Tag: doctor who

Direct Beam Comms #50

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

Doctor Who: The Power of the Daleks – Grade: B+

Let this sink in for a minute; currently there are more episodes of the classic series Doctor Who that are missing that were ever created for shows like the original Star Trek or even The Sopranos. Early years of Doctor Who might have 40+ episodes each season and since the series originally ran for 26 years means that there were over 800 episodes produced. Unfortunately, as a cost savings measure the BBC decide that the physical tapes used to record episodes on as an archive were of more value than the actual episodes and had a habit of erasing old shows and replacing them with newer ones. Which means that as of right now around 100 episodes Doctor Who, especially early ones until they stopped this practice, are thought lost.

power-daleks-1Luckily, over the years, some of these lost episodes were found. Some in far off locals around the world like Nigeria and Australia in various archives where Doctor Who aired in syndication and some in collections of Doctor Who fans who happened to buy memorabilia that turned out to be a missing episode or two. Unfortunately, while a few lost episodes seem to turn up every few years, there are still these nearly 100 that have never been found and odds are that some will remain lost forever.

Which brings me to one of these Doctor Who episodes arcs that so far hasn’t been found titled “The Power of the Daleks.” This six episode story originally aired 50 years ago this month but the tapes housing them were recorded over decades ago. One thing that did survive of “The Power of the Daleks” was the soundtrack to the episodes. So what the BBC has done is to create an animated version of the episodes which uses the original soundtrack and will be airing them each Saturday night on BBC America.

It’s interesting to see this episode animated in such a realistic way, but the episode does come off a bit odd and stiff looking. I think that’s partly due to the fact that older episodes of Doctor Who as a rule came as generally odd and stiff looking to begin with, but along with the fact that “The Power of the Daleks” is animated which adds to this quality.

Here, newly regenerated Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and companions materialize on a colony planet Vulcan where the Doctor is mistaken from an Earth official. At the colony they’re shown a ship the people in the colony discovered in a nearby swamp. A ship that once opened is revealed to be piloted by the evil Daleks. And that’s where this episode ends with next week’s show set to continue the story.

Stiff looking or not, I’d love to see BBC continue this practice of animating lost episodes since I think the more classic Doctor Who available the better.

The Man in the High Castle commercial

“I’m not an assassin.”

Movies

Kong: Skull Island trailer

“Monsters exist.”

Ghost in the Shell trailer

“They did not save your life, they stole it.”

The Reading & Watch List

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1931: Frankenstein opens in theaters
  • 1963: The first episode of Doctor Who (the original series) premiers
  • 1986: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home opens in theaters
  • 1988: The TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 premiers
  • 1990: Predator 2 opens in theaters
  • 2007: The Mist opens in theaters
  • 1996: Star Trek: First Contact opens in theaters

Direct Beam Comms #22

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, Toys, TVPosted on

Term of the week

Gunpla: Stands for “Gundam Plastic Model.”

TV

Doctor Who 1996 TV movie

Comparatively, the mid–1990s weren’t great when it came to sci-fi. Sure,TV series like Star Trek and The X-Files and other sci-fi shows thrived, but for the most part sci-fi films and TV were a niche market at best. Back then, there were a very few successful comic book movies and in fact, most comic titles aired as after school cartoons and not as films. And even what’s now one of the world’s most popular TV series Doctor Who’s original run was cancelled in 1989 and was then considered decidedly uncool.

Paul McGann as the Doctor
Paul McGann as the Doctor

Yet “uncool” or not in 1996 FOX TV decided to create and air a made for TV reboot movie of Doctor Who.

Starring Paul McGann as the Doctor, Eric Roberts as the Master and Daphne Ashbrook as Dr. Grace Holloway, this new Doctor Who was a continuation of the old but tweaked a bit for American audiences. Gone was the UK setting for a Canada doubling as the US and really the only English “thing” in the show that previously was defined by its “Englishness” was the Doctor himself.

At the time I remember FOX heavily promoting the show and it seemed like they were hoping they might have a hit on their hands that they could then spin out to a new Doctor Who TV series. Maybe it was because FOX was just beginning to ride the wave of The X-Files mania that was starting to grip the nation that they thought that reviving a cult British classic TV series might lead to winning ratings.

And the spring of 1996 I was extremely excited about the prospect that Doctor Who might be returning to TV screens. I was a Doctor Who fanatic as a kid thanks to my friend Cameron but had drifted away from the show in my teenage years. (Though I might be mis-remembering this as I’m not quite sure just when our local PBS station stopped airing episode of Doctor Who.)

But watching the 1996 Doctor Who movie was a disappointment. It was Doctor Who and it felt like an honest attempt at translating something that was so different than the average TV series into something more palatable for American audiences. But something was just missing from the 1996 Doctor Who. The ratings for the TV movie were poor and that was that. It would be nearly a decade before the relaunch of the now mega-popular Doctor Who TV series that would return the series to prominence.

One thing about the 1996 Doctor Who that I appreciate — it might have failed but it’s never been ignored by the most recent incarnation of the show. The movie was celebrated a few years ago during the series 50th anniversary and McGann has appeared as the Doctor in a flashback episode of the current series and has voiced the Doctor in a series of audiobooks too.

Oddly enough, just after the 1996 Doctor Who movie aired sci-fi was about to become huge with the likes of mega-blockbusters Independence Day and The Matrix. I kind’a wonder if the 1996 reboot Doctor Who had been released more around the time of those movies if it would have found more of an audience on TV?

Movies

Dune (1984)

The sleeper must awaken!
The sleeper must awaken!

I rewatched the movie Dune a few weeks back — theatrical, not the extended cut thank you — and noticed that several of the actors in the movie went onto star in various sci-fi/genera TV series in the 1980s/early 1990s.

  • Kyle MacLachlan (Paul Atreides) – Played Special Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks that was co-created by David Lynch who also directed Dune.
  • Dean Stockwell (Doctor Wellington Yueh) – Co-starred as Al Calavicci in the series Quantum Leap.
  • Patrick Steward (Gurney Halleck) – Starred as Captain Jean-Luc Picard over 176 episodes and four movies of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Toys

Alien Warrior Dron ARTFX+ Statue

This statue, which retails for $80, can hang off the walls of its diorama and upside down on its base via magnets. (Space Marines not included.)

The reading list

The day we discovered our parents were Russian spies

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1973: Soylent Green opens in theaters
  • 1994: The TV mini-series The Stand premiers.
  • 1996: The TV movie Doctor Who airs on Fox.

Direct Beam Comms #18

CategoriesDirect Beam Comms, Feature, Movies, TVPosted on

TV

Classic Doctor Who

All I wanted was a Pepsi
All I wanted was a Pepsi

My local PBS station began airing episode of classic Doctor Who a few weeks back starting with the very first Tom Baker episode entitled “Robot” and it looks like for the most part they’re airing them in order. I couldn’t be more happy. I’ve been dying to watch more episodes of the classic Doctor Who for years now, ever since the 50th anniversary a few years ago and when BBC America began airing a handful of Baker episodes last year.

American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson

The first season of American Crime Story on FX ended its run last week about the trial of O.J. Simpson. The sad thing is that I know a few people who didn’t watch the show because they “knew how it ended.” Except that American Crime Story was anything but just about the ending. It was about all the bits that were never broadcast on TV in the 1990s; what was going on behind the scenes with the lawyers, and jurors and family members we never got to see.

The neat thing about the story was that it wasn’t just one sided — for or against O.J. It’s mostly about the lawyers — the prosecution building a seemingly airtight case against Simpson and the defense finding ways to make their case a little a lot less airtight while at the same time trying to expose what they see as a corrupt system against African Americans in Los Angeles.

In a TV season with a lot of simply great dramas, American Crime Story was one of the best. A

Movies

Edge of Tomorrow: Live Die Repeat

Last week writer/director Christopher McQuarrie announced that there’s going to be a sequel to the wonderful movie Edge of Tomorrow with Doug Liman set to return as director and Tom Cruise as star. I didn’t think that Edge of Tomorrow did well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel, but luckily I was wrong. Edge of Tomorrow is one of the best sci-fi films of the modern age and along with movies like Mad Max: Fury Road is redefining the sci-fi genera.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story movie trailer

“What will you become?”

Officially titled Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, this eighth movie in the franchise is the first one to be told outside of the main Star Wars storyline. Here, a resistance fighter, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is tasked with stealing the plans for the Death Star. Or, Rogue One would be what was going on immediately before Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope where those plans are hidden inside R2-D2. What I like about the trailer is the design aesthetic seems to be taken straight from those gorgeous Dave Dorman Star Wars paintings that seemed to be on everything Star Wars related in the 1990s. What I don’t like about it is that the vibe in the Rogue One trailer comes off a bit too Katniss in Hunger Games at times for my taste.

That being said, the trailer’s much more good than bad.

The Reading List

Chris Hardwick, King of the Nerds, Is Expanding His Empire

This week in pop-culture history

  • 1979 The TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century premiers
  • 1983 The Evil Dead premiers in theaters

Direct beam comms #5

CategoriesComic Books, Direct Beam Comms, Feature, TVPosted on

TV

So there’s the Classic Doctor Who series that ran from 1963 to 1996 and a modern Doctor Who of ones from 2005 to present. Is there now a Classic The X-Files of shows that ran from 1993 to 2002 and a modern The X-Files of ones from now on? I suppose much of if the “classic” and “modern” labels will only have any meaning if the new Fox series is limited to just the six episodes or if there’s more than one season.

TNT is working on a TV series version of the film Animal Kingdom. That movie is one of my favorites, I thought it was one of the best of 2010, about a lives of a family of crooks that’s slowly unravelling after one is killed by the police and in retribution the family kills two cops. I think that’s why the movie is so interesting — it’s about something coming apart, destroying itself. It’s still too early to tell, but I don’t think that a (reportedly) series about a family of criminals that’s not coming apart but instead lasts season after season would be as interesting as the latter. Then again I’d be happy to eat my words since I didn’t think Hannibal or The Americans would be any good either and those two shows turned out to be two of my favorites.

Comics

Benedict Cumberbatch as Marvel's Doctor Strange
Benedict Cumberbatch as Marvel’s Doctor Strange

The comic series Aquila, which ran in the pages of 2000 AD, is available in a collected edition January 12. Aquila: Blood of the Iceni is a sort of mashup of Conan the Barbarian and the writings of H.P. Lovecraft with the title character living in Roman Empire times in the place that will one day be the UK who’s brought back from the dead with one catch; he must provide souls to the ancient hungry god Ammit the Devourer. A god that’s always hungry!

In finding these souls, Aquila must do battle with winged creatures, an insane Nero trying to become a god himself and the natives of England who are out to push all foreign invaders off their land.

Books

CUNNING PLANS: Talks By Warren Ellis is a book of talks collected as essays by Warren Ellis who’s best known for his work in comics. Ellis has a knack for describing the times we live in from almost a future historical perspective. He comments on are everyday mundane things from cell phones to Instagram to traveling. But it’s how he sees them that’s so unique.

“Our ghosts are our history. Their voices are what we learn from. Our rituals are our methods, and our castings and workings are our scientific experiments, magical practices to learn the true names of things that mane the world. Because, in magic, when you name something you can control it.” — Warren Ellis

Apps

For the last few months I’ve been writing most everything in Scrivener using Markdown. I like how Scrivener organizes everything — I have one document for these Direct Beam Comms articles, one for my 2016 columns, one for random stuff… — and how I can export the finished product in just about any format I want.

And Markdown, a “…text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers…” is a nice way for me to format copy without having to worry about future-proofing my work. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years trying to figure this out. If I save everything as a Word DOC and in 20 years there’s no easy way to open the files then I’m screwed. What I’ve been doing over the last five years is saving all my work as rich text format (RTF) figuring that while this might not be the best way to save things, it’s got to be better than the proprietary Word format. Then I thought about saving out everything as HTML files, since those are essentially easily readable text files that anyone at any time in the future will be able to open.

Scrivener solves all these problems for me. I write things once using Markdown and then can export into whatever file format fits my preference. I’ll usually export a RTF if the piece is being published somewhere else and HTML so I can copy and past this content into my website. But I can also save PDFs, ebooks or a host of other file formats too.