Tag: Doctor Who

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ToyBox

Peg, it came back to me.

Previously, on Scribblings From The Public Restroom Stalls Of The Gods… you may remember a while back I was trying to come up with some simple, elegant, and zero-cost solution to a photography/video project I wanted to shoot for future use in the ToyBox portion of the site. Truth is, one idea had already occurred to me, though I had dismissed it as being a bit too cheap ‘n’ cheesy. In the end, it’s the one that came closest to working. But despite some of the inherent flaws – gravity, really, being the main one – I think the results were kinda cool. Since we’ve already had one wave of bad weather blow through, sleep is pretty much out for today (pity, that), so I thought I’d try to go ahead and knock this project out. Read on to see some of the pictures – and to see what crazily cheap-ass solution I came up with. … Read more

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Television & Movies Toiling In The Pixel Mines ToyBox

We’ll keep pluggin’ ’em ’till we get the right guy.

But I kid the men in blue. Here‘s a link to a breaking news story that we’re working tonight at the station; all joking aside, there’ll be a hell of a lot of questions for the authorities on this one. I’m sure they had only the best intentions of protecting the public in the incident where they shot and killed the wrong man this morning, but…that doesn’t change the fact that he was the wrong man. I don’t know what I would’ve done in the same situation. Methinks this story is going to be hanging around for a few days and/or weeks. At the very least.
In other work-related news, due to a flood of attempted spam comments, I have had to close off the comment feature in my work blog, which is unfortunate; I had hoped to create an atmosphere there where other people in “the biz” could exchange ideas, but apparently the people marketing Viagra had other ideas. We’ve also had a recent flood of spam in comments and shoutboxes on the Digital Press blogs, which has folks up in arms. I think my friend Paul said it best: is comment-spamming a blog with Viagra crap actually having any effectiveness as a marketing tool? How is this even worth someone’s time? Further ammo for my own argument that spam is becoming less about marketing, and more about random disruptive harrassment, and should be dealt with as such.
There’s an article in the New York Times on the upcoming U.S. premiere of Doctor Who, and the writer seems to focus almost obsessively on the fact that showrunner Russell T. Davies, without whom we wouldn’t even be seeing this new series, is gay, along with a certain segment of the show’s fan base. (Actually, the “gay male Doctor Who fan” is almost a bit of a foregone-conclusion stereotype in British pop culture, sort of like the American assumption that diehard Star Trek fans can’t get a date to save their lives. There’s some grain of truth to these, I suppose, but mainly because I don’t think my wife would really approve of me going on a date without her. 😛 ) I guess I’m just chuckling at the fact that more has been written about Davies’ orientation in that one NYT article than I think the entire collected British press cranked out when Davies’ revival of Doctor Who was first announced. That issue seemed to be a blip on the UK press radar for all of about 3 seconds. [shrug]
I’d be in a better position to staunchly defend the masculinity of male Doctor Who fans if I didn’t get a fresh box of action figures in from across the pond this morning, including the rare “Regeneration Set” with both the ninth and tenth Doctors in. Though the Eccleston figure’s ears are far too small – that man has some very prominent ears. 😆 Plastic just doesn’t do ’em justice!… Read more

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Television & Movies

Who can’t get respect in the States? Who! That’s Who.

