Tagged: technology

REVIEW: RoboCop

robocop_2014_bd_oring-e1401481562990-4480548The best science fiction is the kind that uses the settings to make comments about our society today, making us think. When Paul Verhoeven gave us RoboCop in 1987, it was a commentary on the rapidly rising role of technology in the world along with the increasing spread of urban crime. The idea that a mortally wounded cop (Peter Weller) was involuntarily turned into a cyborg and sent out to clean up the city was riveting. The performance, blood, and violence made the film an interesting statement and the beginning of a franchise that got watered down in lesser hands.

MGM saw the moribund property as a chance to make some fresh cash with a reboot because everything else has been dusted off and for the most part done pretty well. But did Brazilian director José Padilha have something to say or was he brought in for stylish mayhem? Apparently he did, working with screenwriter Joshua Zetumer, building on the original script by Edward Neumaier and Michael Miner. Omnicorp, a subsidiary of OmniConsumer Products (OCP), is a next generation supplier of military weapons in the form of humanoid ED-209 and EM-208 mechanized warriors at a time global tensions mean a steady supply of soldiers is required.

OCP CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) wants to sell a domestic version of his machines but is thwarted by Senator Hubert Dreyfus (Zach Grenier) and his just passed Act outlawing such domestic police. Undaunted, Sellars finds a loophole in the law and orders man put inside one of the machines, something general counsel Liz Kline (Jennifer Ehle) and marketing chief Tom Pope (Jay Baruchel) endorse. He instructs Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman) to take his prosthetics research to the next level and the scientist screens candidates until he settles on Detroit police detective Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman). Welcome, RoboCop 2.0.

Partnered with Lewis (Michael K. Williams), he takes on the underworld in the form of Antoine Vallon (Patrick Garrow) while risking his humanity as his wife Clara (Abbie Cornish) and son David (John Paul Ruttan) grow increasingly distant. Meantime, one battle is overt, while the covert story is machine versus corporation over Free Will. OCP has intentionally “dumbed down” Murphy, hoping he would merely follow orders after being trained by Rick Mattox (Jackie Early Haley) but Murphy is his own man and not the “Tin Man” Mattox insists on calling him.

Things blow up just fine and the human conflicts sometimes take a backseat to the PG-13 violence (a crass commercial move that robbed the film) but this is better than we feared when the collective consciousness said, “We don’t’ need a RoboCop reboot.” Yes, its’ commentary is not as sharp as Verhoeven’s original nor is the action any better despite enhanced special effects or the presence of Samuel L. Jackson. And maybe we don’t but what we got is a cut above and well worth a look. Padilha’s American debut is done with affectionate nods to the original film while still having its own voice.

The film, now out on home video as a Blu-ray, DVD, Digital copy combo pack form MGM Home Entertainment, has an excellent video transfer with sharp  colors. The audio is a notch below this but the overall 5.1 lossless DTS-HD MA sound mix is fine.

The Blu-pray comes with a standard assortment of unremarkable special features including Deleted Scenes (3:59), 10 Omnicorp Product Announcements (3:27); RoboCop: Engineered for the 21st Century (The Illusion of Free Will: A New Vision, 7:46; To Serve and Protect: RoboCop’s New Weapons, 6:05, The RoboCop Suit: Form and Function, 14:54); and, two theatrical trailers.

REVIEW: Cleopatra in Space

Cleopatra in Space: Target Practice
By Mike Maihack
169 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $12.99

cleo01_frontcover-e1395074030387-3389456The allure of Cleopatra VII has endured over the millennia and continues to be a source of fascination for people young and old. As a result, she is an easy subject to inject into novels, plays, and unfortunately, this graphic novel. What could have been a fun, interesting, character-driven fish out of water story became a by-the-numbers young adult graphic novel that bears no resemblance to the source.

Mike Maihack is a talent and clever storyteller and the art and color make the book a fun, if irritating, read. He has an open style that is expressive and a restrained color palette so you’re not overwhelmed. He’s been producing this as a webcomic since 2010 and the first cycle of stories is being collected by Scholastic’s Graphix imprint in April. A second volume is already promised for 2015 so they’re expecting great things.

