classic who: ark in space

Let me just say that two adventures in, this is a pretty good season.

Ark in Space picks up where Robot left off, with the Tardis landing after abandoning the poor Brigadier without so much as a goodbye. And they land on a space station.

By walking through three rooms and a really neat hallway, they surmise that they're on a station meant to hold the remains of humanity after some global disaster-- they're all in cryo, waiting to be revived 5,000 years after they went under. Only it's been at least 10,000 years, and there's something weird and green and slimy lurking about the place. So, as the designated Ankle-Twister, Sarah-Jane gets herself in trouble and spends most of the first episode or two unconscious, first from oxygen deprivation, which almost gets Harry, too, but doesn't do much against the Doctor (I love when he doesn't act human)-- then gets transmatted away and put in cryo by a computer glitch that assumes she's one of the ones that are supposed to have already been there. So they have to find her, and then find out what to do about her.

Looking for a revival kit of some sort, they find the mummified husk of a giant bug, and then Vira, cheif medical officer, is awakened by the computer and tells them what's going on-- and they tell her what's gone wrong.

So Sarah's saved, and wearing something other than that horrible purple dress in the previous episode, and they have to go up against the bug-slugs, which are the larval stage of the big husk they found-- and which reach the adult stage by taking over human bodies, and who plan to use the sleeping remains of humanity to do just that. The Doctor has to save the few people who've already awoken, himself and his companions, and do it in such a way that the rest of humanity is safe, too. Luckily, the commander of the mission, though taken over by the bugs and fully transformed, remembers that his human self was in love with Vira, and leads the bugs atray when he realizes he can't get her to come across and stay with him, eating the people they were supposed to protect.

A great story, The sum-ups at the beginning of each episode only went back a few seconds instead of whole minutes, and action happened right after getting off the tardis-- good signs of a solid plot with alot to say. The Doctor widgets with the wiring, Sarah Jane travels through very small conduits because she's the only one who can, Harry gets to learn a little of futuristic medicine, and all the conversations are dense and engaging and useful to the plot. And, again, the Doctor shines in caring about the fate of his companions as much as he cares about the fate of humanity, and his fondness for Ms Smith makes him utterly charming, while his disregard for Harry so far makes him amusing.

At the end, Sarah Jane puts on the first of what I know will be a long succession of ugly raincoats, and they head down to the surface to check things out before the colonists come back down.

classic who: robot

First Doctor Four story! And he's running, right off the bat, sometimes literally. I always liked Four. He's so cheerfully unconcerned with the possibility of total annihilation of himself, and swings between overly interested in events and concerned with the fate of humanity, to jolly and joking with monsters and their makers while still gathering information and getting things set up.

So there's this robot, see? It's been killing people and stealing things with no regard for human life, so they figure it must be inhuman-- and track down a robot-maker whose plans have been revived in the form of a 7-something foot tall silver bit of coolness that I want an action figure of so bad. Well, Sarah-Jane tracks it down and finds Ms Winters, the villain, who demonstrates that the Robot couldn't have killed anyone by ordering it to kill Sara-Jane. And that's the first cliffhanger.

Of course it doesn't; it's got the Azimov Laws that prevent it from harming people. But it gets fond of Sarah-Jane because she wants to understand it and treat it like a thinking creature, and as the plot develops and it realizes it has been killing people by taking out the 'threats to humanity' they've been sending it after, including the crazy scientist who did build it after all, it decides to kill all people-- except Sarah-Jane.

The Doctor, of course, has been leading UNIT around, trying to track it down and save Ms Smith, and mostly proves what and excellent new Doctor he is while SJS handles the nitty gritty of the plot-- but it's no less interesting for all that.

Over all, I really enjoyed Robot. Four is amazingly interesting to watch, even when he isn't doing much of anything, and I just love that the very first story he's in, he's the same wonderful lunatic as he was in the much later ones that I've seen. And Tom Baker never forgets that the Doctor is fond of both the Earth and it's people, and especially fond of Sarah-Jane. The story is compact, without much running around and getting captured again, which, as we know by now, is the mark of added-in scenes to extend the story. And it all makes sense. All the characters have reasons for being what they are.

And at the end, Sarah-Jane and Dr Harry Sullivan head off with the Doctor on off-world adventures, and the Brig looks sad in a 'I never get to go in the Tardis' way and says something about waiting around. Poor Brig.

This leads directly into the next story: Ark In Space.

books: UnLunDun, by China Mieville

Yup, ladies and gentlemen, I finished UnLunDun first, and I'm kind of sad because now it's over and I can't look forward to there being more story when I go to bed each night. (It's been replaced by Frek and the Elixir, which it weird and entertaining so far in the first two chapters, and fulfills this month's imperative to read a book I already own.)

Let me say up front: I loved this book. I almost cried at the end because it was over. I did cheer at how it was over. I went up to my roomies and told them they have to read it.

And here's my favorite part: It's a classive 80s fantasy movie turned on it's side and rotated a bit. Zanna and Deeba are normal little London Chavs, going to school, living in Estates, using poor grammar, being teenagers-- and then they realize that animals keep taking special notice of Zanna and soon they find themselves in UnLunDun, the oter side of the coin that is London, what's called an abcity. All the major cities have them, and they all have clever negation-names like Parisn't and Old York. Everything lost and unwanted in London winds up in UnLunDun where everything is weird. Bus conductors are sworn guards of the people, the people aren't always people, trash has a life of its own, puns abound in clever and useful ways, and the smog is the worst thing the city has ever seen. It seems there's a prophesy that means Zanna will defeat the Smog, and the whole thing is mapped out in the Book they have to go consult to tell them what to do and how to get home...

And then it all goes a bit hinky. I would have loved it if it stayed entirely on track, having gorwn up through the Age of 80s Fantasy and being very fond of it, but I love it more because it's aware of all those things, all those tropes and expectations, and it comes at them sideways. Zanna, the chosen one, gets infected with smog and comes out of it with no memory and bad lungs-- leaving Deeba, who wasn't even mentioned except as a 'funny sidekick' in one line, to find a way back and to help. She kidnaps the Book and teams up with Hemi the half-ghost, who everyone is convinced is a minor villain, the heads out on the quest Zanna was supposed to make and decides it's too long and cuts right to the end-- using her brains and her heart to get through the challenges, and making friends along the way. The weapon they get is amazing, a big gun that does UnGun like things, and the final showdown is one of the best I have read.

The book is gorgeous. A dozen or so characters, and probably more minor characters are all individual and strange, the plot is very well-handled and polished, with no loose ends that I can see, and the bit at the end where Deeba has to go home and they're all pulling that 'we'll never see you again' thing the new friends always do? Priceless. I want to read this book to my kids. It makes me sad that it didn't exist when I was a kid. It's like Alice in Winderland and NeverWhere and Labyrinth and NeverEnding Story all thrown together with a bit of MorrorMask and some Stranger Than Fiction (just a pinch), and it's so visual that I have no problem comparing it to movies.

And it's written like it's aimed at kids, but it assumes they're smart enough to get the jokes and understand the consequences, and that makes it amazingly readable by adults.

So go read it.

white night: dresden files book nine

I'm so sad I finished the last book I can get my hands on without paying for it or lugging my ass out to the library. But I'm happy that now I get to go to the bookstore, because I also want to pick up Chalice and... something else that's escaping me just now. Damn.

Anyway, this book brings us Harry helping Murph solve the case of a serial killer that makes it look like suicide-- and who's calling card is mystically-imprinted references to the line in the Bible about not suffering witches to live (though using magic to leave it kinda puts him in a pot-kettle-black situation, and no one mentions that). Which leads them to realize that the women were all low-grade magic users, which leads them to the Ordo, an organization of witches that aren't strong enough to join the Council, but are mystical enough to need togetherness to help handle it. And some of them are Wiccan, and like the Circle. From there, we learn that the women were last seen in the presence of a very tall man in a grey cloak, and so people in the Community are thinking Harry's gone batty / murderous and he has to work against their distrust of him as well as their fear of getting killed. Eventually, we get around to the machinations of the White Court, there are flashbacks to something bad that happened between books and informs the climax of this one, there's secretivity from Thomas and a really crazy-fun clearing up of that storyline (though someone said there's a Thomas book coming out? hope, hope!), there's people stealing other people all over the place, there's working with Marcone and getting random benefits from his businesses, there's training of an apprentice who's too headstrong to realize why she needs to learn, there's Murphy kicking ass (and I'm always a fan of the books where Murph gets to do things) and being kind a little (which keeps the shipping going in my head), there's ghouls, there's crossdressing, there's the Return of the Ex (again) there's vampires of various ilks, there's infighting, there's fire, there's Harry manifesting anger issues, and there's alot of Lash / Lasciel the Fallen Angel (which just proves that Harry is stubborn as all hell, but comes to a good conclusion after several books of being there). And it ends on a fairly up-note, storywise, and that's a good thing. Happy Harry is more fun then Depressed Harry.

Harry seems to inspire people to do what he does, and it's neat that Jim Butcher is running with this idea and having Harry go more equality-- all magic users need defense, not just the Council. I like this tack.

But I'm still sad I have to wait for the next one now.

Up next:
Either UnLunDun or Three Days to Never, whichever I finish first.
Then, hopefully, Chalice, and maybe the next Song of Ice and Fire / the short stories collection. We'll see how well-stocked out B&N is before I say for sure.

classic who: planet of the spiders

And here we have Doctor Three's last story.

