As tagged by Littlebun here are ten things that make me happy.
New stuff from Dragonblood Miniatures. Very, very nice. I hope this (and the mount from their earlier Hunter sculpt) do become available au naturel.
Old stuff from Archive Miniatures available until the end of the month from Discount Hobby.
TMP has set up a discussion board for Prehistoric gaming. One interesting titbit I picked up there is that the rights to DZ Miniatures mammals have been acquired by Stratagem who are/will be making them in resin. Which would be great if Stratagem weren’t one of the most disorganised and uncommunicative outfits around.
Did anyone else see the recent BBC programmes on dinosaurs? The Truth About Kill Dinosaurs from last month was so-so. I have serious doubts about the validity of some of their “scientific” tests. The materials used to create the artificial dinosaurs looked like they had very different properties to actual bone and muscle. The second programme was more interesting as it covered Velociraptors and Ankylosaurs rather than the tired out T. Rex vs Triceratops duel of the first programme. Much more entertaining was the very silly T-Rex: A Dinosaur in Hollywood show on Wednesday.
“Do they think we have nothing better to do until Christmas?” – pink_weasel
So very true.
11/10
Just watch it, don’t read bollocks like this on the interweb, just watch it. Doesn’t matter if it’s on BBC3 at 10:50 tonight or 7:00 tomorrow, or if you taped it, or of you borrow a tape off someone else, or even if you need to download it off the web, just watch it.
… if you’re the person who ended up on the SFSFW web site after searching for “centaur bestiality”.
The word ‘bestiality’ appears exactly once on the site, on the same page as the word ‘centaur’ though not at all close together. I’m afraid that the searcher would most likely have been disappointed.
Other search terms that somehow ended up at the SFSFW in the first half of June include:
The worrying thing is that the society has such wide interests that all of these, except possibly the lap dancers (especially as GZG are not based anywhere near Devizes), are topics that we could cover.
But the number six term overall was “emperor dalek”, only just behind “troublesome trucks” and “bob naismith”. Will it be higher by the end of the month?
“We have your associate. You will obey or she will be exterminated.”
“No.”
“Explain yourself.”
“I said no.”
“What is the meaning of this negative?”
“It means no.”
“But she will be destroyed.”
“No. Cause this is what I’m gonna do. I’m going to rescue her. I’m going to
save Rose Tyler from the middle of the Dalek fleet, and then I’m going to
save the Earth, and then, just to finish off, I’m going to wipe every
stinking Dalek out of the sky.”
“But you have no weapons, no defenses, no plan.”
“Yeah, and doesn’t that scare you to death? Rose?”
“Yes, Doctor?”
“I’m coming to get you.”
Bad Wolf wan’t bad at all. Three months ago, did you think the phrase “they’ve killed Billy Piper” could ever be a bad thing? (And a nice Absolom Daak homage in there as well.)
First twenty minutes: 7/10, Middle twenty minutes: 8/10, Last five minutes: 11/10
Overall: 9/10
Next week looks like every fanboy’s wet dream. I’m looking at my miniatures shelves and thinking “I need more Daleks”. BTD must be laughing.
Now the mysterious voice at the end of the trailer, who or what is it? The theories are coming thick and fast:
And to add to the fun these choices can be mixed and matched (Adam is Davros; Davros is the Emperor Dalek (again); The last Dalek is the new Emperor Dalek). A whole week of wild speculation :-).
Mmmmm, Susan Ivanova.
Anyway, Boom Town. I wasn’t expecting much from this based on the trailers but it turned out better than I expected. Not brilliant but certainly not terrible.
It was a collection of “greatest” hits from the series so far – Slitheen from AoL/WW3; the rift from tUD; incidental music from Rose; Mickey; reversing the teleport from tEoftW; some of which deserved a repeat performance more than others. It was also more than that.
It was a look at the Doctor’s morality and whilst Russell T Davies is clearly against the death penalty (see his interview on Doctor Who Confidential) the episode was no where so clear cut, Margaret’s arguments didn’t really hold water when held against the lengths she was prepared to go to save herself, and the Doctor’s attitude was a mixture of factors – part “leave local customs alone”, part “Everything has it’s time and everything dies” and part traumatised post-Gallifrey Doctor.
The moral debate would have been more interesting if a human had taken a larger part. Maybe we could have been spared some of the Rose/Mickey (non-)relationship and instead had them involved in the discussion between the Doctor and Margaret.
In the end the debate was rendered meaningless by a deus ex machina resolution. I liked the heart of the TARDIS and I wonder if it’s foreshadowing something, possibly connected to regeneration?
7/10
And the Doctor notices the Bad Wolf at last. Just in time for this week’s episode that looks like it could be very, very good and very, very bad at the same time.
IMDB is listing Norman Lovett (the original Holly from Red Dwarf) as Davros in the season finale. But anyone can update IMDB with any old information (it’s not quite a Wiki but it’s nearly as bad) so we’ll have to see. I doubt that such a genre favoutite actor could play such a genre favourite part without it leaking out before now, and I think he’d make a bloody awful Davros. But you never know.
