Author: Vinnie Bartilucci

Gerry Anderson, king of Supermarionation: 1929-2012

Gerry Anderson, creator of Thunderbirds, Space: 1999, Supercar, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90, UFO, Fireball XL5, Stingray, and many other science fiction and fantasy shows, has died at the age of 83.

Gerry was best know for his “Supermarionation” series, featuring detailed marionettes and a science-fiction based storyline.  His ex-wife Sylvia collaborated frequently with him, most famously voicing Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward in Thunderbirds.  The shows were a first step for many well-known actors and creators, including Lois Maxwell (Moneypenny in the early James Bond films), character actors Shane Rimmer and Jaremy Wilkin (Blake’s 7) and special effects master Derek Meddings (Star Wars and the James Bond franchise).  He made successful forays into live action as well, with the series Space: 1999 and UFO, and the feature film Journey to the Far Side of the Sun.

Gerry suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease for several years, and spent much of his time as a celebrity ambassador for The Alzheimer’s Society, raising both funds and awareness for the disease.  His condition worsened in the past six months, which limited his ability to both work for the organization, and to serve as consultant on a Hollywood remake of UFO.

Gerry’s son Jamie has requested, in lieu of other remembrances, that people donate to The Alzheimer’s Society via Just Giving. Our condolences to his family and friends.

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Review: “Amazing Spider-Man” #700 / “Avenging Spider-Man” #15.1

I already said in my discussion of Amazing Spider-Man 698 that I had utter faith in Dan Slott.  Yes, the plot twist he’s spun here is, at the least, controversial.  It proves, simply, that he’s got what it takes to sell  real estate. This is a story he’s been setting up for several years.  Slowly, deliberately, under our noses.  He’s taken an almost standard plot twist, seen in countless comics, movies and TV shows, and built it into a firestorm.

And I want to go to the people who don’t like it and take their comics away.  because if they don’t like this storyline, they just don’t like comics.

Do not click past, lest ye see spoilers. (more…)

New Who Review: “The Snowmen”

Oh, Steven Moffat, you magnificent bastard. The return of a villain before it and The Doctor have ever met, a reunion with a character The Doctor’s never actually met, the team-up of three characters, one of whom died in the far future, and a couple of surprise guests.  A nice little Christmas present, and what’s Christmas without…

THE SNOWMEN
By Steven Moffat
Directed by Saul Metzstein

A young boy is met by a talking snowman, one who promises he can help him.  Fifty years later, and Dr. Walter Simeon has become quite a successful man, head of a prestigious institute, and still working with the sentient snowstorm to prepare for a coming assault on the earth.  Madame Vastra and Jenny are curious as to Dr. Simeon’s plans, but get nowhere.  Meanwhile, a young barmaid named Clara has noticed a snowman pop up out of nowhere, and though the man she asks randomly about it seems disinterested, his curiosity is piqued, something The Doctor has been trying to avoid.

Clara is quite a mystery – she’s living a double life as the Governess for two young children.  Their previous governess drowned in a pond outside their manor last winter, which froze over so quickly and thickly they never even found the body for a month.  During that time, the Snow had time to analyze her DNA, providing them a perfect blueprint with which they plan to use to create more sturdy and permanent forms for itself.  The challenge is not for The Doctor to defeat the Snowmen and its secret leader…but to get The Doctor interested enough to care.

Brilliant episode from head to toe.  The chemistry between Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman is positively captivating, as we saw in Asylum of the Daleks, but here, with both on screen at once, it’s explosive.  Dan Starkey pulls in a leaves-you-breathless comedic performance as Strax, one so good it’ll be hard to take him seriously if (when?) he appears again.  Unlike most of the previous Christmas specials, this one has a more direct connection to the narrative of the show.  They’re usually a rather done-in-one story that can be enjoyed on its own. But here, as with The Christmas Invasion, the story leads right into the start of the new semi-season this Spring/Summer.

Once again, Moffat has created a character rippling with mystery.  Why was she working for Captain Latimer, and more importantly, why does her face seem to be spread across time?

