26 Seasons of Doctor Who

    If you read the blog regularly, you’ll know that I’m quite the Doctor Who fan.  If not, you can believe it's true.  And no, not the Johnny-Come-Lately ‘isn’t David Tennant so awesome,’ 'bow-ties are cool' Doctor Who fan.  I’m not against the new show by any means, though the last few seasons have kind of sucked.  But I’m a classic Who fan through and through, and I have been since watching Robot (Tom Baker’s first) on MPBN Channel 12 in Bangor, ME some time in the early to mid 80s (Bernie Roscetti was a superstar, man).  It’s been a favorite ever since.  As a youth, I would devour every new story every Saturday afternoon (occasionally Sundays).  They would play full stories, so it might be on for 90 minutes or 2 ½ hours, depending.  I loved the Tom Baker years, was confused when Peter Davision came on, and didn’t like that curly haired guy (Colin Baker).  When it started over, going back to the original William Hartnell era, I lost track.  I didn’t respond to his ornery old crank attitude, and the slower pace, but still saw stories here and there, as they showed a handful of Hartnell and then Troughton.  I think I was more into it again when Jon Pertwee came on, but only got excited again when it returned to the Tom Baker years.  On the next cycle through, I saw Sylvester McCoy, and I was shocked and upset to learn the show had been cancelled.  How could this be?

    When I got NetFlix about six years ago, I was enjoying the early episodes of the new series (Christopher Eccleston is still my favorite of the new guys) and thought I’d start watching some of my favorite classic stories, and some I had never seen.  This was when I started to understand the depth of what had happened to Who, with the loss of so many early episodes.  So much of Hartnell and almost all of Troughton seemed to be missing, possibly forever.  I don’t know what prompted me, and I don’t know when I decided.  But about two or maybe three years ago, I started trying to get more systematic about my viewing, organizing the disks by their proper chronological order.  I was off on a multi-year journey to cover as much of Doctor Who’s classic run as I could, with what was on the market and what was available through NetFlix.  Seeing a lot of the stories for the first time in 25 years, and some for the first time (not to mention behind the scenes info and interviews), I came to a new understanding and appreciation of the series.  I found myself responding more to Hartnell and Troughton than ever before.  William Hartnell is still a challenge.  The show was finding its feet.  The character was very different and most of the rules and larger concepts were missing.  And it wasn’t uncommon for stories to become repetitive, awkward, and yes, boring.  But there was plenty to love.  And once Susan left, the companions were less annoying.

    There are so few stories from the Patrick Troughton years, that I hardly feel like I can say much, but I liked Jamie and Victoria a lot as companions, and those stories that do exist seem pretty good.  But the real discovery was with the beginning of Jon Pertwee’s years, where I took an immediate liking to the man in a way I never had before.  He’s more dashing and brazen, more active and willful.  And there's a wistful bitterness that I connect with.  So, while the writers and budget kept the Doctor on Earth for much of this time (erg!), and The Master showed up, I found Pertwee catapulting to the top of my favorites list.  Which reminds me, this re-watching of the series convinced me that I can’t bloody stand The Master.  He doesn’t fit.  His episodes are usually lame.  On occasion, he even shows up in a good story, promptly ruining it.  The mustache twirling villain might have worked once in a great while, but as a regular recurring character, it sucked.  I’d argue that the show didn’t need a recurring villain, but if it was going to have one, it needed to be a better one.  It was also during this time, and serving as a bridge into the Tom Baker years, that Sarah Jane Smith shared adventures with the Doctor.  Having recently seen her guest on the new Who, and then get a successful, youth-aimed, spin-off series that I liked quite a bit (and was overall, much better than Who’s other spin-off, Torchwood), I was psyched to see her in her younger days again.  But while I’d liked her a lot when I was a boy, I found her wanting as a companion, now that I’m an adult.  She’s more screamy and prone to being captured than I remembered, which is jarring when comparing her to the brassy, tough woman she is in The Sarah Jane Adventures.

