"Information: You are all going to die"

Doctor Who Christmas Special 2007: Voyage of the Damned

In what is quickly becoming a holiday tradition, the British (and, ahem, well-connected Americans) spend part of their Christmas evening watching the latest Doctor Who special. The episodes tend to be oddities, made with a bit of a lighter touch (well, still with threatened destruction) and an even goofier tone. Voyage of the Damned, which is long enough (71 minutes) to qualify as a short movie doesn't change this, but somehow isn't nearly as fun as show's past.

Essentially a disaster movie set in space, complete with a variety of cliches from the genre added in for fun (the couple who won a trip of a lifetime; the rich jerk; the man -- alien in this case -- hiding a deep secret), Voyage of the Damned finds the now companionless Doctor aboard the Titanic -- not the one that sunk in 1912, but a spacegoing vessel in orbit around Earth. Of course disaster strikes, and it is up to our hero, and a feisty bunch of survivors, to make things right and hopefully save the Earth from utter destruction.

The episode has its moments. The angelic robotic helpers that turn deadly are a nice twist on the deadly Christmas trees and ornaments from the past two specials; guest star Kyle Minogue isn't much of an actor, but doesn't do a horrible job here as the young waitress who gets sucked into the Doctor's usual hectic life. And you do get Geoffrey Palmer (and his distinct jowels) and the guy who played Richard on Keeping Up Appearances (er, Clive Swift) in featured roles, if you have a thing for British comedies.

On the other hand, Russell T. Davis' script is pretty weak (and while his vision for the show is fantastic as the producer; his scripts tend to be the worst of the rest of the series regulars), with a thoroughly unconvincing underlying reason for all the mayhem and a villain that seems to have been dragged out of the less-than fondly remembered Colin Baker years. 

Still, it's important to remember that this is supposed to be a Christmas treat, and it fits that pretty well. Just a bit of fluff without nutrition, and something you enjoy at the time but don't need to have again for another year. I guess that makes it the Doctor Who equivalent of eggnog.

Bonus bit: Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

OK, this came out over the summer, but it kind of slipped through the cracks until it appeared under the Christmas tree. It turned out to be a rather satisfying continuation of the series, almost like a pair of stand alone episodes from a fictional "season 15" of the series. Series creator J. Michael Stracznski pens (and directs) explores a number of common themes from the show, including the nature of faith in a technologically advanced world where we have gone to the heavens and have not found any pearly gates; and how single decisions can have a profound impact on the future. Though thoroughly low budget (lots of green screen, dark spaces and a handful of characters in each one) the stories here are a reminder of why Babylon 5 was such a remarkable show. 

Thanks to the Beeb

These pieces may have appeared elsewhere, but there's something about the clinical BBC approach that's appealing on a gloomy Wednesday morning:

Peter Jackson to produce Hobbit movies (!!!!)

BBC to play unedited Pogues holiday song

David Tennant: Not Leaving Doctor Who

And for Sherlock Holmes fans:

Giant Rat Discovered

Just a post...

Appallingly busy day today, so all I have to offer is this link to a new column at Talkinbroadway:

Sweet William and Christmas Carole Petersen

A New World

Halting State -- Charles Stross (Ace Books)

If you spend any amount of time reading science fiction (and I do mean reading, film and television SF are different beasts altogether) it's pretty clear that the genre is as much about what the future will look like and what the author perceives now is all about. After all as the satirists have learned, it is much easier to poke away at the modern world by saying out front that isn't your world -- even though it is (in the fantasy genre, check out any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels).

So what does it say that I've read two novels in the last few months (the other is William Gibson's excellent Spook Country) -- both by major players in the field -- that say privacy as we've known it is dead; and it is the technology that has made so much in our lives convenient in recent years also carries our undoing?