THE MONSTER FILES

The Great Intelligence has been rumored for a return to the show for at least two years. Of course, so has damn near every other villain.  Appearing twice during the Troughton era, it was a disembodied consciousness that was able to remotely animate constructs, created with the help of wiling human compatriots.  Its favorite form in past battles have been giant robotic Yeti, also know as Abominable Snowmen, which was also the title of their first adventure.  It appeared again in London in The Web of Fear, the adventure that also introduced us to then-Colonel Alastair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, who would soon receive a promotion, and assignment to U.N.I.T.

The prose novels added a great deal to the history of the Intelligence, as it did for many of the villains of the series.  In them it was revealed that it is in fact Yog-Sothoth, one of the Old Ones chronicled in the H.P. Lovecraft stories.  Neil Gaiman revealed in an interview that he had initially intended House, the villain from his previous episode The Doctor’s Wife, was to have been the Great Intelligence, or at least was to have been heavily hinted as such.  While none of those allusions remained, its modus operandi is sufficiently similar as to still make the connection possible.

Madame Vastra is a Silurian, an ancient lizard race who escaped under the Earth’s crust to save themselves from what they saw as an extinction-level threat in the form of an asteroid heading for the planet.  When the asteroid was instead captured by the Earth’s gravity and became our moon, it allowed other races to rise to planetary dominance, namely Humanity.  The Doctor has faced the Silurians several times both in the new and original series.  Madame Vastra and her human partner Jenny, were introduced in A Good Man Goes to War, as was Strax, the Sontaran clone warrior, sentenced to the ultimate shame, to  serve as a nurse.

GUEST STAR REPORT

dwchristmas04-300x199-3196543Richard Grant (Dr. Simeon) has been a staple of British comedy and drama for years.  He first came to note in Withnail and I, co-starring with the future Eighth Doctor, Paul McGann. He’s been in mad satiric comedies like How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Hudson Hawk, has played the Scarlet Pimpernel, starred in the underrated Warlock, and been in far too many more to list.  He has also had quite a history with Doctor Who.  He’s played The Doctor twice, once in Moffat’s oft-referenced Comic Relief sketch The Curse Of Fatal Death, and once in an animated adventure The Scream of the Shalka. That had been intended as a sort of pilot for a new Who series that never materialized.  It was quiet shuffled out of continuity when the new series started with a different ninth Doctor.

Ian McKellen (voice of the Intelligence) is Magneto and Gandalf. Get Over It.

Juliet Cadzow (voice of the ice governess) has had a long career on British television and on film, but is likely best known as Edie McCredie from the cult favorite children’s show Balamory.

BACKGROUND BITS AND BOBS – Trivia and production details

CREDITS WHERE CREDITS ARE DUE – New credit sequence, and a new mix of the theme, but even then, a return of some old motifs.  The Doctor’s face has been missing from the opening sequence ever since the new series began, but its made a happy return here.  Also, The TARDIS seems to traveling through space for more of the sequence than through time.  The vortex has gone through some changes as well.  In the initial credits sequence it seems made of energy, much resembling a “laser tunnel” effect.  In the first Matt Smith sequence, the vortex took on a more smoky look, one that became progressively more violent in the episodes of this season.  Now it’s taken a look of a column of flame.  One theoy has suggested that the change represented a change in The Doctor’s mood and experiences, rather than mere a change in the vortex itself.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION – The episode was filmed in Bristol, which features a number of Victorian style locales, and makes for easy conversion.

THE ROSE AND CROWN – well, “Rose” is rather obvious, but one could also argue that a Crown is worn by someone who is…Noble.

YOU DON’T NEED THEM, YOU JUST THINK THEY MAKE YOU LOOK CLEVER – The Doctor is wearing Amy Pond’s glasses, last seen in The Angels Take Manhattan. It’s the only bit of clothing or accessories remaining from his previous costume.  Even the bow tie is different.

DON’T KNOW WHERE, DON’T KNOW WHEN… Note Clara’s birthday – November 23rd, same day Doctor Who premiered in 1963.

“Those were the days” – What’s interesting is that we have NO clue exactly how long The Doctor has been out of the Saving The Universe business.  Take a look at the TARDIS – the exterior is a weather-beaten mess.  And even though the interior has a brand new design, I’ve already suggested that it is in fact the ship’s “default” setting, indicating that he didn’t care if it had any character anymore.

‘You realize Dr. Doyle is almost certainly basing his fantastical tales on your own exploits” – And that sound you hear is reality folding in upon itself.  Moffat is, of course, also the showrunner on the new Sherlock series starring Smaug and Bilbo Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, and fans have been doing crossovers between the two series for some time now.

