A Doctor Who Timeline

I love timelines! I really, really do. And the good folks at CableTV.com have just created a wonderful one for those of us who really like Doctor Who. Enjoy.


Via: CableTV.com

Two Lost Episodes of Doctor Who Rediscovered

Doctor Who Galaxy 4 part three Airlock.

The big news of the day is that two more lost episodes of Doctor Who has been recovered. The two episodes are from William Hartnell's Galaxy Four (part three Airlock) and Patrick Troughton's Underwater Menace (part two). The discovery of these episodes brings the total of missing episodes down to 106 (still 59 percent of the 253 installments that Hartnell and Troughton made). I still hope someday to see the final episode of Tenth Planet without having to build a TARDIS of my own.

For more on the news, check out the article on the recovery of these two episodes by Radio Times.

Where no chocolate has gone before

Red M&M as Captain Kirk.

The Hamilton Collection has a figurine this season of the Red M&M dressed up as Captain Kirk (about $38 total). I am not sure if I believe their claim that "Stellar demand is expected, so jump into warp speed and order now!" Nevertheless, it will make some nerd's Christmas list.

Star Trek Pizza Cutter

What does every Trekker need for Christmas? A Star Trek pizza cutter. Yes, there is a pizza cutter shaped like the NCC-1701 Enterprise. You know you want one. (Heck, I want one, but my wife says "No." Evil Klingon wife.)

Happy 48 Doctor Who!

48 years ago today, the very first episode of Doctor Who was aired on BBC. I understand that other important things happened that day; but let's be honest, I am just not old enourgh to be as heavily invested in them as I have been in Doctor Who.

My first Doctor was actually Peter Davison, and the last Doctor (of the ones that existed at the time) was Tom Baker. I guess that makes me a little weird, doesn't it? I actually saw new episodes with both Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy before Tom Baker.

This odd exposure to the Doctors was the result of my public broadcasting station which were showing the episodes in order---except for the new seasons as they were released to them. I had actually started watching during the first episode of Castrovalva, that is how close I came to having the typically American (80s) experience of seeing Tom Baker first.

Happy 48th Doctor Who---may the good stories keep coming for many more years.

Evil Turducken

I have a friend on Facebook, Wheezy, who I like to accuse of inventing every weird food that I come across---it is her own fault really; after all, she posts pictures of food porn.

(Food porn is not as bad as it sounds---it is not like she is posting pictures of bacon wrapped deep fried twinkles...hmmm, I wonder if there is such a thing.)

Anyways, on Supernatural last week (7x09), Dean Winchester discovered an new favorite food---the Pepper Jack Turducken Slammer sandwich.

Given the time of year, it is just a few days until Thanksgiving; we have all came across Turducken mania, which I guess is the new favorite holiday meal of choice for some people. Basically a Turducken is a chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey---or as Dean Winchester put it, "perfect storm of your top three eatable birds."

I will admit when I first heard of it, I react much like Bobby Singer does in the espisode, thinking that it sounded a little unnatural. I have yet to try one...and obviously with good reason.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! If you disappear, I am going to blame the Turducken.

And for the morbidly curious, Wheezy did find something more alarming on the internet---a recipe for a whole stuffed camel.

Spock learns to play a game

Even Spock (Zachary Quinto) learns something new every day. In this case, he learns to play Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock game, a rather nerdish game that is played by the nerds on "The Big Bang Theory."

Townish Fantasies

Last night, I was watching the first episode of The Secret Circle. The show seems to be another teen-angst clone along the lines of The Vampire Diaries. But that is not what I want to talk about.

What I want to talk about is the use of a small town.

Why is it that so many television shows have the supernatural showing up in small towns?

A short list of suspects:

Smallville (ok, it was mainly superheroes and supervillians, but there was some magic also)
Supernatural
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Vampire Diaries
True Blood (if I am not mistaken---I am guilty of not paying much attention to that show)
Roswell (ok, aliens, but it fits the theory I am about to expound upon)

I am quite sure that I missed some. Compare these shows with series that have the supernatural and unusual happening in big cities.

Another list:

New Amsterdam
Highlander the Series
Forever Knight
Moonlight
Angel

(I am not sure if Charmed happened in a small town or city.)