    Tom Baker is a colossally dominant figure in Doctor Who’s history.  More than any other actor, I think he is the face of the show.  He was my Doctor for the longest time, the man I judged all others by.  His time on the show was its golden age, with many of the most memorable characters and episodes.  The broad appeal and outright madness of the series while he was on can not be overstated.  From 1974 to 1981, his freakish face, wild mop of hair, and eccentric behavior re-wrote the book on a character that had then been on TV for more than 10 years.  He traveled with the best companion of all time, Leela, a warrior woman from a horrible future.  He traveled with two regenerations of a lady Time Lord.  He even found a boy from another reality.  This was the show at its absolute height.  Sure, there were lame stories.  And absolutely, there were great stories from other times.  But this was a glorious time, when the writing and production, the cast and crew all came together.  Upon my re-watching of many Tom Baker stories, I find that I’m not the sycophantic fan I once was.  Some of his mannerisms I find off-putting, and there are choices in some of the episodes that I think haunt the character to this very day (it also gets awkward trying not to look at his poorly covered cold sores).  Still, it was a great time, and more than any other era of the show, the Tom Baker years are probably the best jumping off point to try watching the classic series.  I don’t know that I’d recommend starting with Robot.  I think Genesis of the Daleks, The Face of Evil (introduction of Leela), or The Ribos Operation (beginning of a season long Key to Time arc, a nice sampling of what the show has to offer, while a larger story is told) would work best.

    After Tom Baker, things get weird.  The show takes on a very, very different feel when handsome young Peter Davison shows up in his dandy cricket outfit, putting a shockingly different spin on his interpretation of the character.  I was surprised to find myself enjoying Davison in the role more than ever before, and that I kinda liked the much maligned Adric.  But Davison is also saddled with one of the worst companions of the whole show (rivaled only by Susan, I think), Tegan.  Everything about that woman annoys the ever loving crap out of me, and every time it seems like she’s leaving the show, she doesn’t.  Argh!  Following Davison, you’ve got the most reviled actor to take up the mantle, Colin Baker.  The show was in trouble, the writing was wildly uneven, and the actor was challenging.  But I think Baker reached for something greater.  He picked up on some of Tom Baker’s edgy darkness, but also on some of Jon Pertwee’s daring do.  Possibly the biggest shock I got in this journey was the discovery that I really, really liked Colin Baker as the Doctor.  Unfortunately, his final season is a turd sandwich, and the beginning of the end of the show.

    That brings me to Sylvester McCoy, and profound disappointment.  I hadn’t seen any McCoy episodes in many years, possibly not since they originally aired on Channel 12 circa 1990.  But my memory of them were pleasant.  Alas, my memories did not prove to be accurate.  Suffering through Mel, the perkiest, most aggravating of companions, you quickly notice that the writing is lacking.  Sure, there are a couple stories that ooze with 2000AD’s punk, pitch black humor.  But for the most part, they’re just bad.  And when Ace shows up, it’s a welcome change, but not enough.  I remember her being a take-charge tough girl who didn’t let the baddies get the drop on her.  However, while she doesn’t spend her time screaming, she isn’t nearly as useful and independent as she should be, and the real problem brings us back to the writing.  The Doctor is all over the place, from the dark edge of Tom Baker to the loveable vagabond of Patrick Troughton, and all points between; each episode feels like a whole new character.  Somewhere in these few seasons of the show seeds were planted that wouldn’t germinate for many years.  It is here that the deeper problems with the new series seem to begin.  The over-melodramatic stories, the attempts to raise the stakes so high that they don't mean anything anymore, the deus ex machina cannon being fired off every ten minutes.  And so many episodes that try to cram in far too many disparate things.  With very few exceptions, McCoy’s tenure on the show is painful to watch, and a sad bleeding out of a once great show.  By the last few stories, I was having a hard time going on, and just wanted it to be over.  The final story, Survival didn’t suck, and that’s about the best I can say for it.

    Final disappointments aside, it’s a great show, with years and years of fascinating characters, creatures, worlds, and stories.  From comedy to horror to adventure to mystery, so many different types of plot were explored, it always keeps you guessing.  The confused, jumbled, and less than consistent universe it presents is one of the most impressive sandboxes my mind has ever played in, and along with Star Trek, it will doubtless remain one of my all time favorite shows, a pillar of Science Fiction television.  Seeing the many ups and downs of the series over its long run gives me hope that the recent spate of crappy episodes from the new show are just a phase, and things might get better again.

