Telefantasy – Page 2

Doctor Who: Under the Lake Starting Soon!

Under the Lake, the third episode of of Series 9 of Doctor Who will be airing on BBC1 in about ten minutes, at 8.25pm. I know nothing about the story (I\’ve been avoiding spoilers like the plague) other than what I\’ve seen in the trailer, which looks suitably spooky.

Under the Lake has a lot to live up to, following on the heels of the cracking two-part opening story. I\’m really looking forward to it, but after such a great start, I hope it\’s not a matter of \”the only way is down\”. Here\’s hoping that Moffat & co. can keep the momentum going for the rest of Season 9.

ADDENDUM: Now THAT was a surprise. I was never expecting another two-parter right on the heels of the first one. It looks like Steven Moffat has been taking on board comments from fans wanting longer, better-developed stories, which has always been my main beef with the modern series. I definitely approve.

This was a nice, creepy one, another classic \”base under siege\” Doctor Who story. Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman are on fine form as the Doctor and Clara, and, in my opinion, are really clicking together as a fine Doctor-companion team. Capaldi is becoming a very fine Doctor indeed, just as I knew he would.

Here\’s hoping that next week\’s Part Two is as good as the first one.

Thunderbirds Turns 50!

Yet another classic telefantasy series has it\’s birthday today (September sees a lot of that kinda thing). Thunderbirds has hit the big Five-Oh.

It\’s 50 years since old favourite kid\’s (and big kid\’s) series Thunderbirds premiered on British television, way back on 30 September 1965. The pilot episode, \”Trapped in the Sky\”, was first broadcast on the ITV network\’s regional channels ATV Midlands, Westward and Channel Television. Other ITV regions, such as ATV London and Granada, didn\’t start transmissions until the following month.

Thunderbirds was the fourth Supermarionation puppet show, following in the footsteps of Supercar, Fireball XL5 and Stingray, and it ran for two seasons and a total of 32 episodes. Maybe it wasn\’t my absolute favourite Anderson puppet series (that was Captain Scarlet), but Thunderbirds has always remained the most popular of the Gerry Anderson series.

Oh, and HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY, THUNDERBIRDS!!!

Doctor Who: The Witch\’s Familiar is On TV Tonight!

The Witch\’s Familiar, Part Two of the Doctor Who season opening double-parter, airs on BBC One at 7.45pm tonight. It\’ll be interesting to see how things turn out for Clara (Jenna Coleman) and Missy (Michelle Gomez), and how the complex relationship between the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and Davros (Julian Bleach) may or may not have begun. And the Daleks. Oh, yes, let\’s not forget the Daleks!

Given how good Part One, The Magician\’s Apprentice was, I\’m really looking forward to tonight\’s episode, while hoping that it lives up to the potential of the first one. In general, I greatly prefer two and three-parters to single episodes, as they are less rushed and give a lot more scope for story and character development. However, an unfortunate tendency of the Moffat-era two-parters is that they have great first parts, but slightly disappointing second parts, which almost always fail to live up to promise of the first episode.

Here\’s hoping that The Witch\’s Familiar does not fall into that trap, and turns out to be a cracker.

Doctor Who Series 9 Episodes Listing

Saturday past gave us the first episode of the new Series 9 of Doctor Who, The Magician\’s Apprentice, and a cracking start it was too. Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman reprise their roles as the Doctor and companion Clara Oswald, and this first episode alone gave us a cracking story and a whole bunch of guest stars, including Missy (played by Michelle Gomez), Davros (Julian Bleach), and Daleks. Lots of Daleks. How\’s that for a great start?

In the spirit of avoiding spoilers, I\’ll leave a more detailed analysis of the story until a later date. I\’ll say only that it was the first episode of a two-parter (unusual in itself, as two-parters are almost always season-enders – I don\’t recall any season ever beginning with one), and to say that I\’m REALLY looking forward to Part Two is putting it mildly. I hope that it lives up to the first episode, as these two-parters have an unfortunate tendency to start off brilliant in the first episode, but fade away disappointingly in the second.

I\’ve been going out of my way to avoid seeing any spoilers on the internet, on TV or in magazines, which can be incredibly hard to do, especially when you spend as much time online and read as many magazines each month (including Doctor Who Magazine) as I do. I\’ve been trying to come to the new series knowing absolutely nothing in advance, for maximum impact and surprise. Until I saw it on television, I knew absolutely nothing about the first episode, other than it had the Doctor, Clara, Missy and the Daleks. I don\’t want to know the storylines or synopses in advance. So I\’m trying to avoid anything like that like the plague.