Yates is back! He's been trying to find himself and sort out his mind after the crisis of faith (and reality) of his last story, and he's let his hair grow out and joined a group of spiritualists following a Tibetan monk, but something's off with them, and when he witnesses the others of his group conjuring a spider in the name of power, he gets Sarah-Jane to bring in the Doctor and investigate. She does (though we aren't sure why, as he was crazy when she met him and left soon after, so there's no reason for the friendship they seem to share, but whatever). And that's the first-ish episode. Almost all of the second ep is an extended car chase-- a who2-bessie-and a cop chase, then a who2-and-helicopter chase that escalates into a boat-and-hovercraft chase. Really, it just keeps going on. And the baddie disappears.

He reappears after sixteen hours of recaps in the foyer of the retreat, where he's witnessed by the sweet but really slow Tommy, and then other stuff happens, and Tommy buggers off for a while. There's spiders on Metabilis 3, there's the crystal the Doctor gave Jo for her wedding, sent back to him because the natives in the Amazon think it's cursed, there's a plot to get the crystal to the queen of the spiders that's thwarted by Tommy stealing it and then again by the Biggest Spider Ever wanting it for herself. And yet there's more! Sarah-Jane is captured by the spiders after winding up on Metabilis just as the queen spider shows up to stop a rebellion of the natives (which look mysteriously Arizonan in a desert that is not at all blue), which of course comes in handy for the master plan. There's a developmentally challenged man who gets 'cured' by the crystal and can suddenly read and think clearly, but doesn't know what any of it means. There's the first baddie, who gets to hang around and twitch and get angry, only to get zapped by force lightning and die at the end without accomplishing anything. There's a lot of Yates listening through doors and getting tied up and getting knocked out, and he smiles up at Sarah-Jane so sweetly when he comes through. There's the Doctor being sick and getting better, only to get scared, have to face his fears, and getting killed by the Metabilis crystal energies. There's a head monk who turns out to be a timelord who happens to have been the Doctor's teacher / guru in his youth, who conveniently reappears in time to jump-start the regeneration so the Doctor doesn't die entirely.

We get to see Spiders controlling people (and keep saying 'there's something on your back'!), and we meet some fun characters and get a little sliver of backstory on the Doctor. There's this last-hurrah feeling, waht with Jo's crystal and the nifty cars that we haven't seem much and the return of Yates, all of which are very Pertwee-era plot widgets.

And then there's no more Jon Pertwee. Right at the end, we get Tom Baker, and I'm just thrilled by that, but I'll miss 3. He was grumpy and arrogant and charming and ever so slightly mysogynistic and he always wanted to reverse the polarity and always did what was right, even if he didn't want to or knew it would lead to his sure death. Which it did. Thank god we've got that nifty little plot device that allows a new actor to take over!

classic who: the monster of peladon (parts 4, 5, 6, of 6)

The second half of the serial is much more fun. At the end of 3, the Ice Warriors show up, and there's the cliffhanger; in 4, we find out that they've been sent by the Federation to stop the infighting between the miners and the royals... only they totally haven't. The leader of the Ice Warriors wants to take over the planet and mine it's trisillicate for himself, while the engineer wants to control him, and make himself the most powerful and richest man in the galaxy.

Of course, the Doctor has something to say about that.

With the Doctor's help, the two factions of the miners work together, and the Doctor proves to them that the monster is an illusion used to scare them-- and even the ones who don't think it's a fake do think that he's now on their side, so they fight back. The miners bump off the Ice Warriors that are in the mine, while the Doctor saves everyone, and Sarah-Jane and Alpha Centauri contact the Federation and tell them what's going on.

In the end, Sarah-Jane's taught the Queen Who Looks Like Drew Barrymore that women can rule as well as men, the Doctor's gotten the miners and the royals together, and Alpha Centauri has gotten everyone in line with the Federation, and all is right with the world.

I wasn't too enamored of the first half, but the second had alot less mine drama and a lot more adventure. This is how I like my Doctor, and I like this half much better. Overall, though, I'd say this wasn't a strong serial, and there's alot of running around and getting re-captured, which we all know is a sign of padding out the episode.

news: catching up

I've gotten desperately behind in my newsiness, as well as everything else up in here, but this is part one of an attempt to get back on the ball.

So here goes:

I'm still all broken up that My Future Husband David Tennant is leaving the Whoniverse. (though I'm excited to see who's next, and there's always the alternate reality doctorclone hanging out and making babies with Rose, so he can come back without it even being a cross-time storyline or anything...). This points out the River Song issues, too, because she recognized him, and now she can't happen-- except that my roomie came up with the beautiful idea that maybe she sees him, not the form he's in, so it won't really matter who he looks like and she can still be there! Are you listening Steven?

Den of Geek is still working its way through X-Files, one episode at a time for the next six million years. Here's S01E11 - Eve (the one with all the Eves, and the first appearance of the clones), and S01E12 - Fire (the one with the English family, Mulder's ex blonde, and the dude who controls fire), and S01E13 - Beyond the Sea (the one where we find out that Scully's dad is General Hammond, and she has issues with his death while a psychic makes them switch roles), and S01E14 - Gender Bender (the one with the amish aliens), S01E15 - Lazarus (the one where Scully's ex partner and lover gets posessed).

Tom Baker hosted an interview show on the Beeb recently. I'll find it, watch it, and get back to you.

Two of Heroes' writers / executive producers have been fired because the network doesn't like where the show is going, they've been consistently over budget, and ratings are still dropping. And yet, they're still planning season 4.

Using math and crazy fandom, Den of Geek determines who the next Doctor will be and when they'll take over and how long they'll last. Chee!

My Future Husband David Tennant talks about leaving and being the Doctor and how he was almsot convinced to stay.

A reminder that Stevel Moffet likes an older, weirder actor for playing the Doctor... which leaves Bill Nighy and makes me happy. Though the articles comments remind everyone that that statement was ages ago, and things have changed.

More about who will be Doctor 11. I'm still backing my roomate. He's ginger and not mean.

Another new character on Lost: Amy

Knight Rider is getting rebooted after the 13th ep, and they're leaving all the fun side characters in the dust. And the boring ones. And getting rid of the terrorist-of-the-week idea so it's more like the old guy-does-good-on-his-own deal. So... is he stealing KITT and going solo? That might be fun. And I like asian chick and wimpy geek.

Life On Mars US gets a full season. Even though I haven't seen a single aired episode. (I had to bump it to the summer-catchup list) So it's up to 22 eps, when the brittish version is, like 6? 8? That's alot of new story to come up with, not to mention the fact that the UK one is closed, whereas the US one is open-ended like all US shows.

Lost is moving to Wednesday and conflicting with more of the shows I watch. But I'm still excited that we're on the downslope and everything is getting wrapped up.

More of who might be the Doctor: this time, Colin Salmon, who played Dr Moon. Is it just me, or are all the suggestions getting a little inbred by sticking with people who have already been on the show?

Den of Geek offers up the Ten Worst Dalek Stories Ever! And I'm kind of surprised that there's only the ten. Which points out many of the problems I have with daleks. But does not include Daleks in Manhattan??

And that catches us up with Den Of Geek. i09 Will take much longer...

news: opals on mars

They found 'hydrated sillica' on Mars. That's opals, baby.

This is exciting for several Sci-Fi worthy reasons:
1. It means water was free-flowing on the surface for long enough to change the chemical composition of the surrounding bedrock in very specific ways that mean it lasted longer then previously thought-- bringing a watery Mars into the timeframe of life development here on Earth (though it was still gone long before modern humans; not before archaic humans, though, and it just sparks the imagination all over the place to think that proto and early humans might have looked up and seen a blue dot where we see a red one...).
1a. This means there might have been life on Mars and it might have lasted long enough to grow big enough that we could find fossils with the naked eye, if we can find the sorts of terrain that would expose fossils in a weather-system entirely unlike ours.

2. It gives a reason to go to Mars and an industry to pay for it. Opals are expensive and still moderately rare here; Mars opals would be so much more exotic, rare and astronomically expensive, but if they're gem-quality in sufficient quantities, they'll pay back the cost of getting there to bring them back almost immediately. Seriously, who wouldn't want a Mars opal? And we know from experience that greed is a faster motivator for expansion and colonization for people then humanitarianism ever was, so why not prey on rich people's need to get more rich as a way to get the scientists and colonists over there? C'mon! It's brilliant! It'll be stupid-expensive, but it can be done in my lifetime!

cartoon: wolverine and the x-men

We watched the first three episodes, what would be a movie if they put it on DVD, and I must say I'm kind of impressed. I've watched all the many variations of the X-Men cartoons, even the bad ones (I'm looking at you, early nineties), and this is not a bad one. So far, something inexplicable happened to the Professor and Jean, which seems to have wiped them out and destroyed the mansion, and in the wake of this, Wolvie went walkabout, Beast moved into the basement, Angel and Iceman went back to their parents, and Scott went all scruffy and reclusive. Senator Kelly is all up in the whitehouse, and the Sentinels have just been unveiled. Mutants are having to be registered, and the dangerous ones are being locked away. Genosha is open to the public and Magneto wants all the mutants to join him there, and Kitty Pryde is on the way to do just that.

A year after it all falls apart, Wolvie tries to get the team back together to do something about the missing team mates and the messed up world that needs them, and then it's a rollicking game of Name That X-Man while mutants are being attacked and jailed, and then break out and help or run off. Meanwhile, Rogue, who was all emo in the highschool version of the show, is still all emo, and has gone over to the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants (which has Domino instead of the more expected Mystique, which is fun), and Emma Frost has closed down her own school (which should have been the soon-to-die Hellions) because her students keep getting kidnapped and locked away, and she wants to help them. In her frosty, bitchy, can't quite trust her way.