    I’m glad to see new generations of folks coming to Doctor Who, and I hope some of them explore and appreciate what came before the re-launch.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (5/12/13-5/18/13)

    Busy week, but not much nerdy stuff going on.  I did read Superman: Red Son, which was pretty good.  It’s the best Superman thing I’ve read, for sure.  And then on Friday night, we met for the book club again.  This month’s book was The Massive, which is apparently an indie darling, but most of us found lacking in substance.  However, one brave voice defended the book for its potential.  And I have to agree, it has potential.  I just have a feeling it won’t be living up.

Secret Files of the Inquisition:  This four part series based on the Inquisition files released a while back by the Vatican features good narration and some interesting interviews, as well as nice looking dramatizations.  But it feels very surface.  The first episode covers the end of the Cathars.  Watching it, you can’t help but feel for the rebellious sect, but this is largely because their weirdass dogma is mostly ignored (though their mostly pacifist beliefs made it preferable to the violent lunacy of the Church).  The second episode deals with the Spanish Jews who had either chosen to convert or been force-converted to Catholicism, and their treatment at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition.  Again, interesting and important issues are glossed over.  With the third episode, we see the rise of a zealot pope in Rome, who brought back persecution of Jews in Italy.  And the last episode deals with the final days of the Inquisition, as it is first knocked to the ground by Napoleon, then finally brought down by its own system of kidnapping and intimidation that didn’t sit well with the modernizing world.  Overall, the series is OK, with a few interesting glimpses into a few eras of the Inquisition, but its odd mix of the microscopically personal and vaguest of overview means too much is missing.  By focusing on just a few cases from four different locations and times, the series lacked context (with the exception of the final episode, which is probably the best of the bunch).  Also, three out of four specific cases were related to persecution of the Jews, which was certainly a mainstay of the Church, but not the only thing the Inquisition was up to.  A bit of variety in what was covered would have been better.  It feels like the Cathar episode was thrown in there because you can’t really talk about the Inquisition without talking about how and why it was formed.  But otherwise, the series was about anti-Semitism in the Church.  The one thing it does manage to get across fairly well (intentional or not) is the danger posed by religion and state working in conjunction.  Be that the Roman Catholic/Saudi Arabian religion as state, or the Maoist/Stalinist state as religion, the end result is always the same; oppression, degradation, corruption, and villainy of all stripes, guarded by a cloak of official sanction.  Every perversion is justified when done in the name of gods or patriotism, more so if it’s both.

The peasants are revolting.

Star Trek: Insurrection:  Though often disparaged by Trek fans, I think this somewhat light hearted entry is a lot of fun.  Lots of good character exchanges, beautiful space sequences, and a dilemma to solve, as opposed to a big villain to fight.  Of course, there’s still a couple thugs so they can still shoehorn in a fistfight (this is a post Khan Trek film, after all).  One thing I noticed watching it again is how much of a raging bitch Donna Murphy’s character is.  By this point in the franchise, Trek had sadly descended into a near constant barrage of word-salad technobabble.  It started in Next Gen, got worse in DS9, and reached parody levels in Voyager.  There’s WAY too much made-up BS vocabulary (the phased tachyon inverter couplings must be reversed so that the particle beam emitter doesn’t have a malfunction in its ionic coils).  The message is pretty darned heavy handed, but that’s not surprise from Trek (remember the whales?).  Still, this and First Contact are well done, nice looking films, worthy of the Next Gen cast and crew.  They are, unfortunately, the only two.  This is the closest thing the Next Gen crew got to a Star Trek IV.  If I could go back in time and work my magic, First Contact would have been the first Next Gen movie (skip that craptacular Generations), followed by a very dark, Mirror Universe type story (the crew makes it back to their own time after First Contact, but something ain’t right), and then cap it off with something more like this, a dilemma movie with a lighter tone.

Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger:  “For him I would risk my life.  For you, I would give it.”  This third outing is the weakest of the lot, for sure.  Part of the problem is Patrick Wayne, who is horribly miscast as the titular character.  Jane Seymour is a stone fox.  That’s just science.  And the Ray Harryhausen creatures are typically cool.  Plus, it has another classic Doctor, Patrick Troughton as a mad hermit-wizard.  But it could really use some John Phillip Law.  Wayne is so danged deadpan.  Tyrone Powers’ daughter…she’s an uh, actress and whatnot, I guess.  But what’s up with her romance with the baboon?  The story is pretty good, with lots more crazy jumbling of myth and magic, though the production feels a bit cheaper than those previous.  There’s still plenty to like, but it’s missing something.

G-Men:  “He’s a darn good lawyer.”  James Cagney is an honest lawyer in a crooked town.  When his buddy gets whacked in the line of duty, he decides to take up the FBI mantle and take down crime.  The Yoda-like crime boss who paid Cagney’s way through law school is kinda genius.  James Cagney is all smiles and smarm, but he’s charming as the devil and cool as Joe Camel.  And big shootout near the end is crazy violent.  Great lighting and lots of bullets flying.  Even the gun molls get in on the action.

Expo: Magic in the White City:  This documentary about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair feels like a brief traveler’s highlight guide.  It features a great number of fascinating photographs and historic tidbits.  This would make a good companion to Devil in the White City, which dealt more with the ‘how it happened’ as opposed to this film’s ‘what happened.’  Gene Wilder’s narration is a touch surreal, but effective, none the less.  For a look at a fascinating and weird event in American history, this is a good one.  And I would certainly recommend reading Devil in the White City if you’re interested in what you see.

Star Trek- Into Darkness:  Well, that sucked.  If my ass were a cannon, I would have shat my heart upon it.  Look, I really, really liked Abrams’ Star Trek.  I did.  It was fun, exciting, and an interesting way to re-launch the franchise.  This film squanders everything.  After basically remaking Wrath of Khan in 2009 (like every Trek film other than The Voyage Home has done since Wrath of Khan), they actually straight-up remade Wrath of Khan, only stupid.  That’s it.  It’s Wrath of Khan.  Only f%$#ing terrible.  Every emotion is false.  Every call-back is infuriating.  Instead of taking things in a new direction, it stupidly tries to ape what has already happened, even awkwardly cramming dialog from Wrath of Khan into the mouths of new actors.  WHY!?  And everyone’s plan was completely idiotic.  Totally idiotic.  The Admiral’s plan?  Dumb.  Khan’s plan?  Dumb.  Kirk’s plan?  Dumb.  Spock’s plan?  Dumb.  Carol Marcus’ plan?  That s# %t don’t make no sense at all.  Any of the chemistry between cast members in the first film is totally absent here.  Shoehorning in that blonde bimbo (Marcus), and then having the pointless underwear shot?  Really?  When I heard the title of this film, my interest dropped.  When I saw the trailer, my interest dropped more.  But now, having seen the movie, I was impressed that my low expectations not being low enough, and the fact that the film was bad enough to actually make me angry in spite of not having a lot of built up anticipation.  Is it the worst Trek film?  No.  That honor still goes to Nemesis, with Generations a close second (or Generations with Nemesis a close second, depending on which one I‘ve watched more recently).  But this isn’t too far behind in third.  And it’s missing the one thing that makes all the others (except Generations) watchable, good character interaction.  No shock that the guy behind last year’s monster disappointment Prometheus also helped script this.  It suffers from many of the same failings (read: interesting ideas unexplored, characters acting in the stupidest way possible, retread plotting, etc.).  My hope now is that Abrams and his writing crew leave to mess with Star Wars and leave Trek to someone who gets it.  And maybe we can finally have another movie that isn’t about Kirk punching a bad guy.

Somebody saw the script.