Fifteen year old Cleopatra (or Cleo to her friends) is snatched from Egypt by a piece of technology that sends her far into the future where she has to attend an intergalactic school in order to fulfill her destiny of saving the universe. Her teacher Khensu, a talking cat, tries to mentor her, tempering her youthful exuberance and adolescent ways with exasperating results.

The future world is made up of species and races from around the galaxy, all of whom are looking to Cleo to save them from the Xerx War that threatens life as they know it. Additionally, they have no way of sending her home so she can fulfill her first destiny, to be the last great pharaoh of Egypt’s classic period.

History shows Cleopatra was fourteen when she was named co-regent with her father, Ptolemy XII, until his death when she was eighteen. So right here, the book makes little sense. Secondly, she arrives in the far future and at no point does she appear confused by the languages, the knowledge there is life beyond Earth, the technology, etc. Sher arrives, is assigned classes, and settles into dorm life where she is a slacker student but a deadly shot.

This is not the Cleopatra of history, the wily, tough leader who charmed two Roman leaders and oversaw her people after prolonged battle.  None of what we know of her personality is here, instead we’re given a modern day plucky teenager and we’ve seen that. We’ve seen the “savior” storyline, we’ve seen ti all before so plopping Cleopatra into this does nothing but trade on her name.

There is little explanation about why the organization that recruited her is acronymed .P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. or why there are Egyptian touches, such as her sphinx sky cycle, so far into the future on another world. Similarly, the Xerx is reminiscent of Xerxes, the Persian, conqueror of Greece as immortalized in 300 while their leader is Xarius Octavian (the surname being that of Caesar’s son who wound up with Egypt after Cleo killed herself).  The supporting cast is visually interesting but woefully under-utilized. What could have and should have been something different is a cookie-cutter approach to a young adult graphic novel, so it’s all the more disappointing that her 8-12 year old readers will know nothing of what the true Queen of the Nile was like.

Ender’s Game Timeline Readies you for Tomorrow’s Opening

enders_infographic-e1383178688646-6911513November will be a very busy month for Lionsgate as they launch the highly anticipated adaptation of the controversial Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game. A few weeks later they top that with the release of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, the second chapter in the adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ stunning trilogy. On th eoff-chance tomorrow’s moviegoers are uncertain what the film is all about, the studio sent out the timeline you see here.

Additionally, they announced  an interesting new app for the film. Here’s the formal release:

Salt Lake City, Utah, October 29, 2013 – Sandboxr, a 3D print and software development company from Utah, announced today its 3D print creation app for Summit Entertainment’s ENDER’S GAME.  Sandboxr’s 3D print creation app has been in development for the past two years, and through the ENDER’S GAME-licensed version, fans will be able to create and bring home exclusive replica battleships from the film generated by cutting-edge three-dimensional printing technology.  Fans will be able to check out the ENDER’S GAME 3D printing experience at Sandboxr.com before Thursday’s release of the movie in theatres and IMAX October 31 at 8pm. Summit Entertainment is a LIONSGATE® (NYSE: LGF) company.

Nancy Kirkpatrick, Summit’s President of Worldwide Marketing, said, “This is the first 3D experience of this type to coincide with a major cinematic movie release, and Summit is excited to work with Sandboxr to offer this amazing experience and great new technology to our ENDER’S GAME fans.”

At Sandboxr.com, fans of ENDER’S GAME will be able to enjoy an interactive product experience that extends their engagement with the film and that they can access from their computer. Fans can choose from a selection of CG images from the movie studio file archives and bring home their own ENDER’S GAME 3D printed spacecraft and accessories.

“With an experience as sophisticated as Sandboxr’s, the challenge is to make it easy to use by the average guy or girl.  3D experiences are typically exclusive to tech savvy makers and designers.   However, we’ve worked hard to make a 3D printing experience that is accessible in a meaningful way to everyone. Bringing 3D design and print technology into the hands of the ENDER’S GAME fans is a thrilling opportunity for us at Sandboxr,” says Berkley Frei, Sandboxr CEO.

To experience the app for yourself log onto sandboxr.com and follow the links to ENDER’S GAME.

pasko-art-130912-150x186-1980249

Martin Pasko: You’ve Got Mail! We Just Don’t Know Where It Is…

pasko-art-130912-150x186-1980249Please believe me, as I conclude last week’s well-reasoned and temperate dissertation on why comics fans should care – maybe – about the future of the US Postal Service, when I say I’m trying hard to wrap up this little opus before the USPS goes out of business.