Doctor WhoThe rumblings are already beginning, though I’m not sure where folks are getting their information, that Sci-Fi Channel is – supposedly – not going to heavily promote its newest acquisition, the #1 drama series in Britain in 2005, Doctor Who. Stand back and prepare for me to really go off here, both from a fannish perspective and from the perspective of someone who promotes TV for a living.
Okay, well, maybe go off is a bit strong. First off, it is just a rumor and I’m trying to keep that much in mind. Despite that, we’re less than a month out from the premiere – and Thursday night was the first night I’ve heard any reports of someone seeing an actual on-air promo for the show’s March 17th premiere. And we’re talking about a network that has been known to promote stuff months in advance of the premiere. So while I am skeptical of the nature of this “news,” on a certain level I can feel in my bones that it is probably true.
If it is true, then Doctor Who is falling victim to the same thing that plagued it in 1996 on Fox: even with decent ratings, no one’s going to give it the promotional TLC that will be needed to get a U.S. audience to watch a distinctly British series because It’s Not Their Product. In ’96, Universal didn’t put any great pressure on Fox to look at the Doctor’s series potential, because they only had, at best, a 50% stake in the McGann movie (and even less creative control). They were much more keen on pushing Sliders to Fox, which Universal owned lock, stock and barrel. (That info comes from the excellent book “Doctor Who: Regeneration,” by the way, by Gary Russell and and ’96 movie producer Philip Segal.)
The same thing applies here. It’s not a Sci-Fi Original, nor is it going to become one. While Canada’s CBC got into the game early enough to be labeled “co-producers” on the first season, Sci-Fi clearly dragged their asses on signing up for the new show. (But I’m not complaining here; the loss of Sci-Fi as a co-producer has killed stuff like Farscape in the past. So I’m not bemoaning the fact that Sci-Fi isn’t demanding a piece of the production pie here – the show failing on Sci-Fi in the States due to lack of promotion doesn’t kill the show everywhere in the world.)
In the meantime, keep in mind also that the BBC has exercised its rights to the Who franchise to release over a hundred novels, and, through outside licensees, dozens of audio dramas and other products bearing the logo and the likeness of the star of that 1996 movie, all of which has put absolutely nothing in Universal’s coffers. Oh, by the way, refresh my memory…who owns Sci-Fi Channel?
On the less conspiratorial side of things, the fact that Doctor Who was one of the BBC’s top ratings-grabbers in 2005 may well be working against the show in the States. It did so well in Britain, why pour a lot of promotional energy into it here? Memo to Sci-Fi: one of the reasons that it did so well was that the BBC launched a very carefully engineered promo campaign that positioned the new Doctor Who as a new series that anyone could enjoy, not the latest entry in a franchise with 40+ years of backstory and continuity wrapped up in several media. It’s just possible that Sci-Fi Channel simply doesn’t know how to promote the new Doctor Who. (When, in fact, the ample material created to promote the show on the BBC from late 2004 through early 2005 should point the way for them; simply adapting that existing material would be cost-effective, and it apparently drew viewers to their TV sets overseas.)
The new series doesn’t require a full knowledge of every episode of the “classic” series to enjoy it, but the audience needs to know that. Hell, the audience needs to know where and when the show is. I hope the rumors of minimal promotion will be proven false in the coming weeks; I’d love to find that I’m jumping the gun on this one (even if it lumps me into the craignotbond.com camp 😆 ). I’d love to see the new Who find a steady spot in the U.S. TV schedule; I’d love to be able to see it without dipping into the questionable waters of downloading or getting tapes from across one border or another. Sci-Fi could have yet another hit on their hands here, and could make Sci-Fi Fridays a year-round ratings-grabber.
But first they have to put some time and effort into it. Something more than just buying the rights. Call me, Sci-Fi. We’ll do lunch. If you won’t listen to the BBC’s marketing experts, who successfully launched this show into the stratosphere, I’d be more than happy to help.… Read more