“And remember…” Clara is another woman that The Doctor is meeting out of order.  Like River Song, there’s clearly much more going on with her than any average woman.  Unlike Amy Pond, she’s got a very inquisitive nature, and was involved in her own little mysteries before the Doctor even arrived.  She lives a double life, as the governess of the two children, who just happen to be in the middle of a dangerous situation.  Rather like how Sarah jane and Donna Noble were inspired to investigate and help people after they met The Doctor.  But Clara hadn’t MET The Doctor yet.  Or has she?

BIG BAD WOLF REPORT – There’s two possibilities here.  Rumors abound that the Great Intelligence will return throughout the back end of the season as the Big Bad. This story works perfectly as a stand-alone origin story for the entity, but could also serve as the start of a “You created me” story that could wind up in the season finale.

It seems very clear that one theme of at least the beginning of the semi-season will be the search for Clara.  The clips in the Coming Soon teaser show that Clara’s influence is all across time – note the painting, and the fact that she seems to be wearing many different outfits.  Yes, she could certainly be just changing clothes…but who’s to say it’s not a different Clara in each episode?

NEXT TIME ON DOCTOR WHO – As is traditional at these points, that’s quite up in the air.  We know we’ll be seeing…

  • A Cyberman episode by Neil Gaiman
  • Diana Rigg and her daughter in another Victorian era adventure
  • An episode written by Mark Gatiss

Can’t wait to see what else.

A Doctor A Day – “Army of Ghosts / Doomsday”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen.

The mysterious spectral shapes that have been appearing across London are not what they appear.  What becomes a Doctor Who fan’s greatest wish come true starts as an…

ARMY OF GHOSTS / DOOMSDAY
by Russell T Davies
Directed by Graeme Harper

“Daleks have no concept of elegance.” “This is obvious.”

Returning to Earth, The Doctor and Rose are surprised to learn that ghosts have been appearing all over the world.  Rather than being met with fear, they’ve become a national phenomenon.  People await their by-the-clock appearances and disappearances daily, and happily discuss the visitations with each other and on the TV.  What they don’t realize is they’re actually being caused by experiments at the Torchwood Institute, attempting to perfect a machine that would cross dimensional barriers to obtain new energy sources.  But even that is only means to an end, to open a mysterious sphere that resists all testing and analysis.  As The Doctor attempts to analyze the ghosts, Torchwood detects the shift in the field and realizes he’s in the area.  So when he identifies the source and heads there, they’re ready for him.

Following from Queen Victoria’s dictate, Torchwood exists to study alien technology as a defense for the nation, and they view The Doctor as an enemy, regardless of the number of times he’s saved the world.  He’s immediately taken into custody and the TARDIS impounded.  Showing him the sphere, he identifies it as a void ship, designed to travel, and hide, in the space between dimensions. He convinces them to stop the testing, but the people (well, I say people…)  behind the breach have been slowly taking over the staff, and they initiate a final breach, and stand revealed as…Cybermen.  The ghosts across the world fully materialize as Cybermen, and almost immediately seize control.

Ah, so they’re hiding in that void ship sphere, right?  Wellll, no.  The Void Ship was what pushed through to our world first, a weakness the Cybermen took advantage of.  It’s a life raft for a race that thought they would not survive its final battle.  It’s the Daleks.  Carrying a Genesis Ark, they plan to repopulate the world with new Daleks, and with no Time Lords to stop them, nothing should stop them from conquering the universe.

Well…ONE Time Lord.  And luckily, a small army from Pete’s world, who cobbled together technology to follow the Cybermen through the Void.  But is that going to be enough to fight the two most powerful enemies The Doctor has ever faced at once?

The Doctor Who team did a great job keeping the return of the Daleks secret, basically by making it blatant that the Cybermen were returning.  There’s not a Whofan on Earth who hasn’t considered how cool a Cybermen/Dalek team-up would be, and to finally see it was a surprise indeed. The first discussion between the two foes is absolutely hilarious.

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A great close of the season, and a happy ending for Rose and Jackie.  Following up on the idea of alternate universe replacements, Pete has almost no hesitation in accepting “our” Jackie and Rose as his new family, and since it meets the happy ending parameters we want, we do as well.

