Best line of Time of the Doctor

"Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?"

It is no spoiler to say that I have mixed feelings about the regeneration episode, Time of the Doctor.

And it is not much of a spoiler to say that this was my favorite line of the whole episode...and I wonder what the line actually implies for the newest Doctor.

My personality is like the Sixth Doctor

You are the Sixth Doctor
Take The Doctor Who Personality Test and Horoscope today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

You are brilliant and have no qualms about letting the world know it. Everyone thinks you are a total twat! You have no fashion sense and always look as if you got dressed in the dark closet of a street clown. You have no real friends to speak of; only a couple of people who tolerate you. You enjoy fishing and have no patience for other people. You will end up on trial for some dubious offence. You will then dissapear and slowly begin to swell.

Why the TARDIS is always lost

Apple Maps will ensure that the TARDIS never gets lost.

There have been a lot of theories about why the Doctor cannot pilot (steer) the TARDIS with even fifty ten percent accurancy. Well, I now have a new theory for why the Doctor is never sure where he is going to materialize--Apple Maps. At some point in time, the Model 40 TARDIS designers decided to cut corners (we need no stinking map makers; we just need to plug in data), and installed Apple Maps as part of the standard TARDIS software package.

MDE artwork--The Master (Roger Delgado)

The Master--Roger Delgado (MDE March 1992).

Sometime during 1991, I started experimenting with grease pencil (or china markers). To this day, they are actually one of my favorite drawing instruments. At the time, one needs to remember that I was working at a Burger King--I was surrounded by grease pencils; it was only a matter of time before I started to use them in artwork.

This particular drawing is the famous Doctor Who villian--the Master. I am fairly sure that the local PBS station was showing the episodes of the Third Doctor at the time, hence the Roger Delgado version of the Master.

MDE artwork The Valeyard

Ball point pen drawing of the Valeyard (6-6-1991 MDE).

Going through a pile of old sketch books the other day, I ran across some of my old artwork. It is so old that one can see that I was still using my birth name as an artist (since then, I have placed everything under my penname...except for the bits that I do not want people to easily connect with myself).

This particular drawing of the Valeyard (Michael Jayston) was done is June 1991. I used a black ball-point pen on newsprint.

The Valeyard is one of those Doctor Who villians that had so much promise, but the BBC failed to get the most out of him. Of course, let's be honest--it is not easy to do so when you are involved with a fourteen espisode story arc with multiple writers...and no one really knowing how it is really supposed to end.

One would hope that the final story of Trial of a Time Lord would have cleared up some of the problems and difficulties, but no, it is BBC pulp theater hour with the last story being written by the unknowing at the very last second.

I always wonder what happened to the Valeyard, just like I wonder how he came into existence, but we will never be given official answers to this because the Time Lords are no more.

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.

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.

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?

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?

Happy New Year

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Craig Ferguson Show Doctor Who dance opening

The unaired dance opening from the Craig Ferguson Show's Doctor Who (Matt Smith) night---which was "leaked" onto the internet.

And I have to say that "It is totally AWESOME!"

But then again, I am a nerd, ain't I?

My reaction to the Beast Below and to Victory of the Daleks

I am running a little behind with my commentary to the new Doctor Who espisodes, so I am going to do a two-for-one special today.

I liked the espisode The Beast Below. I found the Smilies to be particularly disturbing. I also liked how Amy Pond had to save the day; bottom line, she really understands the Doctor. It was also nice to see her notice something that the Doctor missed, which reveals that for all the sensory poweress that the Doctor displayed in The Eleventh Hour, the Doctor still does not understand human nature...or for that matter, even alien nature as well as his companions do on occasion. I loved the final shot of the espisode.

My feelings towards Victory of the Daleks are less warm. Despite the iconic nature of the setting and characters, I think that espisode was rather lack-luster. Obviously, there is going to be an espisode down the line that drives how important this espisode is...but I can sum up the entire espisode in three sentences.

Spoiler alert!!!---sort of.

Do not read the next section unless you want to know all you need to know about the espisode.

***
***
***

Doctor Who and the Daleks meet Winston Churchill. The Daleks fool both the Doctor and Churchill. The Daleks get a new paint job.

***
***
***

Ok, maybe the three sentences are not a major spoiler. But you get the point...the espisode is just a set-up for something coming down the line.

Wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that Amy Pond (and probably the entire human race) do not remember the planets in the sky.