So from this information, we can make a guess. If you are a teenager and stumble across a secret that humanity is not meant to know, odds are that you are living in a small town where everyone knows everyone. And if you are an adult who just figured out that vampires and immortals are real, then odds are that you are living in a big city.

I am quite sure that there is a deeper literary theory to this...but I will be damned if I am going to come up with it given the fuzzy state of my mind tonight.

Is is just me? Doctor Who filler vs core arc stories

Last night, I watched the Doctor Who episodes Night Terrors and The Girl Who Waited. Maybe it is just me, but I think that the random filler stories are more entertaining than the episodes of the core story arc (Doctor's Death/River Song). But then again, I am an old fashioned type of Whovian.

Previous to the modern era (in my opinion), Doctor Who did long story arcs much better. Or at least, they were more entertaining.

I found Let's Kill Hitler pretty lame in places. I was not fooled for a second by the whole Mel ploy. The instant I saw the red car, I knew it was stolen and that there was only one person who regularly helps herself to other people's stuff in this particular season (Series 6 or 32 depending on how you want to count it).

Even the most under-rated long story arc of the previous era, Trial of a Time Lord, was more interesting. But that may just be me. After all, I am a Colin Baker fan.

(Note that I like Matt Smith; it is just that I can't help but compare the current episodes to Trial of a Time Lord which was the first long arc Doctor Who story I ever saw.)

Dont Blink Cat (Doctor Who)

Don't blink, don't look away from it, or the cat will get you.

MafiaWars has a TARDIS

Here is something that I stumbled across in MafiaWars (one of those silly Facebook games that I occasionally play)---a TARDIS. Ok, it is not a TARDIS; it is a chronobooth. It can be found in the Time Travel mystery crates. It is a rare (not sure what category it is in) with 109 attack and 133 defense. Gee, a chronobooth almost looks exactly like a TARDIS, doesn't it?

No clue what it all went wrong

Believe it or not, this picture originally started out as a picture of Sarah Palin for my ongoing Magic the Gathering NOT series. And it drifted away from the original concept to being...this. 

Morgan Drake Eckstein is a geek and a nerd

Yes, I---the wonderful Morgan Drake Eckstein---am both a geek and a nerd. Probably less geek than nerd, but that is only due to the lack of monetary funds. In this picture, you can see one of my cats, Merlin (actually, he is my wife's cat), a book and mediation and the kabbalah, a book on Freemasonry. a collection of Tomb Raider comics, the first volume of the Mage saga by Matt Wagner, a thumb-drive, a digitual (tape) recorder, my trusty Neo (think keyboard with a primitive word processing program), and a Doctor Who scarf that one of my sisters made me. This blog entry is a contest entry---I am trying to prove that I am a geek. Wish me luck.

Quick review Doctor Who The Doctor's Wife

While I have never put together a list of my top ten favorite Doctor Who stories, The Doctor's Wife would make the list.
Before watching the episode, I was worried---after all, there was a lot of hype surrounding this one. People have high hopes for a Neil Gaiman written episode, and occasionally even the writing gods fail to love up to their standards (not that I am saying that Gaiman is a writing god, but some people seem to think that he is).

This story was a treat. It is one of those stories that take us to the very beginning of the series. This is going to be one of those episodes that die-hard fans are going to watch again and again, for it throws light on a lot of the mysteries of the series.

Reading the various reviews on the web of the episode, the one thing I have yet to see mentioned is the fact that the Tardis' energy appears to be the same as the regeneration energy. For those who have watched the entire season so far, think about where else we have seen these energies---is there a connection here that is still unclear?

The backward life of River Song

*no spoilers*

Watched the second episode of the current Doctor Who season, Day of the Moon, last night. Also rewatched the first episode, The Impossible Astronaut.

And I realized that I feel sorry for River Song. Each time, we encounter her (because we are following the story from the Doctor's timeline) it is earlier in her life. She is really a tragic character.

The first time, we encounter her, the Doctor does not know her. Obviously she has feelings for our beloved Time Lord. How heart-breaking that must be, to know everything about someone and not have them know (remember) you.