The Cybermen got a small upgrade in this adventure, the retractable wrist-cannon.  They had no offensive weapon in the earlier adventure, and had to “delete” their enemies hand-to-hand.  We also saw a rather big change to the Daleks as well, with the Cult of Skaro, three Daleks bred to have independent thought, to come up with ideas that a normal brute-force Dalek never could.  It’s an idea that had been addressed before, with the need to find Davros in Destiny of the Daleks.

The original “Ghostwatch” was a very controversial one-shot special presented on the BBC in 1992, and never repeated in the UK.  Presented as a reality/documentary show about ghosts, it was in fact a staged drama.  British chat show legend Michael Parkinson  hosted what was to be a live investigation of spectral activity in a house in North London eventually resulted in the ghosts taking control of the broadcast and remotely possessing Parkinson as the show ended.  Even though it was touted as a drama, complete with “written by” and cast credits in the opening, the show was met with a reaction similar to the classic War of the Worlds broadcast.  There’s copies of it floating about the Internet, and is well worth a look.

Musical motifs from what would become the Torchwood theme appear in this episode’s score, which rather makes sense since Murray Gold provides the music for both.

Yes, that is Freema Aygeman as a worker at Torchwood.  Doctor Who has become almost legendary at choosing from its own for larger parts— Eve Myles will be back shortly for Torchwood, and Karen Gillan made her first appearance as a prophetess in The Fires of Pompeii.  It didn’t start in the new series, either.  Colin Baker, Doctor number six, first appeared as Commander Maxil in Arc of Infinity.

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SyFy Broadcasts “K-9” marathon on Christmas Day

  • News
  • December 24, 2012

SyFy (formerly known as the SciFi Channel) has acquired the US broadcast rights to the K-9 solo series, produced in Australia in 2010.  They will run the entire 26-episode series in a 13-hour marathon on Christmas Day.

Featuring an updated K-9 design and a new group of characters, the series has been shown in many countries since its initial premiere.  The US is one of the last regions to see the series on TV.  The series is live-action, featuring a streamlined CGI K-9, voiced by John Leeson, the original voice of the “tin dog”.

K-9 is one of the most popular companions from the classic series of Doctor Who, with two different “models” traveling with The Doctor from 1977 – 1980, and making quite a few appearances afterwards..  Making his first appearance in the Bob Baker / Dave Martin adventure The Invisible Enemy, K-9 was the creation of Professor Marius, who built him as a replacement for his own dog back on Earth.  After the adventure, Marius asked The Doctor to care for K-9, as he was returning to Earth and would not be able to take him on the ship.  The original K-9 traveled with The Doctor and Leela for some time, and chose to remain with her on Gallifrey after the events of The Invasion of Time.  The Doctor built a new model almost immediately, and he was a companion of The Doctor and fellow Time Lady Romana for another three years, until they chose to remain in E-Space with Romana at the end of Warrior’s Gate.

A third K-9 unit was sent to Sarah Jane Smith as a gift from The Doctor, and became her adventuring confidant for many years, up until she met The Doctor again in School Reunion.  K-9 Mark III sacrificed himself in that adventure, but The Doctor was able to salvage enough to build a mark IV, which he left behind for Sarah Jane.  The spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures was green-lit almost immediately after this adventure, but Bob Baker had already made the deal for this new series, which is why K-9 appeared only in limited cameos for the first two series of SJA.

K-9 has had quite a few appearances in the prose and Big Finish audio adventures as well.  In the Gallifrey series of adventures, Romana returned to her home planet with her canine companion, and came to meet Leela, and HER canine Companion.  K-9s Mark I and II, humorously, did not get along, and often argued with each other.

While Doctor Who cannot be explicitly be named, the K-9 of the new series is clearly the same K-9 from the original. Specifically he’s K-9 Mark I, who survives and escapes the Time War, and winds up on late 21st century Earth.  After a brief fight where he is seemingly destroyed, he “regenerates” (a new system apparently installed for him by the Time Lords” into a new streamlined design.  There’s a second series of the show in the planning stages, in which the producers have promised another redesign, responding to feedback from the fans.

