new theme and seeing the new title sequence, I'm now of the impression that Mr. Moffat is more like Mr. Adams than he'd care to admit. The new theme/titles are not encouraging, and suggest to me that, just like Douglas Adams in Season 17, George Lucas with the Star Wars prequels, Gene Roddenberry with the first Star Trek film, James Cameron with Avatar, AC/DC with For Those About to Rock, and really anybody with the thing they did after their masterpiece was in the can, I could go on for hours, Mr. Moffat has no one to tell him when to stop. This is a problem with having too much money/control. Idea men should never have that much. (This sentence fulfils my quota of paragraph-ending sentences in parentheses.)
Long story short, hype leads to people being put on pedestals, and people on pedestals never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever live up to expectations. (Ever.)
Something to consider.
I could re-post an anti-Nirvana rant from earlier, or re-word it, or I could just tell you to go here and scroll down and start reading the paragraph that starts "Fact is, there’s a perfectly logical reason..."
Some excellent quotes if you're too busy to read the whole thing:
"[Cobain] wasn’t as shy about being famous as he claimed to be; he never stopped making music videos the way Pearl Jam did, [and] he never stopped giving interviews or posing for photo shoots."
So Cap'n anti-fake is fake himself?
"Cobain’s status as a “guitar hero” even though he wasn’t actually a very good guitar player meant that suddenly any schmuck could be a guitar god."
I said something similar.
"A lot of pain and agony probably could have been avoided if he’d just kept his mouth shut like the media-shy artiste he claimed to be."
His death made him "a martyr who idiots like Rolling Stone’s David Fricke could declare was 'His generation’s John Lennon' without recognizing the basic difference between taking one’s own life and being murdered."
So yeah.
Some excellent quotes if you're too busy to read the whole thing:
"[Cobain] wasn’t as shy about being famous as he claimed to be; he never stopped making music videos the way Pearl Jam did, [and] he never stopped giving interviews or posing for photo shoots."
So Cap'n anti-fake is fake himself?
"Cobain’s status as a “guitar hero” even though he wasn’t actually a very good guitar player meant that suddenly any schmuck could be a guitar god."
I said something similar.
"A lot of pain and agony probably could have been avoided if he’d just kept his mouth shut like the media-shy artiste he claimed to be."
His death made him "a martyr who idiots like Rolling Stone’s David Fricke could declare was 'His generation’s John Lennon' without recognizing the basic difference between taking one’s own life and being murdered."
So yeah.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
An entire rant about the Doctor Who theme
Long story short, anything from Season 18 on was pure unadulterated blasphemy, though the 18-22 theme was still halfway decent.
The original theme was otherworldly. It was played on some sort of instrument that had absolutely no attack, because it wasn't really an instrument at all. All subsequent attempts to realize the theme on synths or with orchestras either date it (synths) or cheapen it (orchestras).
The worst offender is the new version, with a new counterpoint over the opening basslines that seems to be a deliberate throwback to 60s B-movies. I had higher expectations for Steven "I will actually make it a point to find the episodes that he wrote on YouTube instead of waiting for the DVD because he's that bloody good" Moffatt. That said, the new version's realization of the actual oo-ee-oo theme isn't all that bad, and it looks like the theremin or whatever is back in, so yay. Still. Not the start I was hoping for.
The original theme was otherworldly. It was played on some sort of instrument that had absolutely no attack, because it wasn't really an instrument at all. All subsequent attempts to realize the theme on synths or with orchestras either date it (synths) or cheapen it (orchestras).
The worst offender is the new version, with a new counterpoint over the opening basslines that seems to be a deliberate throwback to 60s B-movies. I had higher expectations for Steven "I will actually make it a point to find the episodes that he wrote on YouTube instead of waiting for the DVD because he's that bloody good" Moffatt. That said, the new version's realization of the actual oo-ee-oo theme isn't all that bad, and it looks like the theremin or whatever is back in, so yay. Still. Not the start I was hoping for.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Sherlock Holmes
Movie review!!
If my enjoyment of this movie could be shaped like a graph, it would resemble a backwards checkmark. Being a sucker for all things Victoriana as a result of my obsession with Doctor Who, I expected a detective film set in turn-of-the-century London to be right up my alley. This demonstrates a) my complete ignorance of the fact that turn-of-the-century London falls into the Edwardian era, not the Victorian, 2) that I am still not yet the jaded old bastard I sometimes pretend to be on this blog, and iii) I can't keep track of how I'm numbering this.