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Television & Movies

This week in Sci-Fi-oid TV, 2-13 through 17 ’06

I’ve been neglecting to post this recently, so let’s give it another go:
Lost: At first I thought the promos for this episode were overselling what was going to happen and what we’d wind up seeing. As it turns out, they undersold it a bit. That said, I’m sticking with my theory that Rousseau is, in fact, one of the Others. (Surely I’m not the only person thinking this.) Assuming that the Others are operating on something other than a brute-force level and kidnapping children, a more psychological level perhaps, Rousseau has just done the equivalent of rolling a grenade into the room for the survivors – the presence of “Henry Gale” and how he has been treated is dead certain to polarize the survivors, with the fallout mainly affecting Jack and/or Locke, and certainly Sayid. Delenn she ain’t. (I also think the dissent between Sawyer and Hurley over the Noisiest Frog In The Entire Universe was meant to telegraph a preview of the coming strife to us, only I think the disagreement will be stronger than “Dude, that was cold.”) Actually one of the better episodes of this season, I thought.
Invasion: Throughout this season, we’ve seen Tom Underlay quitely dispose of various bad-apple “possessed/hybrid” characters, and now we know why (he’s fighting to keep the hybrids’ presence a matter of coexistence rather than conquest, and he may be fighting against the very nature of the beast itself)…but each of those characters, including his daughter’s ex-boyfriend and a nutty woman who literally discarded her own baby and then killed her mother, has remained a loose thread…until now. Those loose ends came back and bit us in the ass big-time – and left us with a killer cliffhanger. Actually, several. It now seems like at least two of the female hybrids, including Mariel, have bellies full of some kind of eggs. Ick. And it seems to be causing the crazy, baby-abandoning hybrid some big problems. Really ick. Are the male humans inhabited by these creatures also full of eggs? If not, why not? And is ABC really thinking about ditching this show with all of these loose ends still dangling?
Stargate SG-1: So…Ori Bugs. I found this one kind of entertaining, though admittedly on a purely B-movie level; take away the forward-moving story element that the Ori left these bugs to do their bidding, and that’s essentially what you have. It’s always good to see Robert Picardo too, though he seemed to be…well…strangely underutilized in this episode. That’s really all I can think of to say.
Stargate Atlantis: So help me, I’d forgotten how much I missed the Genii as an enemy. Granted, in some respects they’re stock baddies, but I’ve gotta say there’s something appealing about Colm Meaney as a total rat’s ass bastard. They almost, almost lured me into thinking that the whole thing wasn’t his character’s trap from the get-go, but he’s such an irredeemable jerk of a villain that it was satisfying to see events roll like a juggernaut toward what has to be the ultimate comeuppance. After last week’s lame cross between the original Star Trek’s Return To Tomorrow and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, this was quite refreshing.
Galactica: Baltar’s a slimy ass. There. I said it. (As if we haven’t all been saying it since the miniseries.) But throw him into bed with Tom Zarek and he’s officially even slimier. The Pegasus situation: this kinda bears out my earlier theory that it’ll take more than Baltar’s one nuke to take out Pegasus, but it wasn’t nice to see this demonstrated practically. I’m really wondering where the Apollo/Starbuck thing is going, and if Starbuck is going to redeem herself at any point soon; at this point she’s become as unreliable, and almost as unlikeable, as Tigh. Apollo’s arc has become fascinating – it’s interesting to have a Commander Adama on Battlestar Galactica again (as it should be), but I can’t help but feel like he’s in over his head on his new command. One can just imagine what the Pegasus crew, and those in the know among the rest of the fleet, think about the Admiral’s choice for the new skipper of Pegasus. At a few points early in the episode, until Adama pointed out that the human race needs repopulating, I was rolling my eyes at the abortion plotline, but once it became integrated into the story instead of – and I think I’ve mentioned ST:TNG’s second season opener The Child as a particularly lousy example of this – just grafting a modern-day debate into a script. I’m glad this turned out to have story implications beyond that, even if it still felt largely like that example. Hopefully it was just a “stylistic red herring” designed to elicit precisely the response that I had and throw people off.… Read more

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Gaming ToyBox

Why I’m giving up game collecting for 2006.

Doctor Who figuresAnd so it begins. That’s all I’m gonna say. 😆 With a new wave of 2-3 figures arriving every couple of months, I think this pretty much nails the coffin shut for any game collecting in 2006.
I finally managed to play a complete game of Dune 2000 all the way through last, and even with the Winamp/alternate music mix, it worked fine – and I’ve gotta brag on this one: after wiping two of my three enemies off the map, I took the final, and best-built, enemy base with…50 unarmed engineers. Again, I was playing Ordos, and this last enemy standing was Harkonnen; they stupidly had their construction yard, heavy factory, Ix research tower and two power plants built side-by-side with an unprotected bridge behind them. I just massed 50 engineers there, pre-built a gun turret, took those buildings, sold off the power plants in a big hurry, dropped the gun turret right in front of the construction yard and heavy factory (and started building more) and sent the rest of my engineers pouring into their base, taking over their buildings in rapid succession. Once I had their factory, I could start turning out Devastator tanks, and that was pretty much all she wrote. That battle was over fairly quickly and I once again ruled the world. As it should be.
But the best part had to be when the action got fast and furious, and all of a sudden, whatever soundtrack it was from, Winamp starts blasting almost polka-like Jewish music at me. I almost wanted to alt-tab away from the game to see what the heck that was from (it was something, somewhere, in my soundtrack directory), but (A) I wanted to make sure I could finish the game, and (B) I was laughing too hard. Even if I do ever figure out what track that was, and from what soundtrack, it shall henceforth be known as the Harkonnen Bar Mitzvah Jam of Doom. It was just so incongruous because everything that had been on before – some Firefly, some Babylon 5, some Stargate, Nixon, JFK, The Innocent Sleep, had all been so perfect, almost like a well-spotted movie soundtrack.
Man, I’ve gotta find a human to play that game against soon, provided that there’s a day this month that I’m not called in early. (This, by the way, is why I don’t take up any more destructive habits – you can see how hard I’ve fallen off the wagon here, and this is just a computer game…)… Read more

