Category: Television & Movies

JMS has posted a couple of new CGI renders from the FX sequences and main titles of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales here. (Am I the only one looking at the vaguely Fuji-esque series of streaks behind the B5 logo and thinking “Have you swilled Brevari and played Atari today?” 😆 ) The second shot, despite the fact that the nebula in the background looks completely different from the way it’s been portrayed before, almost makes my heart sing. Actually, parts of my heart are already singing. I just heard the most ungodly noise from from one of the ventricles – trust me, you don’t wanna know.

This brings to mind my recent purchase of The Legend Of The Rangers on DVD. (Hey, I got it on special.) For those who don’t remember Legend, whose name coincidentally shortened to LOTR, it was the last attempt to bring B5 back to our screens, following a series of generally well-received TV movies on TNT and the sadly premature death of Crusade. LOTR premiered early in 2002, went up against an NFL championship game, and came out of that battle in much the same shape that most bugs come out of a pitched battle with the windshield of a fast-moving car. In other words, it pancaked, despite being overpromoted by Sci-Fi Channel, a network that seemed really hip to having a new B5 series on its air. … Read more

Stick around after the show for an exclusive bonus scene that, for all the context we’re going to give it, might as well be re-enacted by my cats.
(Hey, you know it’s within my power to do it. 😈 )… Read more

Sleep still hasn’t claimed me yet, despite the Nyquil (and no, I haven’t been fighting the sleep either – I think I need another swig of that icky green stuff.)
I was recently re-reading a bit of the outstanding, essential-to-any-Doctor-Who-fan’s-bookshelf volume Regeneration, by Philip Segal and Gary Russell, which is basically the book on the making of the 1996 movie. Love it or hate it, the ’96 movie is such an important part of the mythology, and sometimes I think the reason it gets such a bum rap is because it’s only available on the other side of the Atlantic on DVD. (I kid you not when I say that this movie, and the promise circa 2001 of imminent Blake’s 7 DVD sets, were why I purchased a multi-region DVD player.) I know folks who are all about the new series and think the movie was crap, which I just can’t fathom – the ’96 movie dictated so much of the pace and style of the new series that you’d think they were made nine months apart rather than nine years.
To read Russell and Segal’s book is to get a better understanding for how far off-format the project that eventually became the Paul McGann movie could’ve strayed. Excerpts from abandoned scripts and series bibles are plentiful, and the mind boggles are how close the whole thing came to being a reboot of the entire mythology with no room for the 26 years of the original series (though there would’ve been plenty of reasons why that wouldn’t have been a bad move when trying to launch a series in the States). Every time I read this book, I find something new that I hadn’t noticed before, one of which I’ve included a scan of here because it’s just deliciously ironic. (Obviously, it’s from a stage of the proceedings before Paul McGann was decided on as the eighth Doctor.) One wonders if Mr. Eccleston would’ve been more amenable, at a younger age, to the concept of the Doctor as being somewhat foppish. Or what kind of Doctor that Hugh Laurie would’ve been (wait, let me rephrase that… 😆 ).
I’ve recently rewatched some of Eccleston’s episodes and gained a better liking for him; I think by ingesting the last half of his season as the Doctor, I burned out a bit on his portrayal, but now that we’ve had Tennant in place for a year, I think the intention was always that Eccleston would only be there for a year, and that the character would be necessarily lightened up after another actor took over. Like everyone before him, Eccleston was the right actor, with the right take on the character, at the right time, with almost more of a straight through-line from the seventh Doctor to the ninth.
If you haven’t read this book, I strongly, strongly recommend it – it really is right up there with the Howe/Stammers/Walker books on the making of the series, and at no point do either of its authors wind up as apologists for the ’96 movie. (Despite the fact that it’s Segal’s baby, he’s actually surprisingly harsh on it, and on himself, in places.) You can check it out here, and if you’ve got a region-free DVD player, might as well get the DVD here, because God only knows if it’ll ever see the light of day on DVD on this continent unless you import it. You don’t need to see it to understand the new series, if you’re new to the whole mythology, and yet it’s so interesting to see how a whole different team in a different decade tried to re-introduce the audience to the show.
Apologies for the Doctor Who ramblings and sales pitch; I just thought that excerpt was worth sharing. More green stuff for me now. Night night.… Read more

