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Showing posts from March, 2013

Doctor Who: The Web Planet

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BUGS!!! Well, this looks like a giant bugs serial. Again. Well, the second one of the series. The first one involved everyone being shrunken. I hope they're all normal-sized this time. If we have spiders, they better be fake!  Anyhow, this serial ran from February 13 to March 20, 1965 and consists of six episodes. I don't know any more about this serial other than giant bugs, pulled to a planet, and Doctor Who . On with the show! Three Hours Later ... God! What a boring episode! And the villain was a spider... thing... Anyhow, this episode can be summed up relatively quickly. The Doctor, Ian, and Barbara fight a spider-thing called Animus and help a species of moth-people called Menoptra to take back their planet. So, it's six episodes of boring revolution, fighting mind-control and mind-controlled ants. You'd think  it'd be exciting or at least engaging, but instead I fell asleep during the episode and essentially missed nothing. The most entert

Doctor Who: The Romans

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Oh Crap! A Lyre! And fire! It's Nero! The Romans  is the twelfth serial of Doctor Who  or the fourth serial of the Second Season. It originally broadcast in four weekly parts from January 16 to February 6, 1965. Without looking at Wikipedia, just the image on the DVD cover, I could tell it was going to be a Nero-centered episode. If Nero lights the Great Fire of Rome, I'll be very upset. I just want you to know that. He only gets bad press because the historians of the time didn't like him, but if you look at his policies, he did a lot for his people and a lot to try to stimulate his government's economy and build infrastructure in the city of Rome itself. It's not his fault his mother was completely crazy and he probably came from slightly inbred stock! Though a fire must feature heavily because Donna and the Tenth Doctor talk about it in the New Series episode, The Fires of Pompeii . Apparently, the fire had a little bit to do with the Doctor. I hope he  

Doctor Who: The Rescue

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STRANGER DANGER! The Rescue  is the third serial of the second season of Doctor Who  which aired on January 2 and January 9, 1965. It is known most for introducing the new character, Vicki (portrayed by Maureen O'Brien). It also introduces a planet called Dido, but who cares about that? There are a lot of planets in the Whoverse. Now, the fact that the serial is called " The Rescue " and if features a new companion to replace former companion Susan Foreman doesn't really bode well for me or my ears. Apparently the Doctor needs a young friend to constantly rescue. On the bright side, she'll only be in nine stories. So let's get them out of the way! One Hour Later... Okay... So... I think I may actually like Vicki. We'll see though. She wasn't very  annoying this serial, but we have eight more to go after this. We'll see. So, the episode starts off with the Doctor sleeping in the TARDIS as it lands. Ian and Barbara are very worried a

Doctor Who: The Dalek Invasion of Earth

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Constipation Nation! Exterminate! What does the Second Season have in common with the First Season of Doctor Who ? The second serial is about Daleks! Whoo! Well, I hope we get some explanations on how they survived the Thals, how they got space travel, and if they have any pepper in there. This serial aired between November 21 and December 26, 1964. You know, I think that means we might get a nice Christmas message in the mix! This is also supposed to be Susan Foreman's last serial as a Companion. I can't say I'm sorry to see her go because she rather gets on my nerves. However, being as she's the Doctor's granddaughter, I have to wonder how that's  going to play out and if we'll have to see a moody , stern, grouchy old genius. If he doesn't get decently upset, I'll begin to think that Susan Foreman might have been hypnotized to think  the Doctor is her grandfather when he's really her abductor. Let's go see! Three Hours Later ...

Doctor Who: Planet of Giants

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Susan's panicking again! SO! Let's get cracking Season Two of Doctor Who ! First serial up is a three-parter called Planet of Giants . BBC originally broadcast the episodes between October 31 and November 13, 1964. If you recall, Season One just ended September 12, 1964 so the young people of Britain only had to wait a month and a half for the new series to begin. Doesn't that sound wonderful? I'm a little jealous right now because I have to wait until March 30 for a new episode of Doctor Who  and I've been waiting since Christmas. But, enough of me complaining! This serial is supposed to be set on contemporary Earth (1964), but I'm not sure how they're going to pull that off because most of the production still of the episode have giant ants. Did the TARDIS materialize smaller than usual? Are there mutated bug creatures? What's going on? Let's see! An Hour and a Half Later... So... the better title of this episodes is "How to Ma

Chez Apocalypse and 50 Shades of Green

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Twilight ! With Aliens! So, everyone knows that " Twilight  with..." is a thing now. A major "thing". A HUGE  thing. They're even making movies about it! Everyone who reads this silly blog also knows that I'm slightly gaga over ThatGuyWiththeGlasses.com and anything to do with Channel Awesome in general. I haven't come over... whatever someone would call a TGWTG fan like I have with Doctor Who  and my utter worship of Pterry (that's Terry Pratchett to you poor souls who still think Harry Potter  is the best thing to come out of Britain). However, I do  watch the videos and I started this writing blog, in part, because  of the people at TGWTG. I also did it because anyone who wants to be a writer is given the advice to get involved with social media BEFORE getting published. Especially in this day and age. Also, I just like reading what I write and hearing myself talk in my head. And I would be horrible at actually talking to a video c

Clint Mansell

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We interrupt our Doctor Who  marathon for an important post about a musician that I feel gets very little loving from the early 20s contingent. He usually only writes music for Darren Aronofsky films so people who don't like films that are a little strange with some... unrealistic elements mixed with the severely depressing don't usually watch the movies. When they do, the images sometimes are so... different or disturbing that they don't bother to listen to the soundtrack. I rarely sit down and really watch  a video. I'm always doing three or four other things during that time so really I listen  to a movie or film. On one hand this is bad because the films that I'm talking about ( The Fountain , Requiem for a Dream , Black Swan , Pi ...) usually do have some pretty stunning visual affects that I just... miss the first go around. I do  however hear the music and the Aronofsky film collection always blows me away because the music is gorgeous . The sequence wh