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Television & Movies

My Fan Flicka

“The wheel turns, does it not, Ambassador?”
Okay, that line’s from the first episode of Babylon 5, and at this point, Babylon 5 is about the only thing that hasn’t been recreated in fan-film form (though if you’re willing to put up with cheap visuals, there’s a clip in my multimedia section on the right-hand side of your screen proving that even the space battle stuff wouldn’t be completely impossible). But it fits the situation so well, I kinda have to use it.
In the 1990s, with Doctor Who cancelled and no new Doctor Who on the horizon, it fell to the fans to keep the saga alive. Fan writers went pro with Virgin Publishing’s New Adventures. Fan actors like Nicholas Briggs and Gary Russell produced audio plays set in the Doctor Who universe, making barely-legal use of existing sound FX records from the series itself, and not realizing they’d both be doing that as a full-time business venture with an actual BBC license (and completely legal use of those sound FX) by the end of the decade. And would-be movie makers like Bill Baggs and Keith Barnfather started taking little bits and pieces of the Doctor Who mythos and making their own movies.
UK copyright law has an interesting loophole that allowed this to happen without these amateur filmmakers getting sued into the 16mm film era. While the BBC owns the copyright to Doctor Who, the copyright in individual villains, aliens and companions lies with the writers who first created them. In other words, the BBC doesn’t own K-9 – Bob Baker and Dave Martin do. The BBC doesn’t own the Sontarans – the estate of the late, great Robert Holmes does. And so on. So these amateur filmmakers couldn’t even touch the Doctor, the TARDIS, or the Time Lords, or certain characters who had been created by the show’s producers (such as certain companions; K-9 wasn’t originally intended to be an ongoing companion, and in fact an ending of his debut Doctor Who adventure was filmed that left him behind). So the Sontarans, Draconians, the Brigadier, Sarah Jane Smith, and others got their own adventures sans the Doctor. (And just as often, other characters in their adventures would wind up being played by former Doctors and former Companions; Sophie “Ace” Aldred was a mainstay of the amateur film circuit.) Cheaper video technology and the emergence of desktop CG and editing made this possible, and even after the 1996 Doctor Who movie starring Paul McGann the fans’ cameras kept rolling.
It’s funny: Doctor Who is now riding high, with its last renewal giving it two more seasons. And Star Trek is, at least temporarily, history – and now it’s Trek that’s in the hands of the fans. The most visible of these endeavours, Star Trek: New Voyages, is making serious waves by inviting former writers and actors of real Star Treks past to join them – and they’re being taken up on their offer. George Takei and Grace Lee Whitney have agreed to star in the next “episode” produced by the team of amateur actors and filmmakers at New Voyages HQ in Ticonderoga, NY, and they’ll be taking part in a story scripted by TNG writers Michael Reaves and Marc Scott Zicree. And this comes right after another “episode,” currently in post-production, written by D.C. Fontana and starring Walter Koenig, due to be released for free download later this year. David Gerrold is also writing two scripts for the New Voyages, one a rewrite of a never-produced TNG season 1 script, and the other a sequel to The Trouble With Tribbles.
Wow. Now, to be fair, there are parallels here – pro writers like Terrance Dicks and Marc Platt participated in Doctor Who fan films, Mark Ayres scored some of them, and at least one fan film, The Airzone Solution, told a story completely unrelated to Who mythos but starring every Doctor from Jon Pertwee forward, with the exception of Tom Baker.
Needless to say, the shelf of Doctor Who “spinoff” videotapes on my shelf at home gives away how fond I am of these things. I’ve only just started watching the Star Trek: New Voyages stories, and while there’s an inherent fannish goofiness to them – Captain Kirk is played by an actor whose history includes a steady gig as an Elvis impersonator – I have to admire the craftsmanship of their meticulous reproduction of the classic Enterprise bridge, their uniforms, and their CG effects – roughly on par with early Babylon 5 (aha, there is a connection!) and light years ahead of what some of my friends and I used to do when we were cooking up our own fan-made spoofs in the early 90s.
There’s always going to be a debate about whether or not these people could be spending their time better coming up with something original, and just how far over the copyright lines they’re stepping. That’s a valid debate. But some of them, I suspect, just simply want to tell their own Star Trek stories. There’s a reason Who fans kept shining a light on little corners of the Whoniverse: they love the settings, characters, and backstories. They couldn’t even so much as mention the Doctor, but they could continue to explore the universe. The Trek fan flicks are a similar phenomenon; fan projects other than New Voyages are looking at original crews on ships and missions we haven’t seen before, so in a sense, much of the Trek fan film community is doing what the Who fans were doing ten years ago. The New Voyages gang, for good or ill, is getting so much attention precisely because they’re leaping right across that line and saying that these are, in fact, the voyages. Time will tell if it catches up with them in a legal sense; for the moment Paramount is turning a blind eye because they’re offering their productions, made with thousands of hours of volunteers’ time, as free downloads.
Then of course, there are the Lucasfilm-sanctioned Star Wars fan film competitions, where the vaults of Lucas’ sound effects are opened and things are left up to the fans’ twisted imaginations. In a sense, Lucasfilm has probably taken the best proactive approach possible that doesn’t involve alienating the fan base. Not that any other sectors of fandom are waiting for the intellectual property holders of the objects of their respective adorations to adopt a similar policy, mind you.
I guess what has me so fascinated with this is the amount of skill and creativity and, yeah, sometimes, just pure cheek that goes into these things. I admire that. It’s a better use of everyone’s time – both the fans making the stuff and the fans watching the stuff – than, say, re-editing Phantom Menace so there’s less Jar Jar.… Read more

