"No, Not the Mind Probe!!?!"

Well, I hadn't until I ran across it this evening. I liked it very much, and wish the scene had made it into the televised story; might have made me feel a bit easier about the ending

SPOILERS if you haven't seen the end of S7 yet:



It leaves me in a slight quandary, however. On the one hand, I think this is now my personal "fanon", as of the moment I saw it. On the other, it invalidates a central plank of the story I was already starting to write for the Eleven/Romana ficathon. Ah, well.

So, er...interesting.

( SPOILERS ENSUE!!! )

Anyway - only so many shopping days left to Who's return and a fresh start, which is probably needed at this point. Can't wait. And then 2013, which I still feel needs emphatically marking somehow, by us, even if the BBC's efforts don't come up to snuff.

To sort-of quote one of Eleven's more embarrassing friends, this isn't the end. It isn't even the beginning of the end. It's merely the end of the beginning...

Or to put it another way, it's the last part of Pond Life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxXAY7LyjcM

In which all is not well in the House of Pond. I think this is our direct intro into the beginning of S7. It has that sort of to-be-fully-explained-later vibe about it, I think.

Personally, I think the events of this part probably stem from a disagreement over that poor Ood and his predicament. I still can't get over that...

I may have promised more nonsense relating to the impending series tonight. I may have lied, a bit. Instead, content yourselves with marvelling at the cutting edge Doctor Who 50th Anniversary artwork the Beeb has commissioned (I was alerted to this by listening to the extremely droll Radio Free Skaro podcast - check it out if you've got some time to kill):

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2012/08/tealadydesign-bbcworldwide-artwork-220812200008.html

I was going to offer my carefully considered critique of said artwork, but on reflection "huh, could've knocked that up in Photoshop* in half an hour and who on Earth decided which monsters got in?" probably about covers it. ;D

Oh...and ONE DAY TO GO!

*or its free-to-download near-equivalent, anyway


EDIT: As lost_spook points out in the comments section, I could almost certainly not, in fact, produce better artwork than that myself even with the best computer graphics programme in the world with all the bells and whistles, and certainly not within a thirty-minute time frame. Nevertheless, I still don't think it's that good. Something about the differently-scaled Doctor portraits jumbled together like that is just unpleasing to my eyes, or something. Apologies for any confusion caused. ;D

I notice my flist seem to have got bored of "Pond Life". It's not exactly the greatest thing Who has ever produced, I'll admit. Still, this might raise a sort of apathetic half-smile (and spot the perhaps-sorta oldschool Who in-joke):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm0dqb7rKpk

So, to recap yesterday's rambling narrative, I was just saying that, as many other fans have said, NuWho S6 wasn't really as good, overall, as the mostly-magnificent S5, although probably not for any of the reasons the would-be cognoscenti were pontificating over at the time. What it was not, however many fans may have said so, was terrible (in my opinion), yea even as terrible as S2, or even a game of two halves (as S3 and S4 arguably were, again in my opinion). It was, generally, a mixed bag, I think, but not to the extent that would turn me off the Eleven-Moffat project or anything (and let us be clear, here I am discussing Moffat's body of work in relation to NuWho, not whatever he might say or think or be like in real life or indeed his work on other projects). Anyway, and partially in response to a conversation that started on the previous post's comments, tomorrow I will wax lyrical about some of the stories I really liked in S6, but for now I will content myself with sharing with you...

( My Three Least Favourite S6 Stories )

Three days remaining! That is all!

I don't know if I've made myself quite clear on this point yet, but already I am ludicrously excited about the impending 50th anniversary of Doctor Who (well, November next year is almost impending, isn't it?), even though I sort of know that whatever the Beeb actually pulls out of the hat probably won't live up to (my) expectations. Come on, it's the only Doctor Who 50th anniversary we're ever going to see, right?

(I'll eat those words in 2055 when a very elderly RTD is presiding over the 50th anniversary of the new series, but until then...)

Anyway, thought this was encouraging news:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/aug/09/mark-gatiss-drama-creation-doctor-who

I don't want to get into a debate on the merits of Mark Gatiss as a writer (although we can, if you want to - personally, I feel he's done his best work outside of televised Who, but that's just an opinion) - what I find encouraging is that the BBC feel the anniversary is something worth marking with more than just a special episode one Saturday night, and also that nowadays they're happy to acknowledge and celebrate the old series too (I mean, I know it's only a 50th anniversary if you include the old series), instead of going along with the mainstream media idea that Who only got good one day in 2005.

So yeah, basically I just crave the BBC's approval and validation, clearly. ;D

(And very, er, spirited below-the-line "discussion" on the linked article between advocates of old Who and new Who about the merits or otherwise of the different eras)

Again, me and my off the cuff responses to things I've seen in't papers, but my response to seeing the Guardian's much-hyped "first official picture" from the impending new series of NuWho:

CLICK FOR SPOILERY SPOILER IMAGE


( AND EVEN MORE SPOILERY SILLINESS )


Oh, and I understand there's a S7/whatever trailer incoming too. That'll be exciting, won't it?

Geoffrey Hughes (1944-2012)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19032928

Maybe best known to non-UKian Who fans as Mr Popplewick in Trial of a Time Lord, and of course played Hyacinth Bucket's ne'er-do-well brother-in-law Onslow in Keeping Up Appearances, but to me (and probably quite a lot of other people on this side of the pond) he'll always be Eddie Yates, binman/Hilda Ogden's lodger in Coronation Street. Which is a bit strange, as Wikipedia tells me I was only five years old when he left said soap, but he'd clearly worked his way into my consciousness by then.

But yes, another one of my pop cultural reference points gone. It seems to be a recurring theme, these past couple of years.

Well, I have returned and, to be honest, despite my dire expectations the weather last week in the vicinity of Penrith and Keswick was much better than we could have hoped for; grey but dry last Saturday, Sunday, Monday, admittedly peeing down on Tuesday, but really rather bright and sunny for the rest of the week (although on Thursday I was trudging along an extremely exposed ridge on the Cumbria-Northumbria border following a mostly-surviving section of Hadrian's Wall, which while sunny proved to be blimmin' cold too).

Anyway, sights were seen, ale was quaffed and photos were taken, so I reckon I'm counting that one as a result. To get back on-topic, anyway:




( Read All About the Violent and Interesting History of Pencils! )

I will just leave you with a book rec. I am currently reading State of Emergency by Dominic Sandbrook, a social and political history of Britain between 1970 and 1974. The author is perhaps a bit softer than I would like on the Conservative Party in general and on then-Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher in particular (but then again, looking at the newspapers he writes for as a day job, this might not be wholly surprising), but not to the point where I'd say it was a one-sided view of the period. The stuff about contemporary popular culture is pure gold, and very interesting for the Doctor Who fan. The chapter about the rise in popularity of environmentalism during the period is even entitled "The Green Death", and features a detailed analysis of said Who story and a couple of others in the context of the period. I haven't got to the chapter about what many people at the time called "women's lib" yet, but a quick flick forward reveals repeated mentions of Sarah Jane Smith in the first couple of pages. ;D Good stuff.

Hello there. Just to say - I've finally decided on a subject for the 100 Things challenge I signed up to back in April, and plan to start posting very soon. After toying with a couple of ideas (I've got a couple of half-finished meta things about Doctor Who that I might post on here anyway if I ever complete them), I've decided to go with something a bit different.

100 Things I've Taken Photos Of...!

Because I recently sorted out a few years worth of photographs I've taken on various daytrips/escapades/one honest-to-gawd holiday going back to 2007, and I thought some of them might be interesting. Quite a lot from various (mainly military) museums and at least one zoo, as well as a couple of Welsh castles and bits of English and Welsh countryside. And I'll no doubt spin various personal anecdotes and/or witty, erudite (?!) yarns about the things in the pictures as and when seems appropriate.

So watch this space.