Like I said, I'm pretty impressed. There's an interracial couple right at the beginning, and their kid is not a stereotype, which is great. The characters are complex and seem to actually have emotions without being overly melodramatic (I'm looking at you again, early nineties). And best of all, the plot line is complex and variable, even when you know the storylines they're basing all this on, and it's pretty fresh-seeming without feeling like it's too updated, which is almost my biggest problem with the highschool version.

I like. Let's see if it holds up to weekly storylines after the three-part first ep.

side project week 8: classic who

The Monster of Peladon (parts 1,2,3 of 6)

The first half of this story finds us back on Peladon with the Doctor, and this time with Sarah-Jane. The Doctor wants to see his old friend the king, but they find that he's been dead for ages and his young daughter is on the throne-- and, as usual, he's a legend. Alpha Centauri is there, and he recognizes the Doctor, but the planet of Peladon seems to be plagued with advisors to the crown who are more suspicious than wise, and so he thinks the Doctor is a spy. See, there's this problem in a mine-- like always for the third Doctor, who is more in a mine than in a quarry-- where the Galactic Federation is trying totake over some mineral and the people don't want to, they just want the weapons. There's a rebellion and there's doublecrossing, Sarah-Jane is often separated, and starts out kinda whiny before she gets the hang of doing things for herself, the Doctor sings his song again, they get tossed into a pit and are immediately brought back out after the cliffhanger, there's political intrigue that's not very intriguing, there's people who have weird fros that take over much of their faces and contain skunk-like streaks...

So far, I'm not terribly impressed with the show, but we're only half way through, so maybe it will improve by the end. Mostly, though, it seems that it's all things we see all the time on this Doctor's run, social upheval, the need for strong women, people in charge not knowing what's going on and / or lying to everyone else, mining disputes... I want something new to happen, but I'm not holding much hope. It almost feels like parts that were taken out of the original story, especially when Sarah-Jane goes all Jo-whiny, but if that's the case, they were cut for a reason and I could have been fine without them.

This is the second-to-last episode for the Third Doctor, and I hope his last one is better.

proven guilty: book eight of the dresden files

The second to last one I can get my hands on without having to buy one!

This installment brings us Harry helping out a grown-up and gothed-out runaway daughter of a old friend and her drugged-out boyfriend. In no time flat, he's involved in a Horror Convention whose name includes three exclamation points and is being plagued by grisly horror-movie themed murders. This leads Harry to the trail of a warlock, through the very heart of the Winter Court of Faerie, against the oldest creatures to feed on fear and to something entirely different then he expected to wind up at. Meanwhile, Red Court vamps are attacking the Council and Wardens even when they should be under Faerie protection, and neither Summer or Winter will move to help because it'll divide forces and make one side weaker then the other, which they only just avoided in Summer Knight a few years before. Added to that, Harry's falling for Murphy, and the two of them have some sweet moments and long talks that crush my shippy little soul but make perfect sense within the characters, Thomas is acting weird and being distant, we get to hang out with Rawlins-the-cop, Mab might be nuts or it might be another plot, the Summer Lady and Summer Knight are under a compulsion not to help Harry with anything, Harry's building a new metaphysical toy in the basement, and the scare-mongers are getting loose. And there's another shadowy organization taking the field. Harry goes up against the Council and manages to piss off the Merlin, but wins more support amongst the rest. Molly is more than she seems.

I fear I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but these books really do keep upping the ante each time. He's cranking them out at a rate of one a year, slowed only by the start of another series between books so that he's still making one book a year, and yet there's no evidence of fatigue. Storylines make perfect sense. Nothing falls through the cracks. And really, who other than Harry could attack the center of all Winter's power and survive? Who could have a fallen angel embedded in his brain and not give in to temptation? The plot's thickening all over the place, and yet it manages to still make sense, building on previous plot twists, bringing back already-established characters rather then introducing new ones to do what they do so that there's a sort of continuity to the world, a sense of community. And the relationships between the characters keep growing the way real ones do.

And the whole book was worth it for Harry freaking out over some kids dressed up as vampires, before he realizes they aren't real.

side project: classic who

Invasion of the Dinosaurs
A fun, interesting story that was only slightly damaged by the dinosaurs of the title. The
effects were awful. Classic Who usually does better, or at least, so much worse that it's
amusing, but these were just bad. The sea monster the Sea Devils brought up when the
show was still in black and white was better. And I think they were just convenient. Like the
script writers decided that a plot about a secret society of people who wanted to hand-
chose the people who would survive their attempt to roll back time and reset the world in a
time free of pollution and crime and overcrowding wasn't cool enough and needed more
monsters.

I disagree.

All that stuff was well-written, complex, and pretty riveting. You have no idea while watching
just what's going on, and the dinosaurs are distracting to a plot that's already convoluted
enough, and happens to hold together without them. Any plot device could have been in
their place-- as the purpose was to clear out all the people they didn't want to save,
anyway.

Sarah Jane continues to be feisty and able to solve her own problems, which is great,
especially since the men, including the Brig and the Doctor keep acting like she's helpless
as Jo. But Benton can't tell her no and helps her when they want to leave her behind, even
though it ends with her getting knocked out and rescued.

And then there's Yeats. Oh Yeats. He gets involved with the baddies and tries to help them,
thinking that rolling back time is a good idea and making it so most of the population of the
earth never happens is an acceptable risk. Gone is our charming, sweet, spunky Yeats,
and here is a new one that's sad and tense and has beliefs that have led him astray, but he
still tries to do what he thinks is right. And in the end, he's sent away and asked to resign,
so I guess he's no longer there. Which makes me sad. But all I kept thinking was that he
missed Jo and was broken up when she went off and married someone else, whether that's
what was intended or not, and that it left him sort of lost and easily swayed by someone
with a strong will and a bold plan. Old Yeats never would have gotten involved in this.
Over all, a very good episode, even if three or four of the six parts did end on the same shot
of the t-rex...

news: week 7

the x-files revisit is up to episode 8: Ice, which is one of my favorites.


Did you know that Life on Mars (uk) has a spin off named Ashes to Ashes? It's in it's second season now.


november 14th for the Children in Need special

Rose Tyler is a mom!


India is trying to spark a new space race


The future of written scifi


Nasa unveils it's new lunar rover prototype


News has been a bit thin lately; I really need to catch up on all my blogs. You don't realize how much of your time they take up until you have to work and suddenly can't keep up on them.

blood rites: book six of the dresden files

Right off the bat, this story is lighter then the last few have been. It starts out with Harry running from purple poo-flinging chimp-demons, which is less goofy then it sounds, to rescue a little of foo-dog puppies. And keeps going from there. This time, Harry has to help deflect a deadly curse from a visionary porn director, help out his vampire friend when his family comes after him, and root out a nest of vicious old-school Black Court vamps. Along the way, we get Kinkaid being too cool, Murphy in a dress, several extremely unlikely ways to die, family issues, a really cute dog, soulgazing on almost-human White Court vamps, mysteries about Harry's heritage, a good dose of his mentor, and some old fashioned vamp-hunting that goes way strange. Not to mention alot of porn stars, several crazy exes of the client, and the blood rituals of the title.

I'm glad Susan's out of the way. She's too good to be true, and she doesn't feel as real to me as all the other characters do. Plus, when she's gone, Murphy gets to be the main female in Harry's life, and she's more interesting. I like the way Harry and Murphy interact, and I like getting to know more about this badass chick.

And Thomas manages to have the sort of tragic lifestyle that vampires are always saddled with in these books without being all that typical at all, and the way Bucher plays with the steriotypes and comes out with freshness makes me happy.

The focus of this book was a little shifted; there's the massive three-part story line we've all come to expect, but the emphesis seemed to be more on characters this time, with less exploding of stuff and killing of badguys, though it wasn't at all lacking in that sort of thing. It just felt more... real, this time. This far into a series, it's easy to shorthand relationships and assume your readers know how everyone's connected and how they feel about each other, but Bucher isn't doing that, and I love him for it.

books: death masks, book five of the dresden files

Poor Harry has had a rough time of it. He falls in love and she falls into vampire clutches. He's trying to save her and getting nowhere. And now she's back in town with another guy, and he still loves her. Meanwhile, the Vampires have called him out in a challenge that will settle the war once and for all in one-on-one combat, he's up against these Fallen Angels who take over peoples' souls and make them nearly invincible, and he's on the case of the stollen Shroud of Turin, and this is bad enough that Michael isn't the only Knight of the Cross in town. Turns out the villains this week want to start the Apocalypse the classical way-- with a plague of plagues.

And there's new characters and new threads to the story! We get to meet Ivy, the Archive of all human knowledge. She's seven years old and cosmically powerful and knows everything that's ever been known. And we meet her bodyguard Kincaid, who's cool as all get out and almost supernaturally dangerous, though he claims he's normal. We learn that the Red Court isn't going to stop, even after they get Harry out of the way. We learn of the Fellowship that helps people who have been victimized by vamps, including people who have been half turned like Susan. And we learn a few interesting secrets about Marcone.

Book five is a good one, lots of action without so much of the hopelessness. It even has a little super-kinky and dangerous vampire lovin that kind of squicked me out even as I thought it was really hot, and it ended on a more hopeful note, wit Harry regaining some of his perspective and easing up on himself so that he can move on. Which is good. Sad desperate Harry is not as much fun as snarky hopeful Harry.

classic who: the time warrior

A new season, John Pertwee's last, and a new companion, Elizabeth Sladen's first. I've been waiting for the Sarah-Jane years; she was always my favorite, and her first go as companion is not disappointing... though the rest of the show is kind of dumb. The story goes like this: A Sontaran is having some issues with is ship and has crash-landed in the middle ages outside a pair of castles that are at war(ish). He starts kidnapping the best scientists from throughout time to help him fix his ship, and starts giving weapons to the local Saxons to get their resources. The Doctor waits for one of the scientists that UNIT has sequestered to disappear, and then follows in the Tardis, which Sarah-Jane has already wandered into. When she comes out, she's in the past and doesn't know what to think of it, and, naturally, she and the Doctor are on opposite sides of the little war between the castles.