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Serious Stuff Should We Talk About The Weather? Television & Movies

Tornado season 2006 begins!

…mere moments after 2006 itself begins! Here it is – our first tornado watch of 2006, only 12 days into January. Stay tuned to WWTF – all WTF?, all the time – for the latest weather!
Lightning composite view - NOT A FUNNEL CLOUD
Big news – the Doctor is coming to America by way of the Sci-Fi Channel. Brilliant move, and only about 6-9 months late. 😉 Still, I think it’s a good thing, and I think it’s a great show. You can find out more about the announcement in our news section.
Other big news: a local attorney is suing Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corporation for allegedly playing fast and loose with their latest rate hike – apparently AOG decided it was retroactive by at least a month. (If you need background on this story, do a search for “AOG” in the handy search box-like thingie up there.) This has turned into a class-action suit, and frankly…it’s a long time coming. After ramrodding all their ridiculous rate hikes through the governor-appointed Public Utilities Commission in Little Rock (a body that I still think should be appointed by, and accountable to, the voters), it’s about bloody time AOG got caught ought for doing something slimy. I suppose this just about qualifies. It’s been a long time coming.… Read more

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ToyBox

Christmas Haul 2005

Seems like I promised you fine folks a look at my Christmas haul a few days ago and then never followed up on it. Here ’tis.
Christmas 2005 stash
This is one of the Star Warsiest Christmases of my entire adulthood. We have here the “Rebuild Darth Vader” deluxe action figure, the Trivial Pursuit Star Wars DVD game, and another copy of the Tales Of The Jedi audio dramatization. (I’ll be exchanging that one; I already had a copy and could’ve sworn that my lovely wife knew about it, but then again, I got it just before November sweeps, a dark period where we just didn’t get to see each other, at all.) Also got the first two Planetary hardbacks (thanks Dave!), this year’s Hallmark Star Trek ship ornament (the movie-era Enterprise, still the best looking of the bunch), and some new work boots and gloves. Also, a book written by Apollo 15 astronaut Jim Irwin. I also got a Wal-Mart card, which finally helped me snag We Love Katamari (a.k.a. Katamari Damacy 2) and some blank DVDs, one of which now has the Doctor Who Christmas episode on it (OK, I’ll admit, I’m just showing off there). Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the three gifts my wife gave to me early (the travel Scrabble set and two CDs from the new Chronicles Of Narnia flick: the soundtrack itself and the ‘music inspired by…’ CD) and the complimentary copy of “Confessions Of The Game Doctor,” signed by none other than Bill Kunkel himself. Granted, that last one was so I could do a book review, but it was still darn nice of him to send it.
Anyway, this being the last entry for 2005, I’d like to throw out many thanks to my friends, family, internet cohorts and animals for putting up with me another year. I know it isn’t easy sometimes. Here’s hoping that 2006 is kind to all of us.
For your viewing pleasure (and probably intense amusement), I’ve added a couple of pages to the multimedia section: a selection of rediscovered artwork from 10-11 years ago, and an equally rediscovered (and quite by accident!) video clip for your amusement. This one isn’t cats, horses or tornado damage, I promise.
I’ll see you on the flipside.… Read more