The Sarah Jane Adventures Season 5:  “I know what a robot looks like.  I seen Star Wars.”  This final season of the youth-aimed Doctor Who spin-off is short, but strong.  There’s a melancholic feeling watching it, knowing that Elizabeth Sladen was in the final days of her fight with cancer, while she put on her actor face and did the job.  There are only three stories, but each one is pretty good.  Even the slightly awkward attempt to recapture the first season’s ‘fish out of water’ character by adding a new cast member doesn’t get too annoying.  The second story, with Clyde getting cursed is actually unsettling and has a ham-fisted but good social message mixed in.  And the third story works as a finale.  Sladen’s Sarah Jane Smith was one of the great companions on Doctor Who, and I love that not only did she come back in the new Who series, but then had a successful show of her own.  And in fact, made Sarah Jane much, much better with age and experience.  It stands as a solid series that I think supplements Who’s universe well, and is a much better and tonally correct spin-off than Torchwood.

The Cry of the Owl:  I checked this film out for two reasons.  Mathilda May is a shockingly beautiful and strange looking woman who has fascinated me since Lifeforce.  And, I am interested in Patricia Highsmith’s work.  This one is pretty danged weird.  The charming and damaged Robert is an oddly chaste peeping tom, who eventually introduces himself to his subject (May) and apologizes for his actions.  She finds him charming and they strike up a relationship.  That’s when things go down hill.  As more characters are added, more layers of weirdness and villainy pile on top of poor Robert.  Then people start dying, and the blame keeps coming back to our damaged peeper.  It’s an interesting movie, and clearly made by a fan of Hitchcock.  But I don’t know that it’s satisfying.  Several things just happen.  And the finale is memorable, but perhaps a touch too vague.  Mathilda May plays one of those crazy women that seem to only exist in movies, the gorgeous madwoman who may be worth the pain.  The femme fatale end of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype spectrum.

The Curious Dr. Humpp:  “Your love means nothing.  Your body already belongs to me and I’ll use it in every way that I want.”  One should not bandy about words like genius, lest they lose their special meaning.  That said, this movie is genius.  There are big mutant henchmen, a talking brain in a jar, ace reporters, Amish barkeeps, and boobs, boobs, boobs.  Almost every line of dialog is a classic, like the Casablanca of stupid.  It’s seriously entertaining.

The Slammin’ Salmon:  “Twins are disgusting, man.”  The Broken Lizard boys take on the restaurant business in this extremely funny little movie.  It’s low budget and somewhat claustrophobic.  But that adds to the comic tension of one crazy night working at a classy Miami restaurant.  A series of awesome cameos, great lines, and awkward situations.  And Michael Clarke Duncan.  He is so flipin’ funny in this movie.  It’s a performance for the ages.  He’s a crazy, stupid, evil monster who haunts all these poor bastards who are working their low-end jobs.  His rambling thought spirals, his butchery of the English language, he violent mood swings.  Glorious.

    That was basically it.  I’ve been doing a lot of reading and I’m revisiting an old movie script I wrote a few years ago.  It won’t stop raining.  So, I haven’t been on my bike in quite a while.  Life goes on.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (12/18/11-12/24/11)

    My day job consumed much of my waking life this past week, yet I still got in some good quality dorkiness.  And I got a serious start on my year end movie list, which I’m pretty excited to put together.  First up, the handful of movies I got in.


The Sarah Jane Adventures: Season 4:  More fun adventures from the more kid-friendly spin-off of Doctor Who.  Seeing this season now, after Elisabeth Sladen’s death, was particularly poignant.   Death of the Doctor parts 1 & 2 were especially tough, with their stories of loss and paths not taken.  Throughout the season there were little references to the way things change, and that eventually we lose those we love.  I don’t know the details of Sladen’s illness, but I would not be at all surprised to find out that the writers were aware, and were in a sense, preparing viewers.