Anyway, here\’s a listing of the episode titles for Series 9, with zero spoilers.

Episodes:

01. The Magician\’s Apprentice
02. The Witch\’s Familiar
03. Under the Lake
04. Before the Flood
05. The Girl Who Died
06. The Woman Who Lived
07. The Zygon Invasion
08. The Zygon Inversion
09. Sleep No More
10. Face the Raven
11. Heaven Sent
12. Hell Bent

Roll on Saturday and The Witch\’s Familiar!

Doctor Who Series 9 Starts Today!

I\’m looking forward to the rest of this evening, just sitting here, eagerly awaiting the start of The Magician\’s Apprentice, the very first episode of the new Series 9 of Doctor Who, which begins very shortly, at 7:40pm, on BBC1.

Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman return as the Doctor and Clara, and I won\’t give away much, other than to say that this one features both the Daleks AND Missy/The Master, and the Doctor goes missing, leaving Clara forced to do the almost unthinkable – team up with Missy to find him! So it should be pretty interesting, to say the least.

Roll on 7:40!

Happy 50th Anniversary, Lost in Space!

Here\’s yet another anniversary, hot on the heels of Star Trek\’s 49th. This time, it\’s the 50th Anniversary of Lost in Space. I remember spending quite a few Friday evenings and (later) Sunday mornings watching re-runs of this on UK television during the early 1970s.

Irwin Allen series were VERY popular on UK television during the late 60s and throughout the 70s, usually on ITV, in opposition to the likes of Star Trek and Doctor Who, which were the mainstays on the \”other channel\”, BBC One (we only had three channels on UK television back then).

Happy 50th Birthday to the Robinson family, Doctor Smith (\”Oh the pain, the pain\”) and the robot.

Again, this one comes courtesy of a reblog from Trek-extraordinaire author Dayton Ward and his excellent The Fog of Ward blog. Go read this blog. Seriously.

Happy 49th Birthday, Star Trek!

Tonight marks the 49th Anniversary of the first screening of the classic Star Trek: TOS on US television, with the airing of \”The Man Trap\” on Thursday, September 8, 1966. Due to some strange network mental gymnastics, they managed to air this one, which should have actually been the FIFTH episode, first, and they aired the pilot episode, \”Where No Man Has Gone Before\”, third. Go figure.

We poor, neglected souls over here in Ireland and the UK had to wait until July 12, 1969 before we first got to watch Star Trek on UK television, when it started in the traditional Saturday evening 5:15pm timeslot usually occupied by Doctor Who. Unlike in the US, we actually started with the pilot episode, although from that point on, there seemed to be no rhythm or rhyme to the sequence that the BBC showed the episodes in, and the series was not shown in airdate or production order.

The series was actually also shown over four seasons, rather than three, and some episodes were edited for violent content, with three of the episodes, \”The Empath\”, \”Whom Gods Destroy\” and \”Plato\’s Stepchildren\”, not shown at all during the first run due to concerns over \”sadistic elements\” in the stories making them unsuitable for the series\’ early \”children\’s\” time slot. We had to wait until 1992 to finally see those episodes during a repeat re-run. To add to the insult, the episode \”Miri\”, which WAS shown in the initial run, was not shown again until 1993, due to \”audience complaints\” after the first screening. What a complete bunch of WUSSIES!!!

Just by coincidence, I\’m sitting here right now with one of my friends, watching some classic TOS episodes on DVD. We started off with \”Devil in the Dark\”, then onto \”Errand of Mercy\”, which has just ended, and now we\’re starting into \”The Alternative Factor\”. We\’ll be finishing off with \”The City on the Edge of Forever\”, one of my favourite all-time Trek episodes, from ANY of the five series, and \”Operation: Annihilate!\”, another classic.

Extremely enjoyable night ahead for myself and friend, and oh yeah… Happy 49th Birthday Star Trek!

Doctor Who (New): Series 8 DVD Box Set (Part One)

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[I]\’ve just recently gotten my hands on the Series 8 DVD Box Set of the new Doctor Who, and I\’m about to give it the once over. I\’ll be posting my opinions here, quick, general impressions first, followed by more in depth thoughts on each episode as I watch them.