Like any good novel, Halting State is as much about its characters and story as the issues Stross explores, though writing in the genre gives him a bit more leeway to go off on strange tangents. Set a bit more than a decade in the future, the novel follows three characters who are dragged first into an unusual crime, and then down the rabbit hole into a world that is much stranger than the one they thought they inhabited. These characters -- a Scottish police officer,a forensic accountant and a video game programmer -- are brought together by an unusual crime. A bank in an online video game is robbed, which threatens the business that operates it. The first half draws in the police, who are at first puzzled about why they have been brought in on the case -- until people start showing up murdered. The second brings in our accountant, a youngish accountant with a gaming background, who enlists the programmer to guide her (and more importantly, us) through the wild world  Stross has built.

As a gamer, it's nice to find fiction that truly understands the appeal and strange worlds that can be built. While the near-future has a more immersive world than present, the realities of actually playing games remains largely the same. Stross has great fun digging into these new realities.

Stross' breezy, easy-to-access style is present is present here (and that's no complaint -- novels should be more about the story and less about the author showing off) except that it is told in an odd, second-person style (the reader is addressed as "you" throughout, even though we see the book from three characters' perspectives). I think I understand why Stross took this approach -- much of the book is about assuming different characters and roles ini games -- but it makes the early part of the book difficult to get into. Later on, I just ignored the second-person intrusions and dug into the story. No matter the slight narrative weakness, Halting State is a up-to-the-second science fiction that doesn't forget what brought the reader to the table in the first place.

Another link

More coverage of various Christmas Carols here:

Orson Welles A Christmas Carol

What to watch? (Part one)

So the season has turned to winter. There's about half an hour of daylight each day (or at least, that's what it seems like), snow covers the ground and an Alberta Clipper is headed across the plains.

It would be a great time to curl up in front of the television, except the networks are showing repeats and "unscripted" shows, not to mention game shows, revivals of athletic competitions no one really watched back in the 1980s (really, who actually watched American Gladiator?) and other dreck. The cable networks that rely on Hollywood shows are in the same boat. What are we to do?

Well, you could read a book -- or talk to your family -- or brave the cold and do something exciting. But that's not the American way! We have been promised an endless parade of new programs and we want our programs now!

There are solutions. Access to a video collection (via the library, store or other means) opens up new vistas. The rise of DVDs means that plenty of short-lived, overlook shows are now available for repeat viewing. Thrill to the early episodes of Veronica Mars. Work out what the hubbub is about with Firefly. There are old friends to revisit. Watching the X-Files can be instructive, especially if you want to discover the moment it finally went over the edge into dull madness (I'd point to season six myself). Maybe find some comfort food with Frasier or similar long-running situation comedy that you once avoided like the plague.

Meanwhile, our brethren overseas aren't on strike. While only available for those with kitchen sink style cable, BBC America has its moments, including seasons 2 of Life on Mars (currently being aired) and Torchwood (starting in January). Of course, you have to wade through plenty of bilge to get to these gems, so it is difficult to binge on the station. (Check listings online to see when these are to be aired).

More thoughts to come -- including looks into obscurities past.

Once more into the sludge

The Sword/Witchcraft split lp

Some bands try to ape the sound of the past. The best retro-looking acts, like Witchcraft and the Sword, sound like they've come from the past. This five-track split album showcases two heavily hyped metal acts, who succeed at different levels.

The Sword's debut, Age of Winters, arrived with tons of hype in early 2006. That, in turn, meant the band got caught up in the thankfully short-lived "hipster" metal scene. Those hipsters have gone back to their Minus Iron & Wine CDs, and leaving the rest of us to enjoy our music with nary an ironic smirk. The band opens proceedings with a nice bit of epic sludge, Sea of Spears, which features the band's hallmarks -- heavy bottom, nifty guitar work and vague fantasy lyrics. The mood is ruined somewhat by a cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song." It's not a horrible cover, but Zeppelin is a band no one should cover. (That includes, in my mind, the group that played earlier this week in London. Bonzo is dead people. So is this band. Could we just deal with it?)