But I’m not working as fast nor concentrating as well as I’d like because I’ve just been distracted by another “gotcha” courtesy of my BMK – Bad Mail Karma. It illustrates one of the more interesting by-products of the USPS’s ongoing effort to modernize, simplify and streamline its products and services even as Congress calls for a postal austerity program:

When a customer confused by the ever-changing policies (that would be moi) makes a minor mistake, the USPS’s systems will helpfully turn it into an exhausting, nerve-wracking Major Hassle by preventing it from being corrected.

In my recent move back to Southern California, I managed to outsmart myself by sending ahead of me a USPS Priority Mail box of important items that I’d need before the moving van arrived with my everyday stuff. It has yet to arrive, some eight weeks later. It seems I used Priority Mail packaging that was not a flat rate box, but to which I incorrectly affixed flat rate postage generated online. OK, my bad.

That does not explain, however, why it took the P.O. four weeks to determine that that was the problem; why its online tracking system kept giving me information that contradicted the tracking data in the main USPS computer; nor why the package has now crossed the country four times, having been shipped back and forth between my old address and the new, each time being flagged in the system as undeliverable” or sent to “no such address.”

The helpful people I’ve dealt with at my local P.O. – six of them now, because the same people don’t seem to work there for more than five days in a row – can’t seem to figure it out, either. One “Letter Carrier Supervisor” told me, “I’ve been working here 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like this.” Of course, that may be because she apparently takes 147 coffee breaks a day.

This might also explain why she can’t get her direct reports to do what the three other supervisors have told me they will: When the package ricochets back here to Pasadena, they’ll call me so I can come pay the extra postage and pick it up. When last heard from, the package was at some “claims resolution” facility in Atlanta, but was supposed to be on its way back here. That was two weeks ago.

Now, imagine that this box had been, say, a shipment of comics from a private eBay seller for which you were waiting breathlessly. (Yes, small, private sellers often make honest mistakes. I hasten to add, though, that as someone who sells on eBay, I’ve been lucky – so far – not to make this kind of mistake with a customer’s package. And you can be sure I’m doubly careful now.)

This is a microcosmic example of the kind of thing comics fans will probably be saying good-bye to soon, mournfully or otherwise, having been left to the tender mercies of those even bigger screw-ups, UPS and DHL. The macrocosmic version is what I described last week: A stamp-related custom comic project that was extraordinarily successful for DC Comics (the aggregate print run for the nine CTC books I discussed added up to over 10 million) turned out to be a dismal failure for the USPS. This, only because the agency couldn’t secure the content approval from its licensors – the owners of several of the stamp subjects’ IT – in time to get the books out, to serve as collectors’ albums for the CTC series, at the same time as the stamps themselves.

And it’s too bad, really, this suicidal ineptitude, since comics fans once had a friend in the postal service. It was tangentially responsible for the creation of letters columns which, in the earliest days of comics fanzines and well before web sites and comment forums, became the principal means by which comics fans exchanged opinions about talent and continuity developments and, from the addresses printed, gained the means to interact and organize. These “LOC” pages came about because postal regulations required comics to have at least a page of text to qualify for their mailing rate. When the previous practice of hiring writers to create original prose fillers became prohibitively expensive, the “lettercols” were born.

Soon, those who self-identified as serious fans and collectors became the only readers who were so hell-bent on getting their monthly “fix” that they’d be willing to subscribe. But they were dissuaded from doing so because they didn’t want their mint-condition comics given a permanent vertical crease by being folded lengthwise to fit into a narrow wrapper, which was the only cost-effective way to send comics through the mail. So you can thank USPS, then, for killing this in favor of what took another decade to develop, with the growth of specialty retail shops: the pull-and-hold service.

Today, the Postal Service searches for new services it can provide http://www.informationweek.com/government/security/postal-service-pilots-next-gen-authentic/240145559, to replace the ones it has screwed up so badly that they’ve become obsolete. One of its ideas is to get itself into the “identity management business.” The fact that the average citizen can’t figure out what, in fact, “identity management” is should in no way deter the USPS from this worthy goal. It might keep them occupied so that other companies will have to deliver all the packages, and our paychecks will all be issued by Direct Deposit and have no trouble finding their way into our bank accounts.