Creators Bob Baker and Dave Martin collaborated on all the Doctor Who TV scripts, as well as numerous other projects in British television.  Dave wrote four K-9 solo adventure novels in the early 80’s, and passed away in 2007. Bob Baker has had some small success away from Doctor Who as well – he co-wrote three of the Wallace and Gromit shorts, as well as the feature film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

With K-9’s appearance, we’ve seen every Doctor Who-related series in the US, save for the aforementioned Sarah Jane Adventures, starring the glorious Elisabeth Sladen.  While there’s no news of that show being picked up, needless to say it’d find a welcome audience.

The K-9 marathon runs Christmas Day from 10 AM – 11PM. The show is not yet scheduled for a regular time slot after the marathon. More info about the series can be found on its website, k9official.com.

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A Doctor A Day – “Fear Her”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen.

Children are disappearing on a suburban street, and a certain being seems intent on making us…

FEAR HER
by Matthew Graham
Directed by Euros Lyn

“I can’t stress this enough – ball bearings you can eat…masterpiece!”

Three children have vanished in the course of a week, cars are cutting out in the middle of the street, and everyone has been reduced to paranoid panic.  Not a good state of affairs for the day of the opening ceremonies of the London Olympiad.  The Doctor and Rose arrive just in time to help, luckily.  There’s an odd residual energy in the spots where the kids have vanished, which suggests it’s not some common human crapsack.  One girl named Chloe stays indoors and draws.  She draws the other children in the street.  Just before they vanish.  …yeah, The Doctor and Rose made the same assumptions…

An alien creature, the Isolus, has latched onto Chloe and used her raw emotions from a lifetime of abuse from her father (now dead a year) to try and get back to its family.  The alien is too weak to do so, and Chloe doesn’t know how to help, so she draws the kids in the street, who get teleported to a nondescript somewhere else, to attempt to assuage the alien’s loneliness.  She has the power to create things in her drawings as well – she angrily crosses out over one drawing, and the scribble comes to life, and a huge and choked thing with the emotion of her abusive father is gaining power in the back of her closet.  The Doctor has several goals – save the trapped kids, separate the alien from little Chloe, help it get back to space… and crash the Olympics?

This episode is…bad. It’s a weak shadow of the classic Twilight Zone episode It’s a Good Life, with no real sense of direction. The alien is innocent and unaware of its effects, and we end up being more afraid of Chloe’s father, who’s been dead a year. The scene with them collecting up al the pencils and crayons in the house as if they’re knives is ridiculous, is immediately surpassed by the scene where Chloe reveals she’s got pencils hoarded inside her dolls like Ray Milland hid whiskey bottles. The acting’s good, the music is great, but the premise is just so blah, and the look of the crayon monsters so silly that there’s no surprise that this is universally considered the worst episode of the new series by a long length: Doctor Who Magazine did a poll of the 200 most popular stories of the show’s run, and this one came in 192nd, only barely beating out Paradise Towers.  By contrast, Daleks in Manhattan, the story that resulted in the Daleks getting put in the cupboard for two years, came in at 152.  Of course, that just beat out the sublime Love and Monsters, so I imagine no poll is perfect.  Even  the idea of a living scribble was even done before, and better, on an early episode of Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. In the episode The Trouble with Scribbles, it’s learned that scribbles are the almost universal form of babies’ first imaginary friends, and they mount up quickly.

tennant_olympics-300x226-5745995There’s a bit of fun in the beginning of the episode – the idea of 2012 being the “Near future” gave them a moment to to skewer new X-Factor winner Shayne Ward with a poster for a Greatest Hits collection.

But it was this episode that fueled Doctor Who fandom’s hope… nay, belief that David Tennant would be carrying the Olympic torch at the 2012 ceremonies.  Even after Matt Smith started it off in the relay, the desire for Ten to close out this little time loop was unassailable.  Indeed, in Danny Boyle’s spectacular opening ceremonies, there was originally to be a sequence featuring Doctor Who; each of the living actors had to authorize the use of their photos, but it was dropped.  The whooshing sound of the TARDIS, barely audible over the din of the mix, is the only mention.