Sarah-Jane is fun because she's feminist where Jo was willing to let men lead the way, and because she's resourceful and quick-- and because she doesn't automatically get all impressed with the Doctor. She thinks he's working for the Sontaran, and hatches a plan to kidnap him before she figures out that he's trying to fix things. I'm glad she starts off good. She didn't once twist her ankle, and she changed her clothes several times, and none of those outfits included her later-trademark ugly raincoat.

The plot, however, kind of bored me. Sontarans are always kind of meh to me, and while he wasn't that bad, the Saxon dude, whose name sounded like Iron Lung or Iron Gor depending on who said it, was just irritating, and the placement in the middle ages was only a convenience, and the acting was low even for Doctor Who.

catching up - week 6 (mostly):

sanctuary: folding men
Sanctuary goes up against Folding Men and finds a story about minority rights and drug addiction. Who'd have thunk it? Well, having watched the previous episodes, I'd say I would, actually.

They catch a guy wanted for robbery and accessory to murder, and Wil's doing his best to get through to him as he goes through withdrawal, and they get little snippets of info off of him that lead to Folding Men parents with missing children, a crumpled up body in a washingmachine, and false leads on drug processing, not to mention that Wil proves to be very easily manipulated when he thinks he's helping people, which will hopefully be really interesting in the future. There wasn't nearly as much running and shooting as before, so I guess they're finding their groove, and it's a pretty sweet groove at that. It's a really interesting show. Even if I do sometimes get distracted by the fact that all the CGI environments kind of look too open and spacious, like no one in this weird city can afford enough furniture. Or when I take twenty minutes off in the middle of the show to see if I know the actor behind some of the prosthetics-- I do know the one who plays Jack the Ripper from the pilot, as he played both Halling and Todd the Wraith on Atlantis, but I was looking for the Bigfoot, who doesn't get a billing on IMDB or the official website yet.



supernatural: monster movie
Inexplicably, one of the episodes I missed was a perfect little horror movie aware that it was a horror movie! Meta fiction! I love it! They show up in Pennsylvania in time for Oktoberfest in a little town that looks like a European village, following a reported vampire attack-- that has all the movie monster cliches. When they're just about to write it off as a loony, a wolfman attacks a kid in lover's lane, and a mummy kills a guard at the museum. A bar wench gets kidnapped by Dracula and he insists on calling her Mina and the boys Harker and Van Helsing, and crazy ensues. Turns out it's a shapeshifter who was born like this, beaten alot, chased away alot, and went batty in such a way that he wanted to be a classy movie monster instead of a regular beat up monster.

It's all in black and white with the camara going in and out of focus at random times, with a soundtrack every bit as melodramatic as you'd think, with mist and storms and a big castle that's made of foam and fiberboard, and a nod to both Frankenstein and Phantom of the Opera. Best of all, this ep has some really truly funny parts, and it's a welcome respite from the heaviness of the coming actual Apocalypse in the previous episodes. Dean gets the girl, the bad guy gets defeated, and they drive off triumphant-- but I like Jamie, and I think these boys could use a girl in their team. Keep them honest. Give them something to look after and someone to look after them. I vote that she comes back and joins up-- or, better, that she starts hunting baddies on her own and they run across her later. I mean really, could you survive that and then go back to pouring beer for a living?

On a side note, the CW viewer is crap. Clunky, full of ads, jittery, and when it runs comercials, it drops out of full screen mode and doesn't go back. Suck. Hulu is so much better.


supernatural: metamorphosis
Aw. Looks like last week never actually happened. Bummer.

So apparently monsterism runs in families, and this ordinary guy is coming into his inheritance. That he didn't know about. Because a Hunter killed his dad ages ago and he was put up for adoption. He's about to turn into a Rugeru-- something Dean keeps pointing out sounds like it's made up. Sam wants to see if he can get the guy to fight it, to appease it with alot of raw meat, and never eat human (which completes the transformation), and live like a recovering alcoholic instead. Travis, an old Hunter friend, wants them to flame it and get it before it kills. Of course, this old Hunter gets himself killed almost immediately, and it's a wonder there are any Hunters left the way they all get killed off around the Winchesters-- it's like they're Angela Fletcher or something. And the guy turns and loses everything and gets flamed, because this show seems to be mostly about fighting fate and fate getting you anyway.

So of course, this all leads to an arguement between the boys over whether or not Sam feels kinship with this guy who has evil inside him but is a good person, and whether or not Dean is a jerk and that's why Sam never told him about the demon blood or his experiments with turning the bad he's been given into something good-- and whether Heaven is jumping the gun a little on this whole issue. In the end, Sam decides to give up creepy powers, but there's the whole issue of how long and you keep from killing people when you have the ability to save them... and then, how long before the Wrath comes down again?


valentine: pilot
There's these old Gods, see, and they are about to become irrelevant in the modern world, so they have to find a new way to fit in as things change. Irrelevant Gods turn mortal and die off, and they're getting fewer and fewer clients every year, so they want to avoid the bad and stay in the good, and they take on a romance writer to tell them about modern love and get them back in the game.

Kate takes the knowledge that there are gods very well-- especially after Aphrodite gives her a screaming orgasm of pure love. Which was funny-- and jumps right in with helping a boy and a girl find eachother, when the Gods have almost messed it up.

The first episode is funny and sweet and charming, and like a little bitty rom com, which is my not-so-secret vice. And I get to watch people be in love every week! It's a hopeful, if not terribly delicate message: there's someone out there for everyone, and there are people making sure we get the chance to find them. Yay!



valentine: daddy's home
The god of war stops by to check on his family that he's usually too busy causing war to bother with. Ares is trying to take over the love business, saying that something's going down where they'll be in danger and he wants to protect them-- the only way he can, which is to get them all to help him start wars. Danny / Eros distracts him by love-shooting Kate and sending them home together, on the excuse of giving Ray / Hephaestus a chance to secure Aphrodite's heart, now that she claims to love her first husband and despise her second.

Meanwhile, a perfume chemist and a good Indian girl need to get married. The girls pose as wedding photographers as the parents plan an arranged marriage for her, and the boys try to convince the chemist to declare his love and demand her hand in marriage so the arranged one can't go through. When he finally does, the groom is as relieved as she is, and it's her mother that okays it! Yay!

All this means that Morgan and Nisha are happy and there's a great Bollywood dance scene, and that Ray's in trouble with Grace / Aphrodite for fixing Danny's gun (what was once arrows), and Ari is not at all happy with getting turned down. And right at the end, Phoebe drops some of Kate's hair in the Oracle, looking for some dirt, and gets an image of Grace literally under the axe. Spooky, and who knows what that means? Let's see what the next episode says, shall we?



valentine: act naturally
This week: celebutant trainwreck and small-time theatre owner. She's had a few flops that made her doubt her talent, and he's about to go out of business until she's forced to work with him for community service-- thanks to the Valentine crew. Add in a manager who seems to be intentionally running her into the ground, and you've got yourself a sweet little rediscovering who you really are sort of story.

On the home front, Phoebe gets Leo to work with her to steal something of Kate's to prove she's wrong, and they manage to burn down her house, which leaves her homeless, with most of her stuff gone. Danny softens up a bit and lets down his guard enough to awkwardly try to cheer her in a sweet little scene that ends with her moving into the mansion with a box of stuff and a cat. Phoebe goes through the box and finds books about Greek Gods, and takes it to mean the worst-- though she's probably just writing a story and doesn't want to embarass herself by mentioning it. And someone-- a girl-- sneaks in and poisons the Oracle, and we can't be sure if the clarification of the Grace-dead oracle is the truth or the poison, or if this is, say, Eris, Queen of Discord, or if it's whoever Ares mentioned was going against the Old Gods. Oooh, plot!

Three episodes in, there's what we know about the characters: Danny is erotic love embodied, which makes him kind of a rockstar and means he knows nothing about real love and can't see how it's different from lust (which likely means he'll fall in love himself before the season is up); Leo / Hercules stalled out somewhere around the 70s fashion-wise, but is sweet, if somewhat simple on occasion; Grace / Aphrodite is old-fashioned and somewhat over-sure of herself; Kate means well, but is either going to go bad or is going to be framed; Pheobe has trust issues and is pretty immature; and Ray / Hephaestus is jealous and swayable.

Weekly Roundup 7 - Oct 20 to 25

mon: sarah connor, heroes
The crew go out to find another person on the list that was left in their garage, and find a child psychologist who is suddenly in demand. Sarah, John and Cameron go in as patients and try to seem like normal people. Ms Weaver learns that terminators aren't good parents and wants to know how to get her daughter to love her again-- though it's pretty much said that she replaced the real Ms Weaver, and that's why she has no concept of how to handle a little girl. And Savannah knows her mom isn't right. Meanwhile a new terminator who's smaller then Cameron is sent back and goes after the doctor, and winds up all twisted up by Cam, so I'm assuming she's a contortionist in real life-- what a sweet gig.

Over in subplot land, Dereck is out for a run-- which he seems to be doing alot lately-- and comes across an old flame from the future named Jessie. They fall into bed and she destracts him so she can hide surveilance photos she has of the team. So either her I'm-AWOL-and-I-want-to-be-with-you-when-the-world-ends thing is BS, and she's either a replacement or a double agent with unknown and probably not nice missions, or she was sent back and stopped doing what she was supposed to do so she could rekindle old flames. Or, like, something else entirely that we can't possibly guess from this little snippet of a story.

