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Month: March 2014

Nu-View #17: The End of Our Beginning

Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways (Series One, Eps. 12-13; 2005)
Viewed 20 Mar 2014

Doctor/Companion: Nine, Rose Tyler
Stars: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper
Preceding Story: Boom Town (Nine, Rose)
Succeeding Story: The Christmas Invasion (Ten, Rose)

The Doctor plops himself down into a big, red comfy chair in the Diary Room, looks straight at the camera, and declares in disbelief, “You have got to be kidding!” Oh, Doctor… How could you predict my reaction to this past weekend so perfectly?


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2005 BBC

As the Ladies sit down together to watch the final two episodes of Nine’s all-too-short tenure, I’m finally happy and relaxed. I’ve spent a frantic week preparing to put our house back on the market, and it’s finally wrapped up; the listing will go live the next day. The only downer is knowing we’re saying goodbye (again) to the Doctor who started my love affair with this whole crazy show.

We’re all ready for a good time. As the TARDIS crew each settle into the games in which they’ve been inserted, the quips fly around the room. Trin-E and Zu-Zana use the defabricator on Jack, who then assures them, “Ladies, your viewing figures just went up.”

jA’s eyes sparkle. “I’d like to be watching that channel!”

Over with the Anne Droid, Rose’s competitor Rodrick (played by Paterson Joseph, an actor whose name has popped up now and again in “who could be the next Doctor” lists) explains the most basic rules of the Game Station to her. “It’s play—or die.”

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Confession #53: I Can’t Do Collectibles

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Spend enough time in this fandom, and eventually you’ll run across a plethora of “collectibles.” These insidious items may come in the form of mini-figures, statues, radio-controlled toys, or any number of other knick-knacks, but they all have one thing in common: they come in sets, and there are a lot of elements in each set.

I know from other experience that I simply must never buy any Doctor Who collectibles. It would spell my doom. Take, for example, the Case of the Buffy Trading Cards. Several years ago, a friend gave me a couple of random packs of Buffy collectible trading cards he’d picked up for free at a con he works. He knew I like the show, and figured it would be an amusing little gift for me, just for the hell of it. He did not, however, count on my obsessive personality.

Once I opened the cards and looked at them, I inevitably coveted the entire set. Thus began one of the less dignified periods of my life. I spent a ridiculous amount of time and money on eBay trying to fill in the gaps in my collection until I had every last one, complete with binder. Oh, and I’m not talking any old binder, either—I’m talking the officially licensed, covered with photos, designed especially for this collectible card set binder. It had multiple pages, each with room for probably a dozen cards to be encased in their own little plastic cocoons, to display the collection to its fullest.

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Confession #52: I Enjoy a Challenge

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Ah, the brain-bending twists and turns of a modern Doctor Who plot. Be it episode or series, we’ve come to expect some pretty convoluted machinations. And you know what? I like to be made to think about what I’m watching. I enjoy a challenge.

Just not where it pertains to major plot points.

A theme unfortunately common to Series Seven could be summarized as “WTF just happened here?” Perhaps the most obvious case in point was The Angels Take Manhattan. At the end of the episode, Amy and Rory are zapped back in time by the Weeping Angels, forever lost to the Doctor. Because New York City in 1938 was a temporal mess. Or something.

Before the theme music over the final credits had even faded, though, fans everywhere were looking at each other in puzzlement. Why couldn’t the Doctor ever see them again? If NYC was the problem, why couldn’t they meet him in Vegas or London instead? If it was 1938, then why not wait until 1952? Or maybe 1952 London?

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Over the Moon

Review of The Moonbase (#33)
DVD Release Date: 11 Feb 14
Original Air Date: 11 Feb – 04 Mar 1967
Doctor/Companion: Two, Ben Jackson, Polly Wright, Jamie McCrimmon
Stars: Patrick Troughton, Michael Craze, Anneke Wills, Frazer Hines
Preceding Story: The Underwater Menace (Two, Ben, Polly, Jamie)
Succeeding Story: The Macra Terror (Two, Ben, Polly, Jamie)

I’m rather behind the curve on this one. Not only was the Region 1 release three weeks later than the Region 2 release (as has often been the case), but it also fell on the day before I left for this year’s Gally. So I’m afraid I’m not exactly at the cutting edge here, but perhaps not all of my readers were in a rush anyway.

For completionist fans like me, this isn’t precisely a new release. Though two of the four episodes are still missing, the existing ones have been available for quite some time as part of the Lost in Time box set, so I’ve actually seen half of the serial before. However, the addition of the animated reconstructions makes a big difference.

There’s a great deal to be said for the black and white era when it comes to tone. Something about it transcends the dated effects and lends an extra sense of tension to all the scary bits. To say such episodes are “atmospheric” might be cliché, but it doesn’t make it less true.

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