Doctor Who: Season One Overview

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So, we have gotten through Season One of the original series of Doctor Who . It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... actually it wasn't.  These haven't been the best   Doctor Who  stories I've ever seen, but they've hardly been the worst either. In fact, most of The Reign of Terror  was actually kind of fun. Yeah, I didn't feel surprised by any of the plot twists, but those plot twists have had fifty years to become cliches. I think the series did what it set out to do very well. Watching the serials, I felt I learned something while being entertained. Even the metal they named in the serial, The Sensorites,  is real and all the facts they give about said metal are true.  They took some liberties with historic events and caveman culture, but they presented the facts as they were known at the time. Every serial had it's own plot, but the characters learned things about each other and time travel that carried from episode to episode. No one

Doctor Who: The Reign of Terror

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The Doctor vs. The French! The Reign of Terror  is the last serial of the first season of Doctor Who . It aired from August 8 to September 12, 1964 and it is six episodes long with two missing episodes in the middle. So, once again BBC's incompetence will make my viewing pleasure go down a little bit unless the two promised animated episodes are the missing episodes. That would be nice. When I hear "Reign of Terror" I think of the French Revolution. So, I'm going to assume that, at the end of the last episode when Ian Chesterton made the Doctor angry, the Doctor decided to take him home. However, things will of awry again. The way things always go awry in Doctor Who . That or Earth is a TARDIS magnet at all times. Maybe she likes humans? Three Hours Later... Wow! This was a pretty interesting episode. Probably because I'm really interested in the history of the French Revolution and peripherally interested in the rise and fall of Napolean Bonaparte

Doctor Who: The Sensorites

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There is nothing weird about this. So, guess what? We're almost finished with the first season of Doctor Who ! We have many , many , many  more to go, true, but after this serial and the next, the first season is over. Isn't that nice? I'll be doing a full review of the season too where I will be: putting all the episodes together, seeing if there's an arc over all the serials, going over what we've learned about the Doctor and his three companions. I will probably use this time to address the acting of our main actors and actresses too as well addressing the writers and such. However, today, I'm tackling The Sensorites , the seventh serial of the first season of Doctor Who  which was originally broadcast in six weekly installments from June 20 to August 1,1964. The little blurb above the Wikipedia article says that this episode will demonstrate telepathy in Susan and make references to her and the Doctor's home planet. Won't that be exciting? I

Doctor Who: The Aztecs

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The Doctor is NOT constipated! The Aztecs ... I saw this episode a couple years ago when my cousin Stevie allowed me access to her Netflix account. The episodes aired between May 23 and June 13, 1964. These four episodes make up the sixth serial of Doctor Who . They're also the first episodes to address whether or not time travelers should or can change established history which later reflects on the New Series with The Fires of Pompeii , The Unquiet Dead , Father's Day , all the World War II episodes, and The Girl in the Fireplace . Oh yeah, and pretty much all  of Season Six of New Who. So, it's a pretty significant episode in that respect. On the other hand, it's also another one of those episodes where the only aliens are Doctor Who and his granddaughter  Susan. I keep bringing up her relationship to the Doctor because a lot of people get all upset when the Doctor claims he was a father in the new series when the First Doctor sort of has proof that he passe

Doctor Who: The Keys of Marinus

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There's nothing silly about the poodle guy in the center! So this serial is not  missing so I don't have to spend three hours looking at stills and reading about the actions of the cast below the stills. That's good. Three hours and a half hours of that weren't very fun. The fact that the episodes were quite good just made it all the more a shame. Can't we get a decent cartoonist to draw what's going on? I think that would be better for viewers, but I'm not part of the production company. This serial was released between April 11 and May 16, 1964. From what I can gather it's a quest fantasy with every episode being a mini-adventure towards a larger goal. So, it's like most seasons of modern fantasy TV series at some point or another. And it's only six episodes long. Brilliant! Three hours later... So... I'm not sure how I felt about this one. It was interesting if not a bit predictable. Basically, the TARDIS appears on this isla

Doctor Who: Marco Polo

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The Doctor: Marco! Susan: Polo! Marco Polo: Will you stop that!!! (If it were done today) So, I didn't know if I'd get to see this episode. I was really rather worried because of something I heard. Complaints made by certain Whovians on the web. I was actually worried about the whole first season and I was rather pleased that I've gotten through three serials with no issues. However, I was checking for the next episode on my list on Wikipedia (not spoiling myself, not yet) and the serial was listed as "all missing". My heart sunk and I began cursing the BBC for being such dumb asses. Now, those of you who aren't Whovians--or serious Whovians--are reading this and scratching your heads. "How does an episodes go missing? Why are you mad at the BBC?" It's really very simple. Say you've got something valuable, but you don't know how valuable it is... yet. So you put it somewhere where it's stored, but it won't be kept in o

Doctor Who: The Edge of Destruction

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Also called "Inside the Spaceship" Alright! A two-parter! It'll be nice and short with no problems. Since I've never seen this episode, I decided to find out just a little bit about it so that I can say something other than the name of the episode and how I feel and hour later. This episode aired originally on February 8 and February 15, 1964. It was written by David Whitaker who I've never heard of, but it seems he wrote a number of Dalek episodes and other Doctor Who episodes so that should be interesting. I'll be seeing his name more then. This is what they call a "bottle episode". Everything is shot in a single set. So, we could also call this episode "One Hour in the TARDIS". That sounds interesting. We never spend much time in there in the New Series... Unless you count Neil Gaimen's episode which was the sixth series and didn't even last the whole  episode. Besides, I call that episode, "Most of the Episode With