Word reaches us via Outpost Gallifrey that Dreamwatch – formerly Dreamwatch Bulletin, and originally the fanzine Doctor Who Bulletin before that – has ended its print run. For those who don’t know it from its original incarnation (a term that seems somehow appropriate), DWB was a Doctor Who fanzine that seemed to specialize in hyperbole. Someone once wrote in to their letters page something along the lines of “What are you going to say next, ‘[then-producer John Nathan-Turner] ate my hamster!’?” And that wasn’t much of an exaggeration. The editor at the time, you see, had it in for JN-T. Well, almost everyone did at the time, but DWB excelled at the art of dropping the issue and making the attack personal, at one point even accusing JN-T of celebrity stunt casting for the sake of then trying to get those guest performers to show up in the Christmas pantomimes he produced in the off-season. (Uh…hello? Celebrity stunt casting is a time-honored tradition intended to draw viewers in to sample your show who might not otherwise be watching faithfully, whether it’s Doctor Who or not.) “JN-T must go!” and “Saward must go!” and “Sylvester McCoy must go!” were frequent flyer headlines on the front page of DWB in the late 80s.
Many readers remember them for getting scoops on the show ahead of the other ‘zines (and keep in mind, news about the show still traveled at the speed of print, these being the 2400 baud modem days), but I remember them for being an object lesson in everything that a fanzine should strive not to be. It’s no exaggeration to say that, in the latter days of Star Trek: Enterprise, when fans were crying out for Berman and Braga to be axed (or worse), DWB definitely came to mind. (I wasn’t fond of Berman or Braga from a creative standpoint, but I wouldn’t wish either of them actual harm or complete professional ruin. There’s just no call for the former, and they’re quite capable of seeing to the latter under their own steam.)
I subscribed for one year, running from mid-1986 through mid-87. I didn’t feel compelled to re-up my subscription after that, because the ‘zine was less about the show as it was about the editors’ vendetta. At the opposite end of the spectrum, when the show was canned in 1986 (something which was later retconned into an “18 month hiatus”), DWB threatened to sue the BBC to get this show that was now in ruins back on the air. Holy TrekUnited, Batman.
I know that passion is at the heart of fandom, so sometimes a cool head is too much to ask. But as fondly as some remember it, I recall DWB as a lesson – a lesson of what fandom should try never to become: vindictive and obsessive.… Read more

When I go back and think about the years I spent working in radio, and then I got out of radio and have scarcely listened to radio since then. Occasionally NPR, but even then, maybe once or twice a year if it’s an interview or a feature that I’m aware of in advance.
The same really seems to be happening to me with TV now. I still watch stuff, and I have a few “appointment” shows that I keep up with (Galactica, Lost, etc.), but by and large, the TV stays off now, at least in my game room. I might occasionally watch some TV with the Mrs., but generally if we do (like the all-night Torchwood marathon this weekend), it’s something on DVD.
This is not the point where I get all snooty and say that TV doesn’t have anything to offer anyone anymore, because I don’t buy that. Just saying that I’m kinda liking this whole business of not having to have Wife Swap on the TV behind me, or The Bachelor, or what have you. I’ll admit that I’ve gotten a little unplugged from the local news too, which I’ll probably need to get back into later, but right now, it’s kinda like I’m in detox where that’s concerned. … Read more

Sorry for the lack of blogitude this week; obviously I’m trying to get used to a whole different set of rhythms (with, admittedly, varying degrees of success, seeing as I’m writing this after 1 in the morning) and I just haven’t had a whole lot to report.
The other day I got together with Kevin “k8track” from the DP forums, who happened to be in town, and we joyously and unapologetically geeked out at a McDonald’s for about an hour. I’m sure the folks who frequent that particular establishment aren’t used to discussions of the merits of Space: 1999 at lunchtime (or, indeed, my not-at-all-quietly-stated belief that being in the middle of a Camille Coduri-and-Catherine Tate sandwich would be an even better lunchtime activity). Good times.
Tonight my wife and I sat down and shoveled the last seven episodes of Torchwood into our eyeballs in one sitting; I hadn’t seen the last four yet, so at least part of the time it was a total surprise to me. (Though I certainly didn’t mind watching Random Shoes again.) Though in places very uneven (but name me a freshman show that isn’t), I thought Torchwood was enormously entertaining, and I’m eager to get into season 2. … Read more