It's nice that Dereck gets laid because I'm sure he needs it, but it's nicer that he basically tells her to shove off because she's stopped fighting and has given up hope. That's the soldier we all know and love, and the fact that he still cares about her will make things interesting when she has to die. There's a way that shows are set up, a way that fiction works, and when I was watching them being all lovey, all I could think was that she's gonna be offed. Probably in a way that traumatizes him more then anything else, and he's already constantly having flashbacks, and, as we learned this ep, at least one attempt at suicide.

We also learn that Sarah's dad was a soldier with post-traumatic stress syndrome who never had a way to deal with it, which probably softens her to the idea of going to the psychologist as a patient. We learn that John's scared and paranoid and thinks that's okay, and that to the outside world, that looks like PTSS, too. And Cameron looks like Asperger's. She keeps watching and noting things, taking significant notice of suicide facts and broken chips and such, but we aren't getting much of her the last few eps, and it feels like she's being underused. John's even gone all prickly toward her, and I think she gets more airtime when he's thinking of being in love with her and defending her from others. Anyway, she plot is thickening and these reaction articles are getting longer, and I like that alot.



So, what's been going on in the world of everyone's lamest heroes? Let's see. Syler seems to actually want to get better and stop eating brains. Maybe it's the cholesterol. Parkman made it back from Africa with his tutle totem and met Daphne just as she was meeting him on her recruitment mission, and managed to freak her out. And tries to get her to go AWOL and help him form the anti-Pinehearst. Hiro is not a murderer, but the baddies think he is, and he goes after the Painter in Africa, who teaches him a lesson about relying too much on his powers. And then say that they need to take him to where they were going to take him anyway. Papa Pet is alive and well thanks to stealing some cute English life force-- and by some I mean all, because all that's left is dust. Peter goes around busting shit up again, and gets into a fight with Syler that ends with Syler sedated-- after he's the one who freed Peter. That seems to happen alot this season. Claire commits suicide to get the blonde squad free from the Puppeteer, and Noah tries to recruit Meredyth to help him, now that he's decided to off Syler. Mohinder is more and more a mad scientist, which makes him more interesting-- and the fact that he considers himself misunderstood makes it all the better. Daphne knows he's gone monstery, and he's captured Tracy and Nathan to use for his experiments. And Pinehearst wants him.

Still alot going on. They're really working the idea of villains, with the good guys turning bad and the bad guys turning good and everyone walking around in this gray area that never ends or makes all that much sense. I'm stuck in gray, too. I still enjoy this show when I'm actually watching it, but I didn't really want to catch up on it beforehand, and I don't really want to do so afterward... It's so... joyless. Very few of them have any concept of how cool it is to have powers, and the plot doesn't do much to make us care or enjoy it. Doom itself doesn't necessarrily make a show dark; Buffy managed to laugh at Doom for seven years. Nine? Almost a decade, anyway. That's what Heroes is missing.



tues: fringe
An illness that makes heads explode. Or, more specifically, an illegal experimental treatment for an illness that when modified by something involving hyacynths, causes the head asplody. The team is called in after a girl manages to nuke everyone in a diner after being dumped out of a moving van by two thugs in hasmat suits. The trail leads them to another victim, a nervous husband, a suicidal doctor who's been giving illegal test treatments on the side of actual treatments, and to the head of a major pharmaceutical firm who considers himself untouchable.

This was a good one, guys. The pacing was right, the medical weirdness stayed in the middle of the story instead of getting pushed off by too many ideas to make sense, and the ticking clock of the missing woman gave it an edge that otherwise would have left them all without any reason to act rashly. And there was much rashness. Liv went undercover without permission or orders to scope out the baddie, then busted him very publicly and involved the press on info that Peter got from Ms Sharp over at Massive Dynamics. Walter solved a problem he hadn't worked on previously two decades before and the fictioned science made sense within the context of the show.

And there was character development. Liv has a stepdad that she almost killed as a kid who's been torturing her mentally on her birthday for twenty years, who looks like he'llbe coming into the picture soon. She made the decision to go with her gut and her emotions, and that's gotten her some kind of punishment that we don't know about yet, other then the factoid that someone informed on her when she went off record and now Broyles is not happy with her, and presumably, whoever he works for is similarly unhappy. Meanwhile, Walter almost remembered Astrid's name-- called her Astrix, which amuses me-- and was weird without being too crazy, which is where he works best. And Peter sold his soul to the interests of Massive Dynamics in the name of his already life-endangering lurve of Liv. There was much eye contact and speaking into eachother's personal space, and in tv code, that means they lurve eachother.

Incidentally, watching these shows on Hulu is making me really want the HP Touchsmart.



weds: pushing daisies
This week brings us Emerson Cod's inexplicably white mom, who also happens to be his only friend and his mentor who taught him all he knows of detective work. She doesn't know that he has a kid, or that she was kidnapped as a baby.

And the case at hand is a man killed by some sharp object, who happened to have been a professional friend-- a sort of escort for friends, rather than hookers. He was leaving the job so he could marry the receptionist, overly-perky Barb, because fraternization was strictly against policy, and he was killed because the boss couldn't handle the idea that his friends were just employees, even though he started the business to allow his employees to be friends to everyone.

Along the way, we meet David Arquette being another in a long line of strange people: a lonely little guy who's hobby happens to be taxidermy... and then posing said taxidermy creations in little dioramas. With Olive and Chuck spending so much time together and being best friends, Ned wants a friend of his own, and he gets a little freaked when he finds out what that hobby is, and does what everyone does, which is to be creeped out. But as this is a fairytale world full of weird people, Ned sees the error of his ways and apologises, and they get all the clients who hired friends together to meet eachother and make real friends. Olive and Chuck face eachother's lies and secrets and have a fight, which makes Chuck want to move back in with Ned, and he decides he needs to learn to be alone and stop being so codependent and clingy, which means Chuck and Olive have to really try to be room mates, and it's a relief, because it was getting a bit much for me, everyone being unhappy all the time. Plus, Emerson's mom learns to be a mom instead of a pal and gives him tips on his book so he can accomplish his goal of finding his daughter.

Hopefully, we'll see Taxidermy Boy again, because David Arquette is always fun. And with Olive actively facing the fact that Ned loves Chuck, maybe the sweet salesman will come back, and she can be happy with him.


thurs, friday and saturday still to come! At least I'm consistently behind, right?

books: death masks, book five of the dresden files

Poor Harry has had a rough time of it. He falls in love and she falls into vampire clutches.
He's trying to save her and getting nowhere. And now she's back in town with another guy,
and he still loves her. Meanwhile, the Vampires have called him out in a challenge that will
settle the war once and for all in one-on-one combat, he's up against these Fallen Angels
who take over peoples' souls and make them nearly invincible, and he's on the case of the
stollen Shroud of Turin, and this is bad enough that Michael isn't the only Knight of the
Cross in town. Turns out the villains this week want to start the Apocalypse the classical
way-- with a plague of plagues.

And there's new characters and new threads to the story! We get to meet Ivy, the Archive of
all human knowledge. She's seven years old and cosmically powerful and knows everything
that's ever been known. And we meet her bodyguard Kincaid, who's cool as all get out and
almost supernaturally dangerous, though he claims he's normal. We learn that the Red
Court isn't going to stop, even after they get Harry out of the way. We learn of the
Fellowship that helps people who have been victimized by vamps, including people who
have been half turned like Susan. And we learn a few interesting secrets about Marcone.

Book five is a good one, lots of action without so much of the hopelessness. It even has a
little super-kinky and dangerous vampire lovin that kind of squicked me out even as I
thought it was really hot, and it ended on a more hopeful note, wit Harry regaining some of
his perspective and easing up on himself so that he can move on. Which is good. Sad
desperate Harry is not as much fun as snarky hopeful Harry.

side projects: classic who

classic who: the time warrior
A new season, John Pertwee's last, and a new companion, Elizabeth Sladen's first. I've
been waiting for the Sarah-Jane years; she was always my favorite, and her first go as
companion is not disappointing... though the rest of the show is kind of dumb. The story
goes like this: A Sontaran is having some issues with is ship and has crash-landed in the
middle ages outside a pair of castles that are at war(ish). He starts kidnapping the best
scientists from throughout time to help him fix his ship, and starts giving weapons to the
local Saxons to get their resources. The Doctor waits for one of the scientists that UNIT has
sequestered to disappear, and then follows in the Tardis, which Sarah-Jane has already
wandered into. When she comes out, she's in the past and doesn't know what to think of it,
and, naturally, she and the Doctor are on opposite sides of the little war between the
castles.

Sarah-Jane is fun because she's feminist where Jo was willing to let men lead the way, and
because she's resourceful and quick-- and because she doesn't automatically get all
impressed with the Doctor. She thinks he's working for the Sontaran, and hatches a plan to
kidnap him before she figures out that he's trying to fix things. I'm glad she starts off good.
She didn't once twist her ankle, and she changed her clothes several times, and none of
those outfits included her later-trademark ugly raincoat.

The plot, however, kind of bored me. Sontarans are always kind of meh to me, and while he
wasn't that bad, the Saxon dude, whose name sounded like Iron Lung or Iron Gor depending
on who said it, was just irritating, and the placement in the middle ages was only a
convenience, and the acting was low even for Doctor Who.

side projects: catching up:

sanctuary: folding men
Sanctuary goes up against Folding Men and finds a story about minority rights and drug
addiction. Who'd have thunk it? Well, having watched the previous episodes, I'd say I would,
actually.