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A Doctor A Day – “Love and Monsters”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

If Lars von Trier had thought of it, it would have been one of the Five Obstructions.  Make a Doctor Who episode, but don’t use The Doctor. It rather limits the drama, doesn’t it?  far from it, it gives you a chance to do a story about friends and mystery, and…

LOVE AND MONSTERS
by Russell T Davies
Directed by Dan Zeff

Elton Pope (Not that Elton, and not that Pope) is relating his adventures on his video blog.  He’s just met The Doctor, who was fighting an alien in a disused industrial building…as he does.  Elton begins to relate his history a bit – he remembers seeing The Doctor in his kitchen back with he was a toddler, as well.  He grew up rather normal and has a pleasant life, until a couple years ago when London started getting regularly attacked by aliens.  The Autons, the Slitheen, the Sycorax, all seen through his eyes.  He begins to search about the Internet, and finds a blog by a young woman named Ursula Blake, with recent photos of The Doctor, who looks no different than when he appears in Elton’s kitchen decades ago.

Ursula introduces Elton to a group of her friends, fellow Doctor-sighters and searchers, who meet regularly in the local library.  They all share the tidbits they’ve discovered about him throughout history.  After meeting for some time, Ursula suggests the club needs a name. Elton suggests “LInDA” – The London Investigation ‘n’ Detective Agency.  LInDA slowly become more of a social club than a tin-hat society, and the all become proper friends.  That is…until Mr. Victor Kennedy appeared. A strange man suffering from a skin complaint (Exceezma…like Eczema, but far worse).  He claims to have information about The Doctor, and shows them that they’ve lost their way in their investigations.  Kennedy has access to a staggering amount of information about the Doctor, including data from Torchwood. He hands out pictures of Rose Tyler, and sets LInDA off on the task to find her. And  in amongst the investigations…the members of LInDA are slowly going missing.

Friends are made, loves are lost, and a monsters stands revealed. Oh, and The Doctor shows up, eventually.

There’s been bits of humor in every episode, but this is the first episode that’s elbow-deep hilarious.  The episode was created by necessity – the BBC asked for a Christmas episode with this season, but didn’t add any time or much money to the budget.  So the producers were forced to find a way to force a fourteenth episode into the schedule, one that would have very little of The Doctor and Rose, as the actors simply wouldn’t have time to shoot another full episode.  So with a short sequence at the beginning, an appearance at the end, and photos and mentions all in between, you get a great bit of sleight of hand that feels like a full Doctor appearance.  The acting in the episode is wonderful as well, featuring British comedy star Peter Kay as the baddie, and Camille Coduri making a return as Jackie Tyler.

LInDA is a name Russell T Davies had made up for a earlier children’s show he’d written years back called “Why Don’t You?”,  The Absorbaloff was created by a child as part of a Blue Peter competition. Russell begged for one more alien for the alien, with the opening sequence, and they gave him one.  He even gave it a name – the Hoix.

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A Doctor A Day – “The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

Humanity’s natural response to the order “no” is “why?”  Put up a sign marked “wet paint”, and count all the people who touch what it’s hanging on.  And if you bury the devil, it’s a poor idea to put him on…

THE IMPOSSIBLE PLANET / THE SATAN PIT
by Matt Jones
Directed by James Strong

The Doctor and Rose land on a space base orbiting around a black hole (this is of course impossible), filled with writing so old the TARDIS can’t translate it (this is of course impossible).  The crew of the base explain that there’s an ancient power source at the core of the planet so strong it’s not only holding the planet in place, but generating a safe path to and from the planet (this is of course impossible).  After a bit of investigation, it’s discovered that a being who claims to be The Devil (The definite article, you might say) is imprisoned at the core, and this mad geostationary contraption is its eternal prison (this is of course, even if the other stuff was possible, which it isn’t, impossible).

The beast cannot escape his prison, but his mind can, and successfully takes over one of the crew, as well as its stock of alien slaves, the Ood.  While The Doctor spelunks down to the cavern in the planet’s core, Rose and the crew fight the now quite violent Ood in the station.  The Doctor is left with a terrible choice – destroy the beast’s prison and doom Rose, or let her and the crew escape, along with the beast’s mind.

A very moody episode, with a well-designed set that allowed for lots of corridor runs and corner turns.  The Doctor even comments at the beginning that a lot of these bases look the same, and are made from kits. It’s got a very haunted house feel, which is basically what the classic sci-fi film Alien is, as are all tributes to it. The Doctor gets a number of very nice speeches about how amazing humans are, boldly rushing in where angels fear to tread, and wanting to do things solely because they’ve not been done yet.  It’s a recurring idea for the Doctor, interspersed occasionally with his comments about how blind and small-minded they are.  We’re clearly his favorite race, and not simply because humans are cheaper to portray in a TV show.

