The Blog to Nowhere

And so the Doctor Who madness begins! This is going to be a very long week...

I was watching "The Christmas Invasion" yesterday just to pass the time until I got to watch "The End of Time", and wow, how far we've come with Ten. From a confused man in his jim jams to, well, a crazy guy with crazy hair doing crazy things.

( Pic spam of Ten through the various Christmas specials (no spoilers) )

Okay, yes, there were bits in-between where he was smiling and being cute, but whenever we reached the end of the Christmas special, Ten's mood was always very glum. Are we going to end on a smile, with some grand realization from the Doctor about how he needs someone with him? I read in "The Writer's Tale" that Russell figured out Ten's last words ages before he started writing these episodes so anything could happen.

Thursday was the first official day of the con. On Wednesday you had the chance to pre-register and I swear like half of the con going fans arrived Wednesday night. The line was super long, snaking down one hallway and up again and then finally down the stairs. When my mom and I finally made it up there, we received our shiny passes, our wrist bands, chose a time for the set tour, and we each received a free Stargate Atlantis bag. I was horrified to hear my mom say she was going to use her for groceries. As you saw, I ended up using mine to get autographs. I had actually brought my copy of Stargate Continuum from home, thinking I would get it signed, but then we got the bag and then I saw the con had an official poster, so sufficed to say, I ended up spending more than I had planned. More on that later.

Anyway, Thursday. Stuff didn't start until the afternoon, which was nice, because it let me sleep in. It's funny how they set up the con. Minor actors open it up and the regular actors close it out. I don't know if it's like that every year, but that's how it went this year.

( Many a con photos behind the cut )

So that was day four and five. All through the con I saw posters from Gateworld. You could tell they were from Gateworld forums because they had name tags with their user name on it. So this way people could see each other in person. There were a lot of Gateworld people. It was a little strange seeing an on-line part of fandom out in the real world. I'm so used to interacting with just words. To see real people discussing a show I only talk about on-line, it felt out of place.

Next up: Day Six and Seven. Stargate set tour (whoo!) and autographs aplenty.

I finally found all the issues for Doctor Who: The Forgotten. I had pretty much given up on the IDW Doctor Who comic book series, but I just couldn't resist a multiple Doctor story. And really, the only way we would get a ten Doctors story is in print. Unless some miracle happens for the 50th anniversary; we can all dream, right? ;-)

Anyway, one reason I gave up on the Doctor Who comics was the art. It was slightly cartoonish, which was fine, but it just didn't work sometimes. In one comic, the Doctor was wearing a grey suit and a sweater vest and Martha was in a skirt. Um, did anyone bother to watch this show? The Doctor wears brown and blue and we have never seen Martha in a frilly skirt. So The Forgotten made me slightly more hopefully when I saw it was being drawn by Pia Guerra, the same artist who drew Y: The Last Man. Her stuff isn't too wild, more understated I think, but she thankfully doesn't go off into crazy frames and body parts that are out of proportion to the rest of the body. I have no clue who Tony Lee is, never read any of his stuff, but it's obvious he's a fan, just what you need when writing mutliple Doctors.

( Spoilers for Doctor Who: The Forgotten )

I had high hopes for this story. Multiple Doctors? Awesome. The Villain? Not so much. Still, it's a good read and a nice nostalgia trip for the Who fans. I read somewhere Tony Lee will be writing another Doctor Who comic, with an original Companion, that will lead into the introduction of Eleven. It might actually be enough for me to check out the comics again.

It remains to be seen whether they'll be changing the characters for Life on Mars US. From what I saw, the personalities are staying the same. Sam does seem a little different. I always thought he ended up in the past to learn a lesson of sorts, that police work can more than computers and DNA. He starts thinking less with his head and trusts his gut feelings. If you've seen UK Life on Mars all the way through, Sam does change from his experience in 1973, makes him a better person. US Sam ends up in 1973 for no real apparent reason, though that remains to be seen. The US producers could be taking this show in any direction.

But the characters. All the familiar names are there.

( Pic spam behind the cut. Spoilers for episode 1 of Life on Mars UK and US. )

I was worried they would change the characters drastically, but that doesn't seem like the case. Still, it's weird seeing other actors playing versions of these characters.

Ultimate verdict: UK Life on Mars. Sorry, but I guess I like British television better. :-)

Well, goldy_dollar started it. Thoughts on the "Coming Soon" trailer for the second half of the season!


All of this is pure speculation on my part so I don't want to know if I'm close or way off the mark. Good thing about these trailers is that everything is out of context. You have no idea what's going on until you see the episode.

I think Four is my favourite Doctor after Nine and Ten (yes, they're tied for first place). He can be all crazy and random one second and then completely serious the next. Actually, this seems like an attribute all Doctors have, but Four did it in spades. Well, Ten can be just as crazy but he counters it with angst. ;-)

Part two of "Destiny of the Daleks" involves a lot of walking down corridors and "corridor acting". I love that it has a name; the sets were so short you had to make sure to get all your lines out before the corridor ended. I think it's in the commentary for "Planet of Evil" that Tom Baker said he came up with just stopping, saying a bunch of the lines, then starting off again as a way of accommodating.