They catch a guy wanted for robbery and accessory to murder, and Wil's doing his best to
get through to him as he goes through withdrawal, and they get little snippets of info off of
him that lead to Folding Men parents with missing children, a crumpled up body in a
washingmachine, and false leads on drug processing, not to mention that Wil proves to be
very easily manipulated when he thinks he's helping people, which will hopefully be really
interesting in the future. There wasn't nearly as much running and shooting as before, so I
guess they're finding their groove, and it's a pretty sweet groove at that. It's a really
interesting show. Even if I do sometimes get distracted by the fact that all the CGI
environments kind of look too open and spacious, like no one in this weird city can afford
enough furniture. Or when I take twenty minutes off in the middle of the show to see if I
know the actor behind some of the prosthetics-- I do know the one who plays Jack the
Ripper from the pilot, as he played both Halling and Todd the Wraith on Atlantis, but I was
looking for the Bigfoot, who doesn't get a billing on IMDB or the official website yet.


supernatural: monster movie
Inexplicably, one of the episodes I missed was a perfect little horror movie aware that it was
a horror movie! Meta fiction! I love it! They show up in Pennsylvania in time for Oktoberfest in
a little town that looks like a European village, following a reported vampire attack-- that has
all the movie monster cliches. When they're just about to write it off as a loony, a wolfman
attacks a kid in lover's lane, and a mummy kills a guard at the museum. A bar wench gets
kidnapped by Dracula and he insists on calling her Mina and the boys Harker and Van
Helsing, and crazy ensues. Turns out it's a shapeshifter who was born like this, beaten alot,
chased away alot, and went batty in such a way that he wanted to be a classy movie
monster instead of a regular beat up monster.

It's all in black and white with the camara going in and out of focus at random times, with a
soundtrack every bit as melodramatic as you'd think, with mist and storms and a big castle
that's made of foam and fiberboard, and a nod to both Frankenstein and Phantom of the
Opera. Best of all, this ep has some really truly funny parts, and it's a welcome respite from
the heaviness of the coming actual Apocalypse in the previous episodes. Dean gets the girl,
the bad guy gets defeated, and they drive off triumphant-- but I like Jamie, and I think these
boys could use a girl in their team. Keep them honest. Give them something to look after
and someone to look after them. I vote that she comes back and joins up-- or, better, that
she starts hunting baddies on her own and they run across her later. I mean really, could
you survive that and then go back to pouring beer for a living?

On a side note, the CW viewer is crap. Clunky, full of ads, jittery, and when it runs
comercials, it drops out of full screen mode and doesn't go back. Suck. Hulu is so much
better.



supernatural: metamorphosis
Aw. Looks like last week never actually happened. Bummer.
So apparently monsterism runs in families, and this ordinary guy is coming into his
inheritance. That he didn't know about. Because a Hunter killed his dad ages ago and he
was put up for adoption. He's about to turn into a Rugeru-- something Dean keeps pointing
out sounds like it's made up. Sam wants to see if he can get the guy to fight it, to appease
it with alot of raw meat, and never eat human (which completes the transformation), and live
like a recovering alcoholic instead. Travis, an old Hunter friend, wants them to flame it and
get it before it kills. Of course, this old Hunter gets himself killed almost immediately, and
it's a wonder there are any Hunters left the way they all get killed off around the
Winchesters-- it's like they're Angela Fletcher or something. And the guy turns and loses
everything and gets flamed, because this show seems to be mostly about fighting fate and
fate getting you anyway.

So of course, this all leads to an arguement between the boys over whether or not Sam
feels kinship with this guy who has evil inside him but is a good person, and whether or not
Dean is a jerk and that's why Sam never told him about the demon blood or his experiments
with turning the bad he's been given into something good-- and whether Heaven is jumping
the gun a little on this whole issue. In the end, Sam decides to give up creepy powers, but
there's the whole issue of how long and you keep from killing people when you have the
ability to save them... and then, how long before the Wrath comes down again?



valentine: pilot
There's these old Gods, see, and they are about to become irrelevant in the modern world, so they have to find a new way to fit in as things change. Irrelevant Gods turn mortal and die off, and they're getting fewer and fewer clients every year, so they want to avoid the bad and stay in the good, and they take on a romance writer to tell them about modern love and get them back in the game.

Kate takes the knowledge that there are gods very well-- especially after Aphrodite gives her
a screaming orgasm of pure love. Which was funny-- and jumps right in with helping a boy
and a girl find eachother, when the Gods have almost messed it up.

The first episode is funny and sweet and charming, and like a little bitty rom com, which is
my not-so-secret vice. And I get to watch people be in love every week! It's a hopeful, if not
terribly delicate message: there's someone out there for everyone, and there are people
making sure we get the chance to find them. Yay!



valentine: daddy's home
The god of war stops by to check on his family that he's usually too busy causing war to
bother with. Ares is trying to take over the love business, saying that something's going
down where they'll be in danger and he wants to protect them-- the only way he can, which
is to get them all to help him start wars. Danny / Eros distracts him by love-shooting Kate
and sending them home together, on the excuse of giving Ray / Hephaestus a chance to
secure Aphrodite's heart, now that she claims to love her first husband and despise her
second.

Meanwhile, a perfume chemist and a good Indian girl need to get married. The girls pose as
wedding photographers as the parents plan an arranged marriage for her, and the boys try
to convince the chemist to declare his love and demand her hand in marriage so the
arranged one can't go through. When he finally does, the groom is as relieved as she is,
and it's her mother that okays it! Yay!

All this means that Morgan and Nisha are happy and there's a great Bollywood dance
scene, and that Ray's in trouble with Grace / Aphrodite for fixing Danny's gun (what was
once arrows), and Ari is not at all happy with getting turned down. And right at the end,
Phoebe drops some of Kate's hair in the Oracle, looking for some dirt, and gets an image of
Grace literally under the axe. Spooky, and who knows what that means? Let's see what the
next episode says, shall we?


valentine: act naturally
This week: celebutant trainwreck and small-time theatre owner. She's had a few flops that
made her doubt her talent, and he's about to go out of business until she's forced to work
with him for community service-- thanks to the Valentine crew. Add in a manager who
seems to be intentionally running her into the ground, and you've got yourself a sweet little
rediscovering who you really are sort of story.

On the home front, Phoebe gets Leo to work with her to steal something of Kate's to prove
she's wrong, and they manage to burn down her house, which leaves her homeless, with
most of her stuff gone. Danny softens up a bit and lets down his guard enough to awkwardly
try to cheer her in a sweet little scene that ends with her moving into the mansion with a
box of stuff and a cat. Phoebe goes through the box and finds books about Greek Gods,
and takes it to mean the worst-- though she's probably just writing a story and doesn't want
to embarass herself by mentioning it. And someone-- a girl-- sneaks in and poisons the
Oracle, and we can't be sure if the clarification of the Grace-dead oracle is the truth or the
poison, or if this is, say, Eris, Queen of Discord, or if it's whoever Ares mentioned was
going against the Old Gods. Oooh, plot!

Three episodes in, there's what we know about the characters: Danny is erotic love
embodied, which makes him kind of a rockstar and means he knows nothing about real love
and can't see how it's different from lust (which likely means he'll fall in love himself before
the season is up); Leo / Hercules stalled out somewhere around the 70s fashion-wise, but
is sweet, if somewhat simple on occasion; Grace / Aphrodite is old-fashioned and
somewhat over-sure of herself; Kate means well, but is either going to go bad or is going to
be framed; Pheobe has trust issues and is pretty immature; and Ray / Hephaestus is
jealous and swayable.

week 6 news

Is SCC getting a tossed bone, finally? http://www.denofgeek.com/television/128816/the_sarah_connor_chronicles_gets_a_reprieve.html

More news on the will-he-won't-he 2011 season of Who
http://www.denofgeek.com/television/128817/doctor_who_david_tennant_to_stay_until_2011.html

A black Doctor for 2011? http://www.denofgeek.com/television/129413/doctor_who_has_the_next_doctor_been_chosen.html

Prince Charles turned down a Cameo on Who
http://www.denofgeek.com/television/129315/doctor_who_prince_charles_turned_down_role.html

X-Files Revisited so1eo6
http://www.denofgeek.com/television/129291/revisiting_the_xfiles_season_1_episode_6.html

News for the first Dr Who special http://www.denofgeek.com/television/130422/doctor_who_first_special_in_easter_2009.html

Saturn has Cyclones http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/10/081014-saturn-cyclones.html?source=rss

side projects:wkk 5 catchup

Sanctuary certainly is a slow-burn isn't it? But I like the emphesis on story, so I won't argue.

This week (last week) they found the Morrigan, three women from 800-ish AD who have the power to kill people by releasing the souls from the bodies. Only sanctuary doesn't know that, and the women have amnesia. Wil won't believe they're 1200 years old, and thinks they have a group delusion stemming from being held hostage for too long. Until they start remembering and go all hovery and destructive, which leaves Sanctuary conveniently low on defenses and lets the new Big Bad in-- this Cabal that's been doing what they do for two and a half millenia, and do it with much bigger guns and in a much more militatistic way. And they're not happy that their 'property' has been taken. Wil manages to get through to them enough that they think they can eventually be free, but they understand that it has to be because they did it, and if they stay on the promise of freedom, Sanctuary will be taken down by the Cabal-- so they go, under the agreement that if they do, Cabal Leader 1 will leave everyone alone.