Of course, thereafter we’ll be unable to access our funds, because our identity will have “managed” to change – to that of someone we’ve never heard of in a zip code that hasn’t been invented yet. (Remind me not to tell you about how my previous address in Pennsylvania, a rural route which was given a normal house-number in “The Monroe County Readdressing Project”  … with the result that my online change-of-address form couldn’t be processed properly because the old address wasn’t in the USPS database.)

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to stop oiling my old spinner-rack and instead donate it to a nursing home. I’m going to shop for comics via ComiXology exclusively, and work on figuring out how to get my new tech for promoting pacifism and conservation of labor, to make plastic staples. Once everyone on eBay is shipping via UPS, and we have the technology to totally recreate “floppies” in our own homes, the world’s Geeks – comic book division – won’t have anything to fear from the P.O. anymore, whatsoever.

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases

FRIDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis (honest)

 

Dennis O’Neil: Being “There”

oneil-art-130725-7613148Did you see me there?

Where’s there? Oh, come on…The San Diego Comic-Con! Where else? And, as I type this on Monday evening, are you perhaps just getting home. Are you frazzled? Exhausted? And are you happy? Was the adventure all you’d hoped it might be? Do you have, encased in plastic and two slabs of thick cardboard and tucked into your carry-on, that one special issue, the one you’ve sought for years. the one whose absence has left as yawning crater in the middle of your collection – finally, triumphantly yours? Have you met the person of your dreams, wearing, perhaps, an X-Men costume? Or had your picture taken with the celebrity who occupies a god niche in your psyche? (Okay, it cost you what you pay for a week’s groceries, but some treasures are beyond price.)

Hooray. That’s all well and good. But now the important question: Did you see me there?

If you did, I must have had some Dr. Strangey astral projection mojo working, because I haven’t been anywhere near Southern California this year. (Denver is as close as I got.) So – either I astrally projected (while napping?) or you saw some other septuagenarian chrome dome. I didn’t do any disembodied jaunting last week but…I did do something similar.

The late Arthur C. Clarke once said that any sufficiently advanced technology would appear to be magic to primitive people. (Let’s assume that “primitive” is relative.) Well, abra my cadabra, because while sitting upstairs in the dining room I spoke to a group of people in Lima, Peru – gave a talk and then answered questions. Mr. O the bilocated – at once in New York and Peru! Be in awe, you primitives!

The magic was, of course, technology, and not cutting edge technology, either. (Though, come to think of it, maybe this story would be better if it were.) What we were using, the attendees of the Lima Book Fair and I, was Skype, which is surely old news to many of you. Too me – not so old. I’d used it once before, to record something for use on YouTube, but I had the advantage of a tech savvy offspring at my elbow on that occasion. This time, Marifran and I were pretty much on our own, though we did have help from Eduardo, an affable cyberwizard from – where else? – Peru. I won’t say that all proceeded glitchlessly. (Does Dr. Strange ever suffer interference from, say, a snotty kid riding a Hogwarts broomstick?) But the glitches were minor and the event, I’ve been assured, was a success.

And just recently, a book I wrote about a dozen years ago became available as an e-book. So I guess I’m being dragged into the twenty first century, That, or I’ve taken up residence where eldritch forces are manifest. Either way, as the great prophet Bobby told us, the times they are a’changin’, and, there being nothing to do about it, let’s enjoy the ride.

Did you see me at the Con? Are you sure?

THURSDAY AFTERNOON: Martin Pasko and the Big Show

FRIDAY MORNING: Martha Thomases and Sexy Kitties

 

 

 

In response to Kelly Sue DeConnick…

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Kelly Sue DeConnick posted this on her Tumblr this morning. Reading the question I was saddened and angered but not surprised.

In industries that have a history of being a boys club, it’s not unusual to assume females are there either because of sleeping their way in or being the token female and therefore inferior to their male colleges. I am incredibly lucky to work in a technology company with a female CEO where being a woman is not looked down upon. I don’t have to worry about bout being thought of as a second class citizen because of my gender. Sadly, this is not true of all companies or all industries.

While I do not work in the comic book industry, I do spend a lot of time hanging out at my local comic shop House Of Secrets and I work programming magic for ComicMix on occasion. Both of these places were so welcoming to me when I took my first step into the world of comic books. I feel blessed to know all of the awesome people who work there.