Some Like it Hot:  Watching especially famous classics for the first time can be difficult.  Often they’re beloved by many who either grew up with them, or have some special memories attached to them.  I was lucky to see Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and some others before I had heard too much about how amazing they were.  Sadly, for me, Some Like it Hot simply doesn’t live up to the hype.  Oh, sure, the actors are all having fun.  But, for me, it simply wasn’t funny.  There are funny moments.  Funny lines of dialog.  Clearly, the writing is clever, and I can respect that.  But, overall, I found the film kind of tedious.  And I’ll just never understand the whole Marilyn thing, either.  And that doesn’t help.  Far from finding her ‘captivating’ or ‘charming’ or whatever, I find her grating in the extreme.  And in that sense, this is her at her worst.  I can’t say it’s a bad film, only that it was not for me.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Bride of the Monster:  Good sweet crap, this Ed Wood monstrosity is rough.  Still, plenty of good material for the boys to have fun with.  A worthy episode.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo:  The American version of the film is much like watching the European version with dubbing instead of subtitles.  There are few differences, really.  The cast is nice, but they don’t  leave an indelible mark on their characters.  Nobody does anything different enough from their original counterparts to set themselves apart.  It’s good enough, and if this is the only version you see, it’s fine.  If you’ve already seen the original film version, though, like Let the Right One In/Let Me In, there’s really no need to see this new take.  It’s simply not unique enough to be all that interesting.  If you haven’t seen either version, be warned that there is some pretty strong, brutal sexual content.

The Adventures of Tintin:  The pages of the classic comic come to life (thankfully, without the racism) in this CGI adventure from Spielberg and Doctor Who writer/show runner Steven Moffat.  The action is exciting, the humor broad without being crass, the characters likable, and the overall feeling one of great fun.  A movie for the whole family, that doesn’t talk down to kids and doesn’t bore adults.  Enjoy.

The Tomb of Love:  The second half of Fritz Lang’s serial-like “Indian Epic” is more of the same.  The story is a bit more fast paced and direct this time, moving from the surprise rescue to the climax without a lot of wandering.  The snake dance is almost worth the price of admission (I’m sure the censers were in a huff over that).  But overall, the film(s) is only OK and doesn’t feature anything especially dramatic or interesting to make it seem worthy of the director.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy:  Having watched the mini-series adaptation of the novel not too long ago, my first reaction was ‘this would probably be better as a movie’ in part because the mini-series simply took too long to go anywhere or do anything.  I was right.  This film plays MUCH better.  That said, it’s still an extremely quiet, slow burn of a film.  There is virtually no action.  Occasional violence is quite brutal but not lingered on.  The actors are all in top form, but much of their work is done in meaningful glances.  The movie also felt old.  It’s set solidly in the middle of the Cold War, and several times throughout, I was reminded of films from that era, not just because of content, but filming style.  And it was nice seeing Mark Strong playing one of his rare non-villainous roles.

    I read volumes 3 (Nomads) and 4 (Ravages) of the Pelle/Runberg comic series Orbital this week.  The art is gorgeous and the space opera universe they’ve created is fun Golden Age sci-fi stuff.  However, on reading these volumes, I find some frustration in the presentation.  Volumes 1 and 2 tell a single story but are broken into two for no good reason.  Same with volumes 3 and 4.  These should really be condensed into two volumes instead of four, and the only reason I can see that they’re not is an attempt at a money grab.  But, these aren’t going to be blockbuster titles, and might more likely sell to folks on the fence if they were a better price.  13.95 each for 4 volumes, or 15.95 each for what should have been two.

    Otherwise, I enjoyed the books.  I’m hopeful that volume isn’t the end.  While it wraps up the second story arc, it leaves the reader hanging in relation to the main characters.  So, here’s hoping a volume 5 will be coming along sooner than later.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (12/4-12/10)

    Well, at least I got some socializing done.  And some sleep.  Considering I started Son of Frankenstein on Friday night (these reviews are in order of viewing), you can see the week was a bit wonky.  Still Saturday was nice and restful.  Even got some reading done. 


Muppet Treasure Island:  The gang is all here for this fun adaptation of the classic story.  The songs aren’t great, and the humor doesn’t always work.  But, overall, it’s a good watch, and quite enjoyable for Muppet fans. 

Bride of Frankenstein:  A surprisingly good follow-up, this time we find another crazy scientist trying to unlock the secret of life.  He hopes to exploit the monster and his creator in a quest to make a female. Nice sets and some very cool bits.  The end is shockingly abrupt, though.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: I Accuse My Parents:  What feels like an extra long educational short, or what in the 80s would be an After School Special, this cheesy 50s movie is all about the evils of non-traditional parents.  Mom has interests outside the home?  Evil.  Dad doesn’t spend all day at his 9 to 5?  Evil.  Oh, sure, they make the parents genuinely bad.  Mom’s a drunk, and Dad’s a …well, an A-hole.  But, it doesn’t seem to actually be what’s at the root of our heroic sociopath’s problems.  And when all is said and done, I don’t feel bad for him at all.  Joel and the bots give the film the treatment, and with good cause.  A good, but not great episode.