Witchcraft present a similar grab bag of tunes -- a new work and some previously unissued recordings, but the vibe works much better than the Sword side. Maybe it's the extra space and time, which gives the slow-moving band a chance to develop not only each song, but the entire vibe of the record. Witchcraft doesn't sound exactly like Black Sabbath or Pentagram or Blue Cheer or any other heavy act from about 1969 you can name. Instead, they sound like they were in the studio next door, sharing the vibe (and certainly some herbs as well) and making recordings that didn't surface until now. Even more amazing is that the band is from Sweden, a country where the metal/punk scene has long been dominated by melodic death metalers and crusty d-beat punkers. 

All of this comes packaged with a gorgeous Vance Kelly cover and heavy-duty purple vinyl. Don't pass it up if you find one of the rare copies of this release. (www.kemado.com)

Let the music wars begin!

The AV Club has issued its best of 2007 list:

AV Club

It's kind of what you would expect out of a list compiled from the opinions of 18 different writers. I tend to use lists like this more as a guide to the music I missed over the past 12 months than some kind of referendum on my own taste (though Fall Out Boy and Against Me? I think the club needs to expand its heavy/punk rock table a bit). My own lists will be up and coming in the next couple of weeks, after I'm done sifting through it all.

What you can find on your hard drive

So, in the past week or so, I've been cleaning out my music hard drive. It's a 300-gig or so Maxtor thingy and I wasn't near capacity, but it has been difficult to use my computer while running iTunes and I really want to make a clean break and get things down to essentials. So far, I've gotten it down from about 250 megs to a bit over 237. Of course, that's still 47,541 individual tracks, which would take me 123 days and change of constant listening to work my way through, so trimming is in order.

When getting to the "Fs," I found the most recent Foo Fighters album, which I had acquired for review but -- I don't think -- had ever given a listen. Considering the album has been well received, right down to a few Grammy nods, I gave it a whirl. Now understand, I've always liked the Foo Fighters, but usually in a "hey, that's clever rockin' pop music" way instead of a "I must obsess over every second this band has created" way. So, usually I listen to the album a few times, enjoy it, and then sell it back when I realized I hadn't listened to the disc or album in a couple of years. I guess I was trying to avoid those steps this time.

However, the music is fun, and in an era when rock 'n' roll has been fractured into a million sub-genres and largely left behind by the pop world, it's nice to listen to a bit of straight-ahead rock 'n' roll. Will it climb onto my top of the year list? Probably not. Will I listen to it a few more times before hitting delete? Most certainly.

Oh, must dash. The player has turned over from the Foo Fighters to Forbidden, and I'm not in the mood for early-school death metal just at the moment. Of course, Foreigner is up after Forbidden. Damn these Fs. Damn them.

Tuesday posts

Er, that should probably be post... Nothing captured my interest (or raised my ire) this morning. Instead, here's my latest missive in the Lakeshore Weekly News:

A Christmas Carol

There is another Christmas Carol piece that has been completed for the Weekly News, but is not online as of yet. Will post that later. 

In the meantime, I will continue on a rather important mission -- cleaning up my iTunes hard drive. Writing about music means I've acquired tons of files that "seemed like a good idea at the time." Will they survive the light of day? Update to come.

New work online

If you want to check out my other writings, check out the following links:

Lavender Magazine

Chastity Brown

And Talkin Broadway

More to come (well, I hope at least...)

Monday morning links

A few items of note for the new week:

The latest writers' strike victims -- TV writers searching for a good piece to explore in mid-December. Now they are reduced to profiling shows that most everyone hates, except for a few out-there critics, and almost no one is watching: 

Cavemen in the New York Times

Meanwhile, the always reliable Nathan Rabin digs into Southland Tales in his latest My Year of Flops post at the A.V. Club.

Southland Tales

Christians claim victory in the great Golden Compass debate, ignoring the filmmakers' soft-pedaling of the theme probably turned off more viewers than their own efforts to keep audiences away.

Golden Compass

And my favorite comic strip from the last month:

Pearls Before Swine