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Television & Movies

Oh yeah, I’ll pick up that bill…NOT.

So, Monday, I got a certified mail slip in my mailbox (good place for mail, no?) indicating that I had a certified letter from my ISP, Cox Communications. (Also my cable carrier.) I’ll admit, this has been nagging at me since then, as work has kept me from picking it up, and I’m also completely caught up on my payments to Cox – why would they be sending me a certified letter?
I mentioned it to my wife tonight and she told me that it’s a promotional offer. Sent certified at a rate of something like $4.00 apiece. And not just that, but a promotional offer pushing Cox’s high-speed internet service (to which I already subscribe, or else how would I be typing this as we speak?). Gee, I wonder if we’ll have a rate increase soon to cover what has to be one of the most insipid promotions I’ve ever seen? I sure hope someone in Cox’s marketing division feels important having sent all those certified letters. A few years ago when, behind in paying the cable bill, we were getting calls from Cox, my wife once brought me the phone and said “It’s Cox.” “No dear,” I corrected her, “it’s pricks.”
One day, he shall come back.Couple of other notes: happy 42nd birthday (hmmmm…) to Doctor Who on November 23rd (I’m eagerly, eagerly awaiting the upcoming release of the first three stories in restored DVD form so I can resume my custom of watching part 1 of An Unearthly Child at 5:25pm on November 23rd every year). Also, according to an ABC notice that hit my e-mail at work today, what you’re reading is true – Alias has indeed been cancelled. Unlike Night Stalker, which wasn’t even allowed to conclude a two-part cliffhanger, Alias will run through its series finale in May. I’m not sure anyone can actually claim not to have seen this coming, what with Jennifer Garner’s pregnancy and just a general jump-the-sharkiness surrounding the whole current season. Frankly, I’d rather have J.J. Abrams’ attention focused on Lost. (Of course, that’s easy to say with Mission Impossible 3 on the horizon…)
Have a safe Thanksgiving. Go forth, eat turkey (and/or stuffing), play some Utopia, and fall asleep on the couch. Not necessarily in that order.… Read more

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Television & Movies

Dimensions In Time 2: Gallifreyan Boogaloo

Barcelona!!Everyone remember to visit this site tonight to get your first glimpse of the new Doctor Who in action. I have to admit, I’m curious – and Anthony Stewart Head declaring David Tennant “the best Doctor Who since Patrick Troughton” in an interview is almost like throwing down the gauntlet.
Addendum: Having now watched said mini-episode, I have to say it was rather enjoyable. I was surprised that it was as relatively dramatic as it was (it’s still hard to erase the thought of Dimensions In Time from my mind) and not more light-hearted, but whatever gets the pledges and donations in to the worthy chartity in question, that’ll work for me. The hopping bit made me instantly flash back to Tom Baker and Ian Marter skipping rope in Robot, and ya know, if you’ve going to evoke the spectre of a past Doctor, you can probably do much worse than deliberately go for something that makes the viewers think of Tom Baker.
Now there’s just the interminable wait until the unspecified-interval-after-Christmas-when-I-get-a-tape-of-the-Christmas-special-from-Canada. Here’s hoping that the ability to watch this special online isn’t just a one-off fluke. I’d plunk down a little bit of money to watch new Doctor Who adventures immediately after they air – I think the BBC would be stunned at how much money they’d make from outside their own territory with such a service.… Read more