Son of Frankenstein:  This third film in Universal’s Frankenstein series is surprisingly good.  While the Dracula films became extremely formulaic and kind of dull, these films actually do interesting things.  The cast for Son of Frankenstein is fantastic, but the real stand out is Lionel Atwill playing the one armed inspector, Krogh.  He starts off as an almost surreal, perhaps humorous character, but becomes something much more as the movie goes on.  And Bela Lugosi, creates quite the villainous cur as Ygor.  A good addition to the series, for sure.

The Gost of Frankenstein:  Though not as good as Son, this fourth movie in Universal’s series is still pretty good.  The vile Ygor is up to his old dirty deeds again.  Will the descendant of Frankenstein be able to redeem his family name?  Or will snooping Ralph Bellamy ruin everything?  The climax is pretty crazy.

House of Frankenstein:  Another surprisingly good film in the Frankenstein series.  This series is far better than the Dracula films.  The combination of the various monsters is again obviously a gimmick, but somehow it all works fairly well. 

Stargate SG1: Season 10:  Another overall excellent season.  The last few years of this show are certainly the best.  One odd thing, though.  As the show gets closer to the end, it seems less and less concerned with all the major issues.  Most of the final episodes don’t even involve much about the Ori or the Goa’uld.  And those that do, fell somewhat restrained.  I’m not sure if this is because the movies were already in the works (I have yet to see them, at the time of this writing), and the big finale was planned for that.  I’m not sure.  So, while a good season, it’s end is something of a let down.  Not that it’s bad.  It simply isn’t the grand ending a ten year series demands.  Perhaps I’ll feel different after watching The Ark of Truth and Continuum. 

Stargate: The Ark of Truth:  OK, so this is the finale the series didn’t have.  Finally wrapping up the major arc of the last couple seasons, it also feels generally like a solid send-off for the show.  I could have dealt without the return of a certain old menace, but I guess it worked for the story.  I was simply never a fan of said menace in the first place.  The images of Teal’c rising up to go kill himself some more gods were pretty cool.  That guy is a brutal fist of reason.  Anyhow, if you’ve watched the regular run of the show, check this out for a proper conclusion. 

Teal'c The God-Killer

Stargate: Continuum:  Kind of a second send-off for the SG-1 team, this movie is a great deal of fun, largely thanks to the awesomeness of Ba’al, my favorite of all the Goa’uld from the series.  His final master plan kicks some serious butt and puts not only SG-1, but everything they’ve ever accomplished on the line.  Where The Ark of Truth capped the final few seasons of the show, Continuum sort of takes the early seasons, and fully resolves some of those left over issues. 

    In between, I watched a few episodes of the fourth season of The Sarah Jane Adventures.  These feel a bit more poignant, especially the stories that deal with loss (like Death of the Doctor), now that she’s gone.   The show remains a great deal of fun, and I’m glad Elizabeth Sladen had this show to bow out on.  She certainly left us wanting more. 

    I also started Ken Burns’ series on Prohibition.  So far, so good.  Kind of interesting seeing the various movements that came together at such a key time in American history to create such a misguided moral misadventure.  And it’s interesting to see similar trends in today’s world.  There are certainly parallels between the religious minded moral crusaders who think they know best about not only how we as Americans should live, but who really counts as American in the first place. 

    I’ve been reading a bunch, but haven’t finished anything this week.  Still stuck in this classic science fiction kick, which is OK by me.  And it’s nice reading a bunch of fiction.  I’d kind of drifted away from novels for the last couple of years and it’s fun to read some again. 

    That said, all this classic science fiction, and some of the other reading I’ve been doing has gotten me to thinking about how my whole ‘return to gaming’ kind of got sidetracked.  I mean, the big issue remains scheduling.  In this day and age, with the kinds of hours people work, doing something like a weekly game seems almost impossible.  But, I’m not beat.  This will happen. 

-Matt