How terrible her interactions with the Doctor must be. Each additional time (from her viewpoint) she encounters him, he knows her less and she knows him more.

And how soon before the balance point is reached, and it is the Doctor who becomes the tragic character---knowing her more and she knowing less of him?

Quick commentary about Day of the Moon: There were some great lines. The first episode did not feel so choppy when watched back to back with the second. And there was the moment (if you saw the episode you know what I mean) that really drives home the point that River Song's is a tragic one.

If you have seen Day of the Moon, and want to see a chart of the Doctor's and River Song's timelines as they currently stand, check out this neat chart that someone made. (Sorry, I forgot the creator's name as news broke that Osama Bin Laden was officially dead.)

Quick review Doctor Who The Impossible Astronaut Pt 1

*no spoilers* I watched the Impossible Astronaut Part 1, the first episode of the new season of Doctor Who, last night. Also watched the Confidential that went along with the episode.
Honestly, this is an episode that is hard to review. It felt choppy. It is also one of those episodes that you really need to see the entire season first to correctly judge.

And that is the rub. In the first ten minutes of the episode, basically the various elements of the entire season were introduced. The sinister aliens, the master mind guiding the characters actions, the baseline of the Doctor and companions personalities (for those viewers new to this group of characters), the opening puzzle, the local who is going to be a major player in the action, and the event that is going to drive the entire plot. All that was introduced in the first ten minutes.

Ironically, the first ten minutes---much like the rest of the episode---seemed to move slowly. This may not be the episode's fault. Over the last couple of days, I have re-watched both parts of The End of Time, The Eleventh Hour, The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang. Given at what is hinted about in this episode, it may have been moving fast without me being aware of the speed.

(The Confidential seemed to move quicker. Loved the parts where they talked about building the Oval Office set and the look at what a director's day is like.)

What gives me hope about this season, given this slow first episode, is that the alien menace is really scary, especially if you stop and think about the possibility that they might actually exist without your conscious awareness of them, and the fact that the Doctor and his companions are being manipulated.

So this is one of those episodes, much like some from classical Doctor Who, that one needs to look at again after the dust clears to decide whether it was worth the film that was used. Here is to the new season of Doctor Who---it can only speed up from this point.

Quick comment on My Sarah Jane

I just got done watching My Sarah Jane: A Tribute to Elizabeth Sladen. And I agree with David Tennatt that "She was the ultimate Doctor Who girl." I will admit that she is one of my baselines for what a companion should be like (I write Doctor Who fan fiction on occasion). Sladen (1948-2011) will be missed.

Doctor Who on iTunes

iTunes, the Devil's Music Service (trademark pending *wink*), is selling Season Passes for Season Six of Doctor Who in their American virtual storefront for $19.99 plus tax. The only reason I discovered this is that I was downloading the free music of the week, and spotted the fact that iTunes were pimping a couple free two-minutes peeks of the new season.

And speaking of sneak peeks, does anyone else find the line "There are no monsters in the White House" being uttered by (I presume) President Nixon to be utterly amusing---or is it just me?

Catnip abuse Facebook meme

For fun, I wrote the following Facebook status and am trying to see how many of my friends I can get to copy and paste it to their status.

Please copy and paste this as your status if you know cat who is doing too much catnip. There are many cats who are afflicted with this habit, causing them to act wild, then sleep off their nip-high. Catnip makes cats less productive and sometimes makes dogs look more intelligent (dogs really are not intelligent at all). Encourage all cats to give up the nip.

Why? Because I too want to be an evil FB meme god.

QoD Did Capitalism End Life on Mars?

I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitialism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet.

       ----Venezula's President Hugo Chavez

Beware creepy librarians

From a sheet of Call of Cthulhu Survival Tips [author unknown]:

Never become good friends with University professors. They are the living embodiment of trouble. In fact, watch out for people whose job is to read books, specifically old books, or tomes as they like to call them. They always want help after having summoned The Horrible Horror with a Shady Reputation. Helping them will get you dead right quick, or at the very least insane. Surreal happenings or outer-dimensional summoning may be commonplace in their lives; better not make is commonplace in your life.

Being illiterate is a good thing.

Happy New Year

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