I\’ve only ever seen these episodes once, back in 2014, when they originally aired on BBC One here in the UK. I recall being quite impressed with the performances of Peter Capaldi in his first season as the Doctor, and companion Clara Oswald, played by Jenna Coleman. I also remember liking most of the the twelve stories (although some more than others), with the exception of The Caretaker, which I didn\’t see at all first time around for some reason or another. It\’ll be interesting to watch The Caretaker for the very first time, and. I wonder if my opinions of any of the other eleven episodes will change on viewing them second time around.

I\’ll be making comments on individual episodes in a follow-up post, but here is a listing of the total contents of the box set.

Episodes:

Deep Breath
Into the Dalek
Robot of Sherwood
Listen
Time Heist
The Caretaker
Kill the Moon
Mummy on the Orient Express
Flatline
In the Forest of the Night
Dark Water
Death in Heaven

Special Features:

There are two long featurettes, and a number of shorter ones. Obviously, I haven\’t seen any of these before, so at least that\’s some more new material for me to watch. Starting off with the two longer featurettes, followed by the other shorter featurettes :

Doctor Who – The Ultimate Timelord
Doctor Who – The Ultimate Companion
Inside the New Tardis
Casting Peter Capaldi
Writing the New Series
What Is Doctor Who?
Why Watch Season 8?
Music video of Foxes performing Don\’t Stop Me Now

There are five discs in all, which should provide a lot of good viewing for several evenings at least. Further comments will be coming soon, as I actually watch the contents.

Doctor Who New Series 8 DVD Box Set (Part One)

$\"Doctor$

I\’ve just recently gotten my hands on the Series 8 DVD Box Set of the new Doctor Who, and I\’m about to give it the once over. I\’ll be posting my opinions here, quick, general impressions first, followed by more in depth thoughts on each episode as I watch them.

I\’ll be making comments on individual episodes in a follow-up post, but here is a listing of the total contents of the box set.

Episodes:

01. Deep Breath
02. Into the Dalek
03. Robot of Sherwood
04. Listen
05. Time Heist
06. The Caretaker
07. Kill the Moon
08. Mummy on the Orient Express
09. Flatline
10. In the Forest of the Night
11. Dark Water
12. Death in Heaven

Special Features:

There are five discs in all, which should provide a lot of good viewing for several evenings at least. Further comments will be coming soon, as I actually watch the contents.

Doctor Who – The Beginning (DVD Box Set)

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[R]ecently, I decided to conduct an interesting experiment in total immersion in classic Doctor Who, go right back to where it all started, and start watching my Doctor Who DVDs in order, starting with the earliest episodes first.

Well, you can\’t get any earlier than The Beginning three-disk DVD Box Set, which contains the first three Doctor Who adventures, starring (of course) William Hartnell as the First Doctor, his granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford), and the very first companions, Ian Chesterton (William Russell) and Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill).

The Beginning is an excellent box set, and the three stories it contains – the first thirteen episodes of the classic series – are, fortunately, complete, with no episodes missing. It\’s the fourth Doctor Who adventure, Marco Polo, before we run up against the first of the Missing Episodes. Unfortunately this classic Doctor Who historical adventure is entirely missing from the BBC Archives, although it still exists in audio format.

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The three stories in the box set – An Unearthly Child, The Daleks and The Edge of Destruction – lay the foundations of everything that came afterwards, from the first appearance of the mysterious Doctor and his granddaughter, to the first appearance of his most iconic adversaries, the Daleks. There are also quite a few fascinating featurettes on the three DVDs, a few of them oriented around the behind-the-scenes developments during those dim and distant days when the series was first created. Fascinating stuff!

I will be posting my thoughts here in this blog about each individual story as I watch the DVDs. I would also recommend that anyone who considers themselves a serious Doctor Who fan should do the same as I\’m doing, and watch these earliest episodes, in sequence, maybe one a day to get more of the feel of their original appearance on television. Sure, these old stories can be a bit slow and are radically different from modern frenetically-paced Doctor Who, but they\’re also the well from which all modern Doctor Who springs.

I find these early classics absolutely fascinating, both as television and as historical artifacts, and I strongly believe that they are required viewing for all true Doctor Who fans.