It’s the premiere of another new recurring alien, the Ood.  They return a few time over the course of the new series, including a much more Ood-centric story in the Donna Noble season. The Ood are played as an unintelligent hive-minded race here, a “perfect slave race” as they’re described, and there’s simply no time for the story to address that.  Rose makes a passing comment about it, but it’s quickly waved off, especially after they went all red-eyed and scary, and could be classified as a threat.  It’s not until the next Ood story do we get a real idea of their situation, and a more proper addressing of their status as slaves.

An Ood appeared in Neil Gaiman’s story The Doctor’s Wife, mainly because they didn’t have money in the budget to make a new alien.

While The Doctor had never met the devil himself before, he’s come close.  The Demoniacs, Sutekh, and other races were believed to have interacted with humanity  in the past and give it the idea of devils.  Tom Baker was supposed to have fought the devil, in the guise of Scratchman, in a film written by Baker and Ian Marter titled Doctor Who meets Scratchman.  It had a mad throw-everything-at-it plot, but never got past the talking stage.

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A Doctor A Day – “The Idiot’s Lantern”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

The Queen’s coronation increased sales of televisions in Britain faster than Howdy Doody did in the US.  But when one store sells sets for less than could possibly be profitable, The Doctor fears they may have an ulterior motive to expose everyone to…

THE IDIOT’S LANTERN
by Mark Gatiss
Directed by Euros Lyn

“Are you sitting comfortably?  Good! They we’ll begin…”

The proprietor of Magpie Electricals is near bankruptcy until a strange new partner offers a way to turn his business around.  With the queen’s Coronation coming up, he suddenly finds a way to make TVs available for the outrageous price of five pounds a pop.  Needless to say, they’re selling like mad.

magpie_electricals__1920_x_1200__by_jarrrp-d4rdljm-300x187-2196629The Doctor and Rose arrive (accidentally, of course – they were aiming for Elvis’ appearance on Ed Sullivan) as sales are skyrocketing.  But at the same time, people are being taken from their homes, under blankets, by people claiming to be police.  Clearly seeing the proverbial Something is Going On, the pair investigate by visiting a family with one of Magpie’s tellys.  The husband is a right boor, controlling the family with an iron hand, but the wife and son are distraught.  Their grandmother has been transformed to a mindless, faceless shell.  Apparently, it’s been happening all over town, and it’s they who the police have been collecting up.

The Doctor finds where the victims have been collected and convinces the Detective Inspector to help solve the mystery as opposed to just cover it up. And Rose confronts Mr. Magpie, only to learn that he’s under the electronic thumb of an energy being called The Wire, who has been draining people of faces and brains via the new TVs.  Alas, she’s shortly in no position to impart this knowledge, as she’s promptly wiped.  When the police find her and bring her in, The Doctor goes cold and scary, vowing that there’ll be no stopping him.

They break into Magpie’s shop and find a number of odd things – a portable television set some three decades ahead of its time, and trapped in the televisions in the shop, the faces, and presumably the minds, of the victims of The Wire, including Rose.  The Wire plans to transfer itself to the portable set and connect up to the transmission station at Alexandra Palace, where it will be able to feed on everyone watching the Coronation.   Can The Doctor stop the plan in time?

Mark Gatiss’ episodes so far have had a very personal feel – large stakes, but ultimately featuring a small cast.  This one has London in the balance, but ultimately it’s about one family, and how the members of the family respond to the horrific changes around them.

The Doctor has had bad experiences on tall broadcast towers; he fell off one to his death, or at least regeneration, in Logopolis.  He’s faced more than a few energy-based foes as well—the Nestene Consciousness, the formless Gelth in The Unquiet Dead, and there was this foe from the Troughton days…oo, showed up twice…can’t seem to summon up its name now, can’t imagine why…

Magpie Electricals makes many more appearances in the series— since Mr. Magpie himself came to an unfortunate end, it’s presumed someone bought the brand name and used its notoriety to turn it into a powerhouse brand for literally centuries to come.  The Magpie brand shows up in all sorts of Earth-based technology up to and including the launch of Starship UK.  There’s been no suggestion there’s anything untoward going with them (tho one can never be sure), it seems more like it’s become a brand like the various products of KrebStar Industries on The Adventures of Pete and Pete, or the various food and cigarette trademarks in Quentin Tarantino’s films.