There's alot of shooting in the last act, and can I just tell you how great Amanda Tapping looks walking down a hallway, talking on a phone and shooting monsters without ruffling her hair? This is all the bad-assery of Carter with the added benefit of being able to wear heels and nice clothes, and being able to fight non-militarily. And the autopsy scene was totally Scully. I'm loving it.

This week's monsters were like giant vole skeletons, and that was pretty neat, too, and we got to meet an informant named Squid who may or may not be a giant bug-thing on a bridge that may or may not be the Brooklyn Bridge with the middle missing. There was an underground fight with Ashley and a Chamelon creature that served only to get her away from the Sanctuary when lockdown happened, and I think that could have been handled better-- so if it turns out the Chameleon is part of something better, I'm fine with it, but otherwise, it was pointless. And Wil has a girlfriend who was on Batterstar Galactica and thinks he's seeing someone else. Oh the trauma. This week had a really great Celtic Fusion soundtrack, and I'm great on that. But the accent... gets a little Australian sometimes...


Knight Rider explosion 1 at 12 minutes! Sexy misunderstanding at 22 minutes! Girls sitting on eachother's laps at 34! Not known for it's subtlety, this show.

It seems that Mike is up against surfing smugglers, and that the show thinks it's Point Break, but it's not even that. So Mike and Zoe go undercover, Sarah gets jealous, Billy hates being outside, and Kitt gets snarky. There's a bad actor surfer who wants to smuggle giant smart bombs and rocket launchers so he can blow up a nuclear power plant for no real reason, and there's a tech-a-mabob that jams the missile but making it return to sender. Yeah, I didn't think it makes much sense, either. All we really got out of this is that in Afganistan-what-Mike-doesn't remember, he was being the same self-righteous something or other that he is now. Huh?

The music was fun, all spanish rap and neo-surf rock, and the visuals made me want to move to the beach, but the plot was dumb, even for this show.



Mike's been poisoned and only making a delivery on time will get him the antidote! Whatever will team Knight Rider do?? Apparently, engage in multiple car chases and work with the FBI to fake a CEO's death so they can trace the culprits. Standard procedure, right?

Mike managed to actually die, like, twice, but was defibbed once and had an antidote synthesized by Kitt with Sarah's blood the other time. He's no Daniel Craig, though; he would have defibbed himself in that case. And he's not even Jason Strathan, who would have just kept himself hopped up on adrenaline to stay alive.

Not enough Zoe and Billy this time, though we did see Kerry, who I forgot existed because she wasn't even in last episode. No explosions, but Mike did keep going soft on Sarah when the poison started acting like a truth serum. Conveniently, however, he doesn't remember what he said. I give them shippy points for saying the L word (hint, not lesbian) in the fourth ep, but I take most of them away because of being lame and not remembering. That's so TV cliche, especially since they didn't even kiss or anything.

This week's fun tech-a-mabob: contacts that give you a heads-up display in your field of vision. Sweet.


Still more to come, as I'm now behind on Week 6, too.

weekly roundup 6 - oct 12 to 18 (way under-watched)

I've actually been working some this week, so the watching is way down and the updating is way behind, but here's what we've got so far:

mon: heroes
First, a random note: Peter looks really good jumping over tables and slamming people into walls. He should do it more often.

This week brings us Daphne seeing Linderman; Nathan and Tracy tracking Dr Zimmerman (very quickly and off-screen) to Mama Pet, who revealed that Nathan was made like Tracy because Papa Pet was upset that he didn't have abilities at birth; Daphne and Knox recruiting specials for an army; Mohinder going all psychopath and webbing people up in his lab, including Maya who can kill you with her mind, but has a remarkably weak will; Hiro and Ando looking for Daphne and getting hoodwinked-- first by Adam, who got away and then got kidnapped, then by Daphne who got Hiro into the army by having him kill Ando (!!!); Mama Pet dreaming the future and getting paralyzed as a result; Claire trying out her vigilante gig and winding up as a councillor; New-Guy-Steven (who has a really neat power) going on the run, getting caught between various powers, and then committing suicide so he doesn't have to kill Syler; Claire becoming disillusioned about her dad and confused about a Syler that seems to actually be trying to be good... except that one part in the car...; Meredith going looking for Claire and winding up in the clutches of someone who can control you and is creepily obsessed with clowns. And big ol' SPOILER-- Papa Pet is back, and he's behind it all.

So everything's messed up. Parkman's not even in this week, but he's next up on the recruitment list, and he knows that Daph is supposed to be his future!wife. Everyone's trying to fix the world and only getting into worse positions then they started out.

I think Syler's most interesting right now. The whole thing is about heroes and villains and their interchangability and how everyone's doing good from their point of view, but he's the only one actively attempting rehabilitation. And Zachary Quinto seems to have more range as a confused and hopeful Syler then as a flat and voracious Syler. But I'm pissed about Hiro and Ando, and the only way I won't be is if he did that back-up-time thing right after stabbing him and before leaving-- although, that will make Ando that much more likely to go villain and kill Hiro in the future. And we all know how spectacularly unsuccessful our peeps are at staving off future disaster.



tues: fringe
This week was... kind of boring. Dude man can control electricity, only not really-- he has the ability, but he has no training and no active control, just a sort of emotionally-linked fight or flight, and he only manages to kill his love and his mom and mangle his boss. And the team is not much help to him, managing only to capture him and take him away. Not much Mad Walter in this one, though he's there, of course, to tell us he knows something about this and studied it two decades ago (it'll be better when they get past that little muguffin), and then to spet out of the plot. Not much Peter, either, and the tone gets rather full of it's own deepness when he's not snarking on it. X-Files managed to keep from being depressing because Mulder was a joker, and they should keep that fact in mind as they emulate it.

And really, she story was about Olivia going off her bean. She's seeing Keen Eddie all over, and she thinks he's a hallucination, but he keeps giving her clues. Turns out, Walter thinks, off the top of his head, that maybe when she was in the tank in the first ep and she mind-melded with him, a part of his conciousness plugged into her brain. So yeah. Agent Scott / Keen Eddie went to the same school of resurrection as Linderman over in Heroes and Scorpius over on Farscape... and he seems to have an will and knowledge base indipendent of Liv, and keeps telling her how much he loves her and helping her out all spookily. It'll be fun if he's disembodied but becomes a regular character, though that might get in the way of Liv and Peter, which is what I really want to see.


Yeah, I know. Nothing.

movies: iron man

Sunday, October 5, 2008 -- accidentally posted in the wrong blog!

I know, I know, I'm the last person on the planet to see Iron Man, buy you know what? It doesn't matter, because even on the TV, it's a pretty sweet flick. Glowing heart-sustainers! Explosions! Emergency Engineering! Socio-political Commentary! More Explosions! It's bright, shiny, snarky to the point where I almost actually forget that I never much liked Iron Man in the comics, and it's got layers that were unexpected from this genre: he manages to change without sacrificing who he is, he decides to do right in his own way, war = bad is proved without being too blunt or indelicate, big business = bad (when you aren't in control of your own interests) is proved, too... And the computer's voice is Paul Bettany, who I love, and who manages to be snarktastic even in a flat synthesized way. Additionally, there's Pepper Pots, who entirely understands her boss, her job and herself, who cares enough about him to get in the middle of a massive-robot battle, and cares enough about herself to keep the love-interest angle where it should be-- at least until he becomes capable of not wandering from model to model. Although, a loving, open, polyamorous super hero might be really nice...

And there's plenty of squee. Hints of War Machine, that whole section at the end of the credits, the classic Iron Man things like hand-weapons and crazy flying... Over all, a pretty solid and really fun sort of movie, with way more joy in it's existence than the last X-Men movie, which seemed to entirely forget that all this super hero stuff is just really really cool.

side project: classic who

The Green Death

So here we have the last episode for Jo "I'll make a list" Grant. It was actually pretty good. She decides to go off on an adventure for the first time by herself, without the Doctor, to do things she has her own opinions on, and he finally gets to Mirabillis III, which they've been talking of visiting all season-- she falls in love with someone who reminds her of the Doctor, but younger, while he has a horrible time without a companion. He winds up in southern Wales where she is after she goes missing, and there's much quarry and UNIT and glowing green slime and the word 'fungus' instead of mushroom. And maggots. Two-foot-long mutant maggots. And environmentalism-- she goes to a coal mine where a psycho machine is getting people to dump toxic waste down in the closed shafts, except there's still people mining nearby, and they start getting sick with something that smells like rot and makes them glow green until they're dead. She hangs out with Proffessor Cliff who yells at her much the way the Doctor does, and she's immediately back to being a bumbling walking accident, but she gets to talk more, have opinions of her own, and tries to help with the problem of the freaky-large maggots, which they have to stop before they turn into mutant bugs and fly away.

Dispite Jo's habit lately of falling for guys, this one seems more realistic-- she already knew who he was, and he returned the affection and worried about her when she was stuck down the mineshaft. When he got sick, she did all the could to help him, and when he woke up, he was disarmingly happy to see her. And he was a fairly-well-rounded character who was basically a good man despite being a weird hippy scientist a bit over-fond of fungi. In the end, he asked her to go into the amazon with him and to marry him along the way, and she agreed-- and they actually got to kiss, which I was expecting would be disallowed by the BBC.

And this is really one of the first times we get to see a little of the Doctor's inner life. When Jo and Cliff start getting close, the Doctor tries to make up reasons to keep them apart, and when she decides to leave UNIT and leave him and give up travelling the galaxy for love, the Doctor says goodbye and then leaves the party alone, obviously sad. He yells at her, but he's fond of her, and the fact that she left him for someone who reminds her of him didn't help any.

A good end to the season and a good send-off for Jo, letting her be a person and not just an ankle-twister. I could have done without the BOSS smarmy computer, who got really irritating by the end, but the monsters and disasters main plot was fun.

