Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

“The Parting of the Ways,” Doctor Who, Season 1, Episode 13 (2 of 2)

Neon lights flicker,
Machines replace flesh and bone,
Trust must still be earned.

Buy Yours Here:

So, it’s been a long time. I have to say that this particular entry is not my favorite thing in the world. It will not be normal. And it will be the last of these kinds of summaries. I found that you know, I’m not alone. Many of these websites give summaries of science fiction shows, and I’m just not going to keep up with any of them. The truth is that I’m doing a terrible job keeping up and doing a lot of avoiding it. So I started thinking about why I was doing that, and what was coming up in my field of vision was that I was no longer working on the daily output of any story. This terrified me. It was apparent to me that I had lost focus, and that I was completely working on the wrong thing. So that’s what I’m here to say.

I could talk about this episode of Doctor Who, where I go through all of the events and show the structure, but I’ve got to break this off I got to break this entire thing off so that I can get on with some new stuff. I think that there is room for blog entries and there is room for short things to go in here and I’m still working that out in my brain. But you know a Doctor Who saves the day And Rose Tyler gets back and helps destroy the doll looks for the power that doesn’t make sense and will never be used again and everybody you know runs off, and then we get a regeneration. I know there’s a lot of controversy over the actor’s desire to leave the show after the season. I think, for different reasons, that just in case they only got this one, what they wanted was everything that you could do in Doctor Who to get done in this season. But that’s about all I want to say about the actual show.

I got a lot of things going on in my brain, been sick, there’s been a lot of personal drama and tragedy around here, currently, we’ve got family up from Florida who were escaping hurricane Milton and I’m trying to kickstart my writing again in a meaningful way. I have this concept and it’s a little weird. It’s one of those things that I’ve always wanted to try but for one reason or another I had other things to do and it just didn’t work out. So I want to put some effort into it and see what happens if I try to do it. I did not want to lose study courses where you get access to a writer. It was with RL Stine who had a really good writing course and it kind of inspired me I like the idea of maybe doing a similar series where I write short fiction for kids, but I like the idea of doing it under a pseudonym. I don’t intend to hide my pseudonym, but I do intend to have fun with it. I named it after a character in another book that I haven’t released yet who is a writer who can make things happen in life when he writes them named Evolution Gray.

My great-niece is in the house and my cat has no idea what to do about it. She had never seen a creature so small that could walk on two legs, and it was fun to watch her and I mean the kitty run from the small child. It’s like well what the heck is that? I’m taking that as my clue to leave this entry behind for good, along with the entire series get on with some useful writing.

“Bad Wolf,” Doctor Who, Season 1, Episode 12 (1 of 2)

This show’s entry follows the style of Dan Harmon’s story circle.

Bad Wolf

What RTD does in this episode is dastardly. He has his big bad evil villains attacking the human race with weaponized reality TV!

1) In a zone of comfort

The Doctor, Rose, and Jack begin this episode captured and beamed into separate holding areas. To begin with, everyone is very confused. They don’t know where they are and they don’t understand what’s going on. They do however start to recognize certain familiar aspects of where they are.

The Doctor finds himself locked in a house with several other housemates who appear to be on a reality television show of some format. After investigating, the Doctor figures out that he is on a twisted version of the television show Big Brother, a reality show where housemates vote each other off until only one is left, except this time if someone leaves the house, they call it being evicted, and they are killed.

Rose finds herself on another show, a game show called The Weakest Link that was also very popular at the same time this 2006 episode aired. It’s a similar show in that contestants are eliminated until there’s only one left, however this time they are destroyed instead of simply leaving the show. The robotic host with a laser in her mouth, is a parody of the original host of the actual show.

Jack finds himself in a completely different show based on another popular reality television show called What Not to Wear. Similar to the situation in which Rose finds herself, Jack is faced with robotic versions of the hosts of the original show. They are there to give him a makeover which is something Jack would be into, until it all goes wrong and the chainsaws come out.

Hardly a zone of comfort I know, but it is how we start the show.

2) They desire something

They all want to escape, except Jack at first, who seems to be enjoying it too much. Each of them searches for their way out, some in more dire shape than the others.

3) Enter an unfamiliar situation

Faced with this unfamiliar situation, each of them works to figure out where they are. The Doctor does his best to get in trouble so he’ll be kicked out, while Rose gets cornered and put on stage and forced to play the quiz show. In the beginning, she doesn’t take it seriously, until people start to die.

4) Adapt to the situation

Rose works her way through, trying to adapt as best she can to what’s going on, and takes on the other contestants on the show, including one who seems to have it in for her. Jack gets the jump on his captors, pulling a gun from “somewhere,” and escaping right when the two robots think they’ve got him completely cornered. The Doctor, who has made a new friend Lynda (with a Y) escapes the show after becoming evicted. He’s broken one of the cameras with his sonic screwdriver and he invites Lynda to go with him. The Doctor is falling into some old habits here and we get a very similar shot to the one at the beginning of the first episode of this season, where the Doctor holds his hand out to Linda just as he did to Rose as he invites her to come with him. He is endangering her, even though she is interested in following him. The Doctor has a few things to learn from Lynda. He’s gotta be a whole lot more careful in the future with who he takes with him. Up ahead are some hard lessons for him to learn.

5) Get what they desired

The Doctor gets out and finds out he’s too important to someone to kill. (which seems to happen to him a lot.) He offers a hand to Lynda. In the back of his mind, he’s picking up a new companion, but what she is, is a warning about Rose’s future. Traveling with the Doctor can be seriously deadly.

6) Pay a heavy price for winning

Linda shows the Doctor the observation deck where they can see the Earth, and the Doctor sees that it looks incredibly wrong to him. The last time he was here on Satellite Five, he thought he’d put everything right again. But this was much much worse, and Linda tells him that it happened right after the time he was there before. Did he cause this new problem? Did he make it worse? The Doctor begins to doubt himself and wonder if he is doing good in the galaxy. The Doctor begins to get a little panicky. Jack then busts out and finds the Doctor and Lynda. Together, they locate Rose but arrive too late.

Rose is killed. (Though not truly.)

Losing a companion is the Doctor’s worst nightmare. He just saw Rose destroyed in front of his eyes in a blast of laser light. He is responsible, he’ll have to go tell Jackie. He is beside himself and loses all hope. He and Jack are arrested and taken to a holding cell. When the Doctor has had enough and sees the opportunity, he embraces Jack’s darker side and they assault the guards and escape. The Doctor is now on a holy quest to find out who is behind all of this, to find someone else to blame for the death of Rose and he’s not playing around anymore.

7) Return to their familiar situation

In this case for this episode, returning to a familiar situation is uncertain. It is the first of a two-parter so there is no complete resolution. There is one thing that does return the Doctor to a familiar situation. What it does is reintroduce a major villain. RTD had been holding them back, and keeping them in the shadows, but the controller of the station sacrifices herself to expose them, after having done what she can to bring the Doctor and his companions here to face them.

What appears before him on the screen are the Daleks, and they have Rose.

8) They have overall changed

The Doctor lays it all out, practically dedicating his love to Rose in a statement where he has no plan but he is going to defeat the Daleks and blast every one of them out of the sky after he gets on that ship and saves Rose. The Doctor has put away all pretense of trying to hide his love for this incredibly young girl who has stolen his heart.

Maybe she has stolen both of them.

Doctor Who on DvD

“Boom Town,” Doctor Who, Season 1, Episode 11

This show’s entry follows the style of Dan Harmon’s story circle.

Boom Town

1) In a zone of comfort