Over the past year or so, as I dug myself out of a self-imposed hole of isolation, I started noticing a trend. I became aware that even though this is 2013, even though my mother and my grandmother fought this fight, it is still vitally important to stand up for myself and my gender. Somehow in 2013 I had to take stock of all the things I took for granted and take up the mantle of feminism. And I thought to myself ‘Really? This is 2013, right?’ We already fought for the right to vote, work and have a family or not when or if we felt it was right.

Yet here we are, still underrepresented in pay, out numbered in many professions (comics, technology, science, engineering, the list goes on) and less likely to be in the top jobs in whatever field we are in. It pains me that we have to resort to asking people to think of their daughters or their sisters to have the empathy to understand what is happening instead of just expecting them to treat human beings as human beings. Things like this seem to happen everyday, and I don’t know what to do to fix them. So I do what little I can.

First, if you are a woman in tech, comics, or any field just drop me a line. If nothing else, I can be your own personal cheerleader. Second off, to Kelly Sue, I’m sorry some asshole assumed you married your way in to Marvel. Your writing alone shows how terribly wrong he is. That said, I kinda want to be you when I grow up :). Your writing has proven to so many women that we can stand out and be awesome in whatever the hell it is we do and that should outshines any trolls.

I was helping out at House of Secrets the other day and a girl came in looking for Buffy season 9 vol. 1, which was sold out. I told her if she wanted an awesome female doing awesome things to check out your Captain Marvel TP. We discussed feminist comic books, and how amazing it is that they even exist. We agreed if women like us who are amazing at our jobs and proud of it don’t stand up, mentor other women, and keep the torch burning, everything our mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers fought for can disappear in an instant it seems.

And now that I’ve had my ‘I am woman here me roar speech’ we now return your regularly scheduled posts of dinosaurs covered in glitter and the like.

Reposted from Sara Unplugged.

 

Dennis O’Neil: Iron Man Grows Up

oneil-art-130516-2774612I think I know what I liked about Tony Stark when I first encountered him back in Cape Girardeau. I was a cheap-seats journalist who was just rediscovering comic books after forgetting about them for more than a decade, spinning the rack at the drug store, scanning the displays in the bus terminal, killing time in a strange town by reading these relics of my childhood. And liking them.

I particularly enjoyed some of the mags that bore the Marvel Comics logo, and among these, staple-to-staple with Spider-Man, The Hulk, The Avengers – the beginnings of Marvel pantheon – was Tales of Suspense, a title that delivered two stories, two heroes. These were Captain America, a super-patriot I dimly remember enjoying when I was six or seven, and a new guy, Iron Man. His other name was Tony Stark.

There was a lot not to like about ol’ shellhead, as he was sometimes called. Let me count the ways… He was an arms dealer and, to a peacenik like I was, arms dealers belonged somewhere deep in hell. He was a capitalist. (Okay, nowhere near as bad as being an arms dealer, but I did not count the Rockefellers among my role models.) He was a technologist and, like a lot of hippie-types, I did not trust technology. (There is evidence that technology has been exacting revenge ever since. Note to technology: I was wrong, okay?) And finally: it was suggested, though maybe not much shown, that our Tony was both a conspicuous consumer and a womanizer. Two more nixes.

A lot not to like.

But he got his powers from a device he invented to deal with a heart damaged by shrapnel. For some reason, that appealed to me. I’m pretty sure that I’d never read the story of the centaur Chiron – Catholic schools in the 50s were not big on “pagan” mythology – and so I didn’t know the tale of the half-man/half-beast who was wounded by a venom-tipped arrow and could never be healed. Chiron was a great teacher but what qualifies him as a possible predecessor of Iron Man is that he later gave up his life to redeem Prometheus and that gives him hero cred. (The other side of the story is that Chiron, being immortal, was doomed to countless eons of agony because of that damned wound and he could have seen the Prometheus situation as a quickhop off the struggle bus. But he never really existed, so mind.) Anyway: even with twisting and tugging of the myth, it’s hard to make a case for a direct connection between Tony and Chiron, and yet Chiron was the closest analogy to Iron Man I could find. Why bother? Because maybe by rummaging around in antiquity, I’ll be able to figure out why I responded favorably to an tin-plated lounge lizard.