Next up, Sarah-Jane Smith, and one more season of Pertwee before we get to Doctor Four, Tom Baker.

weekly roundup 5 - oct 5 to 11 (part 1)

This week has been crazy, guys, so right now it's just a partial review. I haven't had the time to watch all the episodes, and so a few are missing, but here's what I've got, and I'll get back to the rest as soon as I can.

mon: sarah connor, heroes, sarah jane
More pieces falling into place, more allies made-- and more sadness dumped on poor John Connor's shoulders. Episode 5 sees John checking into military school to save someone who will become a major resistance leader, someone who has the actual training to get people organized behind future!John. Dereck manages to get a teaching gig at the same school-- way too conveniently, let me add, as it's just handed to him pretty much against his will. And there's a T-888 like the first one coming after all the Martin Bedells in LA, just like they came after all the Sarah Connors in the beginning, when Sarah became John's mother. She's determined to keep the two remaining ones safe, so she basically kidnaps a 10-ish-year-old moments before Triple8 takes him out, and John goes to military school.

While Sarah's playing mom for this kid, including a book report on John's favorite book (reliving the easier days when John wasn't a rebellious teenager much?), John and Dereck make friends and make plans with the actual Bedell. He's going to run away and get married; but the time he gets through helping to bust a T-888, he stays because he has to, gets the training he knows he'll need, and has bonded with John sufficiently to ensure loyalty later on... though, really, he should have bonded to Dereck, not John, as he's the one who made all the plans, planted all the claymores, organized the kidcruits to act like actual soldiers and finally took Triple8 down.

It was... a bit hasty, plotwise. Not really enough time to get in the depth of loyalty and friendship the episode needed, but at least they have him on their side. I wonder of Marty the younger will fight with them? Sarah promised him that if he needed help ever, she'd come from wherever she is and help him. Gave him a code word and all. And I wonder if the other kid soldiers will be more or less likely to want to go to war after being unwittingly used to stop something that's almost unstoppable?

Subplot land has Ellis investigating the power plant and seeing the damage they call caused a few weeks ago, and deducing that there were two robots who caught each other, which Ms T-1000 didn't know. And she offs the plant manager who was asking too many questions after Ellis mentioned to her that he wanted an investigation that would hold up the full automation of the plant in August 2009. I'm thinking that's the new Judegement Day.

But mostly, this ep serves to give John more info about the future, namely, when some of his friends are going to die, and how tender hearted his dad always was. Being the future leader of mankind sucks in so many ways, not the least of which is knowing that all the future-soldiers you send back are going to die, including the one who will be your dad, and that the people you ally with now are also going to die, and all in your name. I wonder waht kind of mentally messed up crazy future!John is?


Heroes has "Become Death"... only not really. Though they did kill a kid, which surprised me (because we hadn't been given a chance to care all that much). So here's the haps. Future!Claire is a sadist, I'm assuming because she went all super-emo when she couldn't feel pain anymore. Future!Peter messed up one last time by getting hissef killed before he could tell now!Peter what to do. Nathan's hooking up with Tracy who is the last of triplets (so at least we don't need to worry about her more-- she's not, like, a clone batch or something-- at least until they retconn it again). He becomes president, she's the first lady, and he gets killed by now!Peter when he takes future!Syler's abilities and therefore his hunger. So I'm seeing the two of them switch places in the coming season. Future!Syler's a dad, so that's that rumor sorted, but that's the kid that gets killed, and that's the beginning of the end cuz he goes all nuclear and blows away everything. Future!Claire apparently had everything taken from her. And neural-clone!Linderman claims to be an angel.

In subplot land, Parkman eventually marries speeDaphne and they have the hugest baby ever, and all she does in the future is cry. She doesn't survive the Syler-blast, and he witnesses it in the past while hopped up on African walkabout visionquest future-seeing drugs. Also, his totem might be a tortoise, which is far too appropriate. And he's still stuck in Africa. Meanwhile, Hiro and Ando try to escape Level Two and wind up taken to see Mama Pet, who tasks them with saving the formula because he's the only one who can, whatever that means, and he has the key... wich requires digging up a body. Mohinder's taken a turn for the worse, getting angry and violent and more scaly, not to mention slimy and sticky, and future!Mohinder has snaky sorts of sound effects.

So apparently everyone who can afford it or steal it gets powers in the future, and somehow, that leads to the world getting shattered. But President Nathan wants to start an army of mutants, so maybe that's what does it... Yeah, as if this wasn't tangled up enough. I think that web of connections made of yarn is the plot tracker the writers use to keep all this straight. Also, the future's almost as blue as the present is white. Lighting is weird on this show. I'm not even going to guess where this show is going; we're four eps in, and it's already crazy as hell, so I have no idea. But it's fun trying to remember where Peter got all his powers-- shouldn't he be unkillable, too, because he already took Claire's ability, or is this like a secondary mutation that wasn't active at that point?-- and now that Syler and Peter are kind of the same person, that'll be fun to follow.



Sarah Jane, who has faced down the likes of Sontarans and traveled the galaxy is afraid of clowns. Silly.

Anyway, Luke misses Maria, but insists that he doesn't fancy her, even though he's moping and sighing all over the place. They've left it open so that she can come back after she's done with her real-life test scores and can act again, so that's fun. Clyde was trying to be cool about it and act like he doesn't miss her, and when they meet Rani, he was immediately thunderstruck and went about being cool until she wasn't sure she wanted to talk to him. Luke, however, is weird and she likes weird-- she wants to be a reporter, and she is what is sometimes called 'nosy', meaning that the early decision to keep fresh new girl Rani out of the weirdness across the street from her house immediately went out the window.

Kids are disappearing from all around town, and when Clyde and Rani start seeing clowns, of course no one believes them but Sarah Jane, and certainly not Rani's dad, who happens to be the new Headmaster at the school. I'm inclined to think that headmasters are always bad news-- if Dr Who and Buffy have anything to say on the matter-- but he just seems to be tough. Anyway, as a first parter, this is all leading up to getting them in trouble, in the form of a Circus Museum that happens to be run by the Pied Piper who wants to steal all the children, and has already started by stealing the ones with the free tickets that were previously passed out. Sarah Jane is terrified, and so I'm assuming the kids will have to chip in to save themselves so she can face her fear, but that'll have to wait till next week.


tues: fringe
Fringe brings us more weirdness, and a little sinister edge to the dealings. It starts with a bald man who puts all sorts of weird hot things into a sandwich and waits around for a disaster to happen-- which comes right as he's finishing his meal. He goes to investigate and calls it in, unsurprised, as if he knew what it was before it happened.

So the team is called in to investigate this weird stretched-egg thing, and Walter knows what it is without thinking he knows anything about it. With some help from an old firend of Olivia's who was there when the last one happened, they decide it's a torpedo that goes through land instead of the sea. Someone's out to get it and Walter hides it, but Peter is taken hostage to find out where it is-- and gives it away without knowing the answer, because of some creepy wires up his nose.

Blah blah blah chasey chasey, and they wind up where Walter, who's acting very stange, hid the thing, and manage to keep it from falling into enemy hands, byt not from exploding / escaping-- there was a very deep hole, so I can't say what that was supposed to be.

The upshot is that Peter, who had been ready to leave, to the point of calling in favors and having a new life set up for him, is not dedicated to figuring out exactly what happened and says he won't leave anymore, and there's a new player on the scene-- this bald guy, who seems to appear just in time to observe all these patter-related incidents, no matter where they are, and he always looks exactly the same. Weirder still, he was there when Walter ran off an icy road years ago and he saved both Walter and Peter, which may have something to do with Peter's hinted-at medical history, and it forged some sort of link between Water and the Observer, allowing him to have memories he never formed himself.

Will this link matter more later? Is Walter in with the Powers that Pattern? The Observer can get inside people's heads, and I'm sure that'll come back. And Walter lost Astrid the Labtech's trust by drugging her so he could steal the thing, so it'll be fun to see how they sort that out... and hopefully she isn't just being written out.

Not as great an episode as the last one, but it's fast-paced and adds lots more for the wiki-makers to sort out, and it's thickening up nicely.


weds: pushing daisies
Another cute episode, but perhaps a bit sadder. I really liked how in love Ned and Chuck were before, and now with her moving out, even if I entirely understand why, it's got a different dynamic-- more mopey and sad, less cute and shiny. I do like the Aunts getting more out and about, thought, and it's always fun to see them in the Pie Hole and the lengths Chuck goes to not to be seen. And without Olive, I'm super-curious to see what kind of kook they get to work there-- maybe two, if everyone's going to be leaving to solve crimes all the time. Although, the crime solving seems to have dropped out of focus a little... I hate to say it, and maybe it's just the fact that I'm resistant to new things, but it feels ever so slightly off, like they misplaced a bit of the vision when everyone went on hiatus, and that makes me sad. It's still cute and sweet, but it doesn't feel as sublime as it did before.

news: week 5

AMC is picking up Red Mars

Those who might have been the Doctor

Eight Cheap Tricks for Dr Who 4.5

Companions that might have been

Tom Baker to come back to Who?

Den of Geek revisits X-Files, one episode at a time

Details of Dr Who Series 4 DVD Special Features

Some predictions on Heroes So3

These are some of my thoughts exactly on SCC and it's immanent cancellation

Though it seems the rumors are unsubtantiated (says Fox, who we don't trust)

Classic 80s Scifi V is returning!

More reviews of the Series 4 Box Set, including a nice look at deleted scenes I can't wait to get my hands on.

The Seven Doctors up for Children in Need?