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A Doctor A Day – “Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

Surpassed only by the Daleks, the Cybermen are the Doctor’s greatest foes.  So like the former, it was only a matter of time before we would see…

RISE OF THE CYBERMEN / THE AGE OF STEEL
by Tom MacRae
Directed by Graeme Harper

“If you want to know what’s going on…work in the kitchen.”

The TARDIS falls out of the time vortex and crashes…in London.  Well, no, not quite, it’s a parallel Earth, one where Zeppelins are an established mode of transportation, and Rose’s dad Pete is not only alive, but one of the most successful businessmen in England.  The Doctor cautions her that this Pete is not her father – there may be another Jackie or even a parallel Rose in this world.  He’s partly right – Pete and Jackie are married, and fighting, but there’s no Rose Tyler.  With the TARDIS recharging, the trio does a bit of investigating.  Pete Tyler has sold his company to John Lumic, owner of Cybus Industries, who make the earbuds that literally everyone wears, a replacement for the smartphone.  Intrigued at anyone with that much influence, The Doctor gives in to Rose’s wishes, and they plan to visit Pete.  Mickey, on the other hand, visits the home of his grandmother, who on their world, raised him but died five years ago, only to learn that here, she’s still alive.  The Mickey, or rather the Rickey of this universe, however, is a freedom fighter against Lumic’s Cybus corporation, which has become so a part of society it makes Apple look like Onkyo.  Lumic has a new process for preserving the human brain and “upgrading” human beings. when the UK President refuses to allow the procedure to be tested, Lumic takes the law into his own hands.  He lures a number of forgotten men into a truck and uses them to create his new humans – Cybermen.

A solid pair of episodes, bringing a classic foe back in a new way. These are not the Cybermen from our universe – they appeared on the planet Mondas, Earth’s twin that shot out of orbit eons ago.  This gives them a chance to re-introduce an old enemy without having to educate the new fans about their history.  Daleks are so endemic to British culture, there was no need to re-introduce them, they could just hit the ground running… or rolling.

As more and more Cybermen appearances have stacked up, there’s been some confusion as to whether we’re still seeing the Cybermen from “Pete’s World”, or the ones from ours. The “C” logo has disappeared from the chest, suggesting we may now be looking at native Cybermen. It’s hoped that Neil Gaiman’s upcoming episode, tentatively titles “Last of the Cybermen” will address this issue.

The episode was inspired by a Big Finish audio adventure, “Spare Parts” by Marc Platt.  While the final script was quite different from the original story, Davies made sure Platt was paid a fee and got a “Thanks to” credit in the episode.

Mickey’s departure is the first voluntary one for a Companion in the new series.  In the old days, willing departure for The Doctor’s friends was the rule – in the new series it’s the exception.  So far only Mickey and Martha Jones were the only ones to leave the TARDIS by their own choice, and in both cases they came back to help again.  Noel Clarke brought Mickey to new places in the episode, finally becoming his own man, both in how he handles himself, and being able to come to terms with his relationship with Rose.  Getting to play a dual role also showed off his breadth as an actor.  We got to see alternate Roses and Petes as well, but not both at the same time.

This story(and an upcoming one that addresses this world again) are a classic example of the TV Tropes about parallel universes, specifically that the alternate version of a main character doesn’t really count.  Rickey dies, but that’s okay, Mickey’s ready to take his place.  Even the Jackie of Pete’s World dies, which sucks for Pete, but since The Doctor has spent the whole episode reminding Rose (and the audience) that “She’s not your mother”, it’s no big deal, just good for a moment of pathos.  And they drive that home by making sure we see “our” Jackie at the end of the episode.  Pete’s the only one we really care about, because “Our” Pete’s already dead.  Besides, the other Jackie was a bitch.

They also do a good job of skewering a trope or two as well – note that when looking for the transmitter controls in the zeppelin bridge, Mickey says he doesn’t know what he’s looking for, and Jake annoyingly comments that maybe it’ll be in a big box with “transmitter control” in big red letters.  Later on, they find it… in a big box with “transmitter control” written on in big red letters.

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