At any rate, the film quickly went off the rails with all that magic stuff, with Watson's bad leg completely failing to impede him in any significant way, and with Sherlock spending the first half of the film being generally unlikeable, because apparently Robert Downey Jr loves playing alcoholic jack@$$es. In reality I'm being a little too harsh, because I did like the inclusion of Irene Adler (until she started occupying that usual damsel-in-distress role, that is), and during those brief blissful moments where it looked like Watson had gone up in an explosion of doom I thought to myself "well done, finally a film adaptation isn't afraid to tread that fine line between being a slave to established canon (The Lord of the Rings) and being an adaptation in name only (I, Robot), and it's treading that line with considerably more flair than The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
I should also compliment the acting simply because nothing truly horrible stood out (and this comes with the caveat that I didn't wince the first time I heard the "you're breaking my heart" line in Revenge of the Sith, but I was younger and stupid then). And at the end when Holmes explains how no, there wasn't actually any magic, it generally made me feel better about the whole thing. Still, the CGI backdrops are woefully bad and the Moriarty plotline was irritating. You want to set up a sequel, do it like Batman Begins or Casino Royale. Don't make the next film's villain an actual player in this one.
I'm torn between saying "since the whole magic thing was a turn-off for me, you should have set it up that it wasn't magic more clearly" and saying "yes, there were actually enough clues to draw some of the same conclusions Sherlock did," but of course that first statement is just whining and the second statement is an outright LIE, because not even Conan Doyle gave his audience enough information to draw the same conclusions Sherlock did.
B+
Also, Hans Zimmer owes Ennio Morricone money for plagarism. Sherlock's theme is almost exactly the same as the tune the lockets play in For a Few Dollars More.
If my enjoyment of this movie could be shaped like a graph, it would resemble a backwards checkmark. Being a sucker for all things Victoriana as a result of my obsession with Doctor Who, I expected a detective film set in turn-of-the-century London to be right up my alley. This demonstrates a) my complete ignorance of the fact that turn-of-the-century London falls into the Edwardian era, not the Victorian, 2) that I am still not yet the jaded old bastard I sometimes pretend to be on this blog, and iii) I can't keep track of how I'm numbering this.
At any rate, the film quickly went off the rails with all that magic stuff, with Watson's bad leg completely failing to impede him in any significant way, and with Sherlock spending the first half of the film being generally unlikeable, because apparently Robert Downey Jr loves playing alcoholic jack@$$es. In reality I'm being a little too harsh, because I did like the inclusion of Irene Adler (until she started occupying that usual damsel-in-distress role, that is), and during those brief blissful moments where it looked like Watson had gone up in an explosion of doom I thought to myself "well done, finally a film adaptation isn't afraid to tread that fine line between being a slave to established canon (The Lord of the Rings) and being an adaptation in name only (I, Robot), and it's treading that line with considerably more flair than The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
I should also compliment the acting simply because nothing truly horrible stood out (and this comes with the caveat that I didn't wince the first time I heard the "you're breaking my heart" line in Revenge of the Sith, but I was younger and stupid then). And at the end when Holmes explains how no, there wasn't actually any magic, it generally made me feel better about the whole thing. Still, the CGI backdrops are woefully bad and the Moriarty plotline was irritating. You want to set up a sequel, do it like Batman Begins or Casino Royale. Don't make the next film's villain an actual player in this one.
I'm torn between saying "since the whole magic thing was a turn-off for me, you should have set it up that it wasn't magic more clearly" and saying "yes, there were actually enough clues to draw some of the same conclusions Sherlock did," but of course that first statement is just whining and the second statement is an outright LIE, because not even Conan Doyle gave his audience enough information to draw the same conclusions Sherlock did.
B+
Also, Hans Zimmer owes Ennio Morricone money for plagarism. Sherlock's theme is almost exactly the same as the tune the lockets play in For a Few Dollars More.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
How Doctor Who completely ruined sci-fi
For starters, there was that loony in the scarf who completely...
I can't. I'm sorry, I can't actually do an April Fools post when the whole world seems to be in bizarro land.
In happier news, the monkeys are not learning how to open doors or fire guns. We have nothing to fear. I promise. And even if we did, all they'd want is a bunch of bananas. But we're fine. The monkeys are not using the internet to coordinate a massive uprising.
In unrelated news, it would be nice if there were a few more people on hand to feed the monkeys their bananas and also shovel the... ahem, out of the monkey cages. Just to be nice to our fellow primates.
And the "national monkey alert" you're likely to hear later today is just Uncle Sam testing the national monkey alert system. There's a clause buried in the Statute of Limitations that says they have to do that once every 71 years. The last time they did it, it was a send-off to the Marx Brothers.
So to repeat, there is no need to hoard bananas to use later on to appeal to our new opposeable-toed overlords.
I can't. I'm sorry, I can't actually do an April Fools post when the whole world seems to be in bizarro land.
In happier news, the monkeys are not learning how to open doors or fire guns. We have nothing to fear. I promise. And even if we did, all they'd want is a bunch of bananas. But we're fine. The monkeys are not using the internet to coordinate a massive uprising.
In unrelated news, it would be nice if there were a few more people on hand to feed the monkeys their bananas and also shovel the... ahem, out of the monkey cages. Just to be nice to our fellow primates.
And the "national monkey alert" you're likely to hear later today is just Uncle Sam testing the national monkey alert system. There's a clause buried in the Statute of Limitations that says they have to do that once every 71 years. The last time they did it, it was a send-off to the Marx Brothers.
So to repeat, there is no need to hoard bananas to use later on to appeal to our new opposeable-toed overlords.
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