Way back when I had a blog, I wondered whether I had backed myself into a corner by giving such high marks to the Doctor Who episodes shown so far. With two ten out of tens already, would I need to go up to eleven?
At first it seemed that The Empty Child might break the scale – it was certainly the most atmospheric and chilling episode since, well, since ever really. But the whole barrage balloon sequence, ironically, kept the episode’s feet on the ground through a combination of sheer ludicrousness (it was up there with the “cliffhanger” from Dragonfire), historical innaccuracy (what’s the point of barrage balloons if enemy aircraft fly beneath them?), and so-so CGI (a series trademark).
The gas mask child; Doctor Constantine’s transformation; the wards full of patients. Great stuff, really scarey, and nicely counterpointed by the nightclub scenes; Captain Jack; Rose’s desire for a bit of “Spock”. All that and a great cliffhanger.
10/10
But that left us with a week of wondering, would they fall into the trap that snared just about every Star Trek two parter? Great build up followed by a lousy resolution?
The Doctor Dances, ever since I’d first read the episode title a few months ago I’d had two images from the novel range stuck in my head. The first was the Seventh Doctor dancing with Death on the Moon on the cover of Timewyrm: Revelation; the second, and this is the image that came to mind more often, was the Eighth Doctor furiously playing the violin in the middle of the world shaking storms in Year of the Intelligent Tigers. Now, YotIT is one of my favourite DW novels of all time, a really wonderful book with a marvellous Doctor, could the TV series produce to match? Could the much earthier Ninth Doctor produce a scene to match the poetry of the Seventh’s or Eighth’s novel highlights?
(After Rose many people made comparisons between Eccleston and previous Doctors, these have all but vanished which is almost certainly a sign that the Ninth Doctor is such a strong character in his own right that people have accepted him for himself. Here’s hoping that David Tennant can create an equally good impression for the Tenth Doctor.)
The episode started with the best pre-titles sequence of the series. Cliffhanger resolved and one liner delivered exactly as desired. Some spookiness and at last much running around corridors in the classic tradition. Guns, bananas, screwdrivers! Then the dance begins.
An interesting little dance, The Doctor, Rose Tyler and Captain Jack stepping nimbly between a crowd of zombies, dancing to two tunes at once. Can they save the earth before the music stops? Will one of the dancers miss a beat of their more personal tune?
But enough with that, for now. I haven’t mentioned Nancy yet in this review, which is a mistake as she was one of the highlights of the episodes. Florence Hoath gave a wonderful performance and I hope that she goes on to do great things. By the way, am I the only person who thinks that she looks like a younger Kate Isitt (Sally from Coupling)?
I totally failed to spot the truth about the boy’s mummy but in hindsight it’s so obvious. I was scared for a moment that the story would end with Nancy sacrificing herself to save the world (as has been something of a trend in the series) and was extremely happy when things turned out differently.
The look of joy on the Doctor’s face as he saves everyone was, to borrow his catchphrase, fantastic! This was just the sort of moment that I had been wanting, right up there with a violin in the storm.
But then the coda, the Doctor actually dances, and despite what he claims he doesn’t really have the moves, does he? Bless him.
10/10
“Father’s Day” was damn good. I had a great big lng review in my head, exploring the episode as a standalone story (brilliant), as part of the ongoing series (for the second week in a row the Doctor was rendered impotent and another character saved everyone), and in the context of fandom (it was the most New Adventures-like episode yet). But I can’t be bothered. If you missed it yesterday the repeat’s on in just over an hour.
10/10
“The Long Game” was a bit of an odd episode – there was some sort of “big idea” concerning media manipulation as a tool to control a population, and there was a also some wonderful character interaction, but was there actually much of a story?
One thing that stood out in this episode, and which is strongly present in the series as a whole, is that the Doctor doesn’t always beat the villain himself, rather he inspires the people he meets to rise above themselves. He opens their eyes and helps them to see that no only is there something wrong, but that they can do something about it. That’s the sort of hero the Doctor is, the sort of hero we all need.
But despite this something was lacking from this episode. A decent explanation of what was happening? (Why did the alien need to be on the station? Why did the banks bankroll the alien rather than just run the plot themselves?) And we’ve had one CGI blob that doesn’t speak English already, do we need another?
7/10
How fantastic was that?
10/10
Oh, you want a proper review?
This was Doctor Who myth building at its best – taking a classic, hell the classic, monster and updating it whilst staying true to the orginal; and revealing more about the Time War backstory.
When I first heard that this episode would feature just one Dalek I thought that it would be acting in an Alien/Terminator/Predator fashion. And it did. This is what the Daleks have always been like in our mind’s eye. But this Dalek was more than that. This Dalek was a character, a real genuine character.
Oh, and the human and Time Lord characters were good in this one as well.
I f***ing loved this episode.
And isn’t it odd when you compare the Science Fiction that was on screen quarter of a century ago and now? Star Wars. Doctor Who. Battlestar Galactica. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. So when can we expect the Blake’s 7 revival?