Later, Tony redeemed himself and became a good guy I could like without those nagging reservations. But those first meetings…Well, I liked womanizing assassin James Bond, too. Still do.

FRIDAY: Martha Thomases

SATURDAY: Marc Alan Fishman

 

Your Star Trek Into Darkness Roundup

With less than two months to go before Star Trek Into Darkness opens in theaters, the Paramount marketing machine has been busy. Here are the updates for the week including activities at the movie’s app and the spoiler-rich International Trailer.

Star Trek App Mission: Scan the “Space Invader Art” at Subliminal Projects

Using cutting-edge image recognition technology, Star Trek app users who visit Subliminal Projects in Los Angeles and scan the “Space Invader” art piece outside the building this Saturday will earn 30 points towards a higher rank in the app’s Starfleet Academy.

When:  Saturday, March 23, 2013

Where: Subliminal Projects

1331 West Sunset Boulevard

Los Angeles, CA 90026

Enter for a Chance to Win a Costume from the Film

Users of Paramount Pictures’ Star Trek app have until March 31 for a chance to win one of 50 costumes from the upcoming “STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS” movie. Enter the sweepstakes once a day through the end of March, only in the Star Trek app!

When:  Now through March 31, 2013

Where: Click on the “Sweeps” button within the Star Trek app, available for download through the App Store and Google Play at www.StarTrekMovie.com/App

About the Sweepstakes:

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE 50 UNITED STATES (D.C.) AND CANADA 13 AND OLDER.  VOID IN QUEBEC AND WHERE PROHIBITED. Sweepstakes ends 3/31/13. For Rules, alternate entry, and complete details, visit www.startrekmovie.com/startrekapp/sweepstakes-official_rules.html. Sponsor: Paramount Pictures Corporation.

A Doctor A Day – “New Earth”

new-earth-20061002001542382-8763109Using 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.

A trip to the future, a return of a foe presumed dead (get used to THAT one) and a moral conundrum.  And it all happens on…

NEW EARTH
by Russell T Davies
Directed by James Hawes

“It’s like living inside a bouncy castle!”

The Doctor and Rose travel back to the five billions, to the time after The End of The World, to New Earth, the city of New15 York. The Doctor got a message from someone via his psychic paper, asking him to come to his aid at a nearby hospital.  But someone is watching, and as soon as the pair try to enter the elevators, they are separated.  Rose is sent to the basement, and is confronted by Lady Cassandra O’Brien, the last pureblood human, and the baddie behind the events on Platform One.  Saved from her apparently grisly death by cloning a new “body” from leftover parts (parts from the …back), she barely survives in the basement of the hospital, and has made plans to move on.  And for Rose to come along, another pureblood human, specifically one responsible for nearly killing her…well, when the fates hand you an opportunity like that…  Cassandra uses a device to transplant her mind into Rose’s body, and begins to take stock of new assets.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was summoned by The Face of Boe, who he met on Platform One as well.  The Face is dying, and his nurse, Novice Hame, explains that legend says that as he dies, he will impart great knowledge to someone like him, “A traveler, a lonely god”.

Amazingly, Cassandra’s not the real threat.  The Sisters of Plenitude, a feline race who run the hospital, have been breeding clones expressly to infect with every disease known to man, for the purpose of finding cures for them.  They maintain the clones are not sentient, but as soon as they’re awakened, that’s immediately proven untrue.  The Doctor starts to investigate, and also starts to notice that Rose knows a bit more about technology of the year five billion than she should.

So The Doctor has to find out the secrets of the hospital, get Rose back in charge of her own body, shut down a sect of cat-nuns, and stop a horde of disease-ridden clones from overrunning the place.  Not a bad first day out…

The Christmas episode was a bit different from later ones would be – it was the first appearance of the new Doctor, and was more “in continuity” with the rest of the season, as opposed to being a stand-alone adventure. It also features other recurring characters, as opposed to later specials that would only feature The Doctor and all-new characters. Functionally, it’s the first episode of this season.  So this episodes starts shortly after the special, with The Doctor and Rose off on new adventures, already with a much lighter tone.

Both Billie Piper and David Tennant get to camp it up a bit as Rose and The Doctor get inhabited by Cassandra, with the requisite fun and silly accents.  Davies excels at keeping a balance between drama and humor in his stories, and this one’s a good example.

One could argue that this plot is an argument against various forms of experimentation.  I prefer to stand by Dr. Mordin Solus’ philosophy from mass Effect – “Use of sentient beings in scientific tests disgusting. Have personal standard – Never experiment on species with members capable of calculus. Simple rule, never broke it.”

We see a new emotional side to The Doctor here.  Not only is this the first time he’s “Sorry…so sorry” at the site of the clones, it’s also the first time he gives a foe who truly deserves it a merciful end.  One of the things we see him do many times is offer threatening aliens a chance to leave in peace.  Sometimes they refuse, and his judgment is swift and hard, sometimes others pull the trigger (like Harriet Jones did last episode) and he’s just as merciless on them, but sometimes, if they deserve it, he helps them.  Cassandra really did try to help at the end, and once she came to peace with her fate, The Doctor gave her a chance to at least die happy.

The payoff to the promise from the Face of Boe wouldn’t come till next season, tying into the Big Bad for that season.  So even though Moffat is doing it with more deliberation, Davies was also setting up multi-year plotlines, teasing events quite a ways off.  Looking back like this, it’s amazing how many things we ascribe to Moffat were already being done from the beginning.  More fodder for the “who’s a better showrunner” argument, certainly.

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO TV TIE-IN CLASSIC!

  • News
  • December 12, 2012
TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock
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MANNIX
By Michael Avallone
Published by Popular Books, First Edition, 1968
It’s not every day you walk into your local pharmacy and someone hands you three books that you’d only heard about, but never actually expected to have.  Now, these particular books wouldn’t be a big deal if you weren’t a detective fan, a follower of mystery/detective TV, and a big TV tie-in novel type person.  In other words…me.
One of those treasured jewels was the first novel based on the 1960s-70s detective show, MANNIX.  No, I don’t mean the numbered series that came out seven years or so after this one but the very first novel commissioned based on the television show.  Written by Michael Avallone, this is Joe Mannix while he was still with Intertect, battling it out with Lew Wickersham and flirting his way through all the technology and the ladies in the office as he delivered a bit more of an old fashioned two fisted approach to the job of modern private investigation.
This novel, on that level, definitely doesn’t disappoint.  It delivers as if it were a 124 page episode of the show.   It opens with Mannix playing tough guy to a damsel who isn’t all she appears to be at first as he wraps one case while the next is being set up.  A young, petulant heiress with kaboodles of bucks and a whole ton of boredom with life is approached by a man lowered from a helicopter about doing espionage work for her country.  As she jumps at the chance, she later discovers that her new friend only has one interest in her country- harming it – and in her -using her to disgrace an American official.  Blackmailed into it, the heiress stumbles along, desperate for a way out.
In the meantime, Intertect is put on the job and Wickersham puts his best agent as well as the one who frustrates him the most on the playgirl’s trail.  Mannix must determine who she’s spying for and deal with her and the situation in a way where everyone wins and Intertect comes out smelling like a rose.   Mannix’s first plan of action is to get into a costume party and get his tail end kicked by a number of costumed millionaires.  And it gets fun from there.
This is, as I’ve already stated, definitely a first season Mannix book.  It fits the tone of the series extremely well and Mannix has all the charm, irascibility, and toughness that fans loved about how Mike Connors played the character and that basically became his stock and trade after Mannix leaves Intertect to go on his own in the second season.    Wherever Mannix is in this book shines and made me smile, ready to add a few seasons of DVDs to my collection.
Now…when Mannix isn’t in the action, then the book loses a bit of its sparkle.  The other characters do not get the attention to character that the author gives to the lead.  Even the heiress, who gets quite a bit of page time, is way too two dimensional by the end of the book to be believed.  The bad guys don’t seem particularly bad and the threat level throughout the book isn’t one that makes you worried for anyone- except for Mannix, but most of the threats to him are caused by something he says or does.

This is a great book for fans of tv detectives and tie-ins. As a book all on its own, though, I’ve read better.

THREE OUT OF FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT-Enjoyable read, love the way Joe Mannix comes off the page.  I just wish that there were real people populating the book around him, not cardboard cutouts.

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