Alden Bates' Weblog

I got an itch today to check out what was available in the way of TV sets. There's nothing wrong with my current one, except for the fact it's analogue, and New Zealand's going to shut down analogue transmissions in 2012 in favour of digital. The digital Freeview service was launched early last year and terrestrial Freeview broadcast is supposed to start in April^[1].

I ambled into the LV Martins across the road from work to have a look at the TV sets they had there, and in a brief conversation with a salesperson, discovered that none of the TV sets had a digital decoder built in. I can buy a plain ol' LCD TV set, but I'd have to buy a set top box, and frankly I can't see how you'd balance one on one of those thin LCD sets. Tsk.

TSV 55 went online a few days ago, completing the set of 1998 issues. Two items were already up, though I've fancied up Notes from a Who Island a bit; More on the other item later! The current NZDWFC site scheme is beginning to bug me - the font is too small, the margins too narrow, and things could do with tidying up in general. However that's a job which is going to take Some Time, so I'm not sure when it'll be done. I have a vague idea for a new site scheme, which I'll be testing out on this blog, so stay tuned. Anyway, back to the issue!

Jon's Contextual Continuity article on the New Adventures (I'd love to see one for the new series!) is sure to be a useful resource. I was surprised to see myself thanked at the top, though I can't remember what, if anything, I contributed to the article! His Doctor's Dilemma column tackles a question about Seven Keys to Doomsday, but only explains how the UK version fits into continuity - what about the NZ performance? There's also a question about the TV movie console room; After last year's Children in Need sketch, it's apparent that the Doctor simply changed the desktop theme to "Steampunk".

Tenure without Trial was the other article which was already up. This was Peter's idea, inspired by an article Doctor Who Magazine had done detailing a fictional reality where Doctor Who wasn't cancelled after season 26. In our fictional history, the 1986 hiatus never took place, and Colin Baker continued as the Doctor for another three years, with the seasons being filled out with stories which were under consideration for production at the time, Slipback, a couple of the Trial of a Time Lord stories, and even Time and the Rani retitled and re-envisaged as a three-parter with Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant. I suspect our optimism may have been a little over the top at times, but it's difficult to say what Doctor Who might have become had things been different. Tenure is illustrated by Peter, of course, including a piece featuring the sixth Doctor and Mel which I'm bound as a Mel fan to mention.

The highlight of TSV 55 for me was Peter Adamson's comic strip Chrysalis, set on Vortis and featuring the eighth Doctor, which looks just as good online as it did in the printed issue. Fantastic artwork!

Next time on "What's Online": The worst Doctor Who stories ever!

See also: write-ups by Paul and Jamas.
Previously: TSV 54

The other day I spotted this at the bottom of a technorati page:

Which made me wonder exactly how Marisa Miller's bottom qualifies as a technology story.

Why is the focus necessarily on cutting personal tax rates. If they took some of the tax off petrol, or necessary food items such as bread, they could probably help a lot more...

This would have been AVP2, but the cinemas are failing to play it at a convenient time for me.

Dark Star is a 1974 John Carpenter movie about four men 20 years into a mission to clear the galaxy of unstable planets. The special effects are roughly on a par with 60s television.

Although Dark Star's supposed to be a comedy (a quote on the back of the case describes it as "riotously funny") most of the comedy sequences are pretty lame - at one point one of the characters begins producing comedy props and annoying his mates with them - and there's more amusement spawned from the low budget special effects. Possibly the highlight is the sentient bomb #20, which keeps receiving false signals telling it that it's time to launch. The best thing about the movie is that it inspired co-writer and actor Dan O'Bannon to write another movie about chasing an alien around a spaceship.

Speaking of, may I introduce Dodgy Alien #7...

Continue reading "Friday Movie: Dark Star"