6 posts tagged “doctor who”
Late night for me. Let's just say that I have had two cups of coffee so I am awake for the foreseeable future...
DVDs
- Caprica - BSG prequel that is sitting on the coffee table waiting on Alex being in the right mood to watch it. I am thinking it might be a good fit for the 4th of July long weekend. I mean we ain't going to be watching the fireworks
- Star Trek: TNG - Someone wont let me watch Deep Space Nine until we have re-watched all of TNG. Half way through season 5 and it is dragging somewhat
- Virtuality - Ronald D. Moore did a pilot for Fox, and they have repackaged it as a tv movie. That probably means it is now a failed pilot but as ever the optimist I am hopeful for a resurrection, especially after seeing the 12 min preview and webisodes
- Stargate Universe - the trailer makes it look edgier than Atlantis or SG-1, and it has Robert Carlyle in it so nuff said
- Torchwood - The 'Children of Earth' mini-series airs in July and it feels a little bit like Midwitch Cuckoos (though spooky children always give off that vibe to be)
- Doctor Who - Finally getting the Christmas special that was aired AGES ago in the UK. It also looks like BBC America has wrangled the Doctor from Sci-Fi Channel
- Warehouse 13 - Cute but worth a watch given that there isn't that much on at the moment
For whatever reason there tends to be a dearth of sci-fi movies opening in the summer, the powers that be obviously think that genre is better suited to fall which is why it made no sense to open last year's X-Files movie in the summer.
- Star Trek - So you've seen it once just keep watching it because it really is that good!
- Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince - Not strictly sci-fi but wizards are hardly mainstream
- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - same as above but this time with robots in disguise
- The Time Traveler's Wife - Not another Sarah Connor Terminator spin-off I promise. The book is excellent, but the time travel is rather more a literary plot device than an actually exploration into time travel
Once again, Alex and I have started to try and work our way through Star Trek: The Next Generation because someone says that we can't re-watch Deep Space Nine until we have finished TNG. It's a bit like having to eat your greens before tackling some really tasty deep fried chicken. The last time we tackled this project we managed to get through the first two seasons, and I want to know at exactly what point did TNG get good? Was the tipping point Picard going Borg? The gem from the last few episodes we've watched is Whoopi Goldberg. It was genius to cast her as Guinan and I started to get excited about seeing her. So that got me thinking about which guest stars really bring it. The ones who shake things up, are a nod to the genre or just are just plain annoying (in a good way). In no particular order here are my favourites (and I think they really show my age):
- Whoopi Goldberg - Guinan in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Goldberg appeared in 28 episodes of TNG, she is the landlord of the Enterprise's bar '10 Forward' whose planet had been devastated by the Borg. Not only is Goldberg an outstanding actress, her characters back story was a great segue into Star Trek's newest villains - the Borg.
- Marlee Matlin - Joey Lucas in The West Wing. IMDB is trying to tell me that Matlin appeared in 17 episodes - was it really that many? Over the years that The West Wing has sustained us through the Bush administration there were many great guest stars - Mary-Lousie Parker, Janeane Garofalo, Oliver Platt, Steven Culp, Jorja Fox, Adam Arkin, etc - but if I had to pick just one it would be Matlin's turn as political pollster Joey Lucas. Her character is bright, and ballsy. She butts heads with Josh, and the pair tip toe around their mutual attraction. I can forgive Matlin for putting on her tap shoes to appear in Dancing With The Stars because I can always dust off my West Wing box sets.
- Maggie Wheeler - Janice in Friends. The character of Janice was a tour de force. The "real" New Yorker that rubbed the bridge and tunnel crowd the wrong way. Her laugh shattered glass, she took being annoying to a whole new level and she is the Achilles heel to our Friends. There is no escaping her, and that's what we loved about her most. She was brash, and she irked the hell out the smug set.
- Bebe Neuwirth - Lilith in Fraser. Lilith is like an iceberg. Icy cool, and the most dangerous part of her is hidden beneath the surface. Her power was in how everyone reacted to her. She doesn't need to lift a finger to keep those Crane boys in check.
- Richard Hatch - Tom Zarek in Battlestar Galactica. Okay, this guest star role isn't perfect but it is pretty fraking cool to have the original Apollo cast as a terrorist. A nod to the BSG's heritage that shakes things up, just like Starbuck being a girl.
- Stephen Fry - Dr. Gordon Wyatt on Bones. I am still holding out hope that Fry will guest star on House but his three episode on Fox network's sister show tided me over for a bit (and sustained my interest in this procedural drama). Fry was, as ever, a joy to behold as the psychiatrist assigned to help Booth open up after an incident, and truthfully I'd pay to watch Fry pottering about in any TV show bar the truly dreadful Kingdom.
- Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood & Dean Haglun - The Lone Gunmen in The X-Files. These guys are the epitome of conspiracy theorists, and brought some colour to Scully & Mulders FBI grey.
- John Barrowman - Captain Jack Harkness on Doctor Who. Before Captain Jack took over Cardiff he appeared as the bi-sexual alien with a predilection for vintage clothing and flirted shamelessly with the Doctor.
- Supernatural. Okay, this is a total cop out but one of the things that I *love* about this show (other than Jensen Ackles) is that they embraced the genre and incorporate lots of "genre specific" guest stars. Callum Keith Rennie, Amy Acker, and Linda Blair to name a few.
- Dean Stockwell - Brother Cavil in Battlestar Galactica. It's Dean Stockwell as a Cylon. It doesn't get any better than that.
The biggest distraction around this place is a biped that answers to the name Alex. Yes, I am two thirds of my way through pulling together my notes and books for London but I neglected the other Alex in my life (the one from Macedon).
Screen: Small
Oh so much telly this weekend... Battlestar Galactica (a solid episode but not as exciting as the previous), Doctor Who (the little fatty people were very cute, and Catherine Tate is awesome as the new assistant), Robin Hood (still the lamest thing in the forest but an ex-drama student of my Mum's was in so I was force to watch him play a blind, yoda-like character), and PBS's Carrier. OMG Carrier is fantastic; it documents the lives of the crew of the aircraft carrier US Nimitz on a 6 month deployment in the Gulf.
As far as I am concerned season three of Doctor Who has been a bit of a bumpy ride. I love the Doctor and I love Martha but I squirmed my way through Shakespeare Code and Gridlock, and I positively hated Runaway Bride and Daleks take Manhattan. I had all but given up till I read rave reviews of Blink. So yesterday I skipped passed the other DW episodes on the DVR and head straight to the Steve Moffat written episode Blink. HOLY COW it is fraking amazing!!!!
Blink is one of those stories were the time line and people's lives are interlinked like the lattice work of a one of those fancy fruit pies. Sally Sparrow is taking pictures in a creepy abandoned house and uncovers a message for her from the Doctor from 1969 about watching out for the 'weeping angels'. She returns later with a friend (who is the same age as her) only to have an envelope delivered by her friend's grandson! It turns out that the sinister weeping angel statues are aliens who has long as you keep looking at them (without blinking) they are stone but once you take your eyes off them they can creep towards you and if they touch you then they will propel you back through time. The angels apparently exist on potential energy and once they throw you back in time they suck up the energy that you've left behind. Things I love about Blink:
- The Doctor and Martha appear as DVD Easter eggs
- Weeping angels are really scary (hide behind the sofa scary)
- The angels existing in a quantum state a bit like Schroedinger's cat
- I thought that the weeping angels could be a weird re-writing of Medusa - instead of not looking at them otherwise you will turn to stone you have to keep starring at them so they stay as stone
Since I enjoyed Blink so much I ended up blasting my way through the other Doctor Who episodes (which were all much better than the first part of the third season). 42 was a solid stand alone episode that was a little bit like Sunshine, and Human Nature/ The Family of Blood were excellent. Setting things up for Utopia and the return of the Master. I can't wait for this Friday and John Sims as the Master reborn!
(I've skipped a few days here and there, but will try to make them up.)
At the weekend I caught up with the Doctor (Who of course) and I think I am rather smitten with him. It must be the revamped spiv look with the coat, pinstripe suit and Converse boots. I see pinstripes and I think Flash Harry. Anyhow still quite behind, but watched 'School Reunion' and 'The Girl in the Fire Place' (which sounds like a Tracy Chevalier novel). The latter had some cracking lines: the Doctor summing up school kids as all "hoodies, ASBOS and ring tones", Rosie referring to K-9 as a bit "disco" and then whole awkward situation of Rose/Sarah-Jane "the Mrs. and the ex. Every mans worst nightmare".
There is a nice piece at the Guardian about Spooks (MI:5 in transatlantic translation). I've just finished watching season 4 on DVR and I am not sure when we will get the latest season which has just finished on the BBC. You see MI:5 is shown on A&E over here and in the last few years lets just say that it no longer fits with the network. I know this because they aired it on Fridays at 11pm (otherwise known as the limp off and die spot), but after two weeks they yanked it and showed the remaining episodes in a marathon one Saturday afternoon. It was a sad act because it is a strong series and in many ways so much better than 24.
What's the best way to spend a rainy day?
Submitted by Vee.
Vegetating on the sofa with a good book, a large mug of coffee and an episode of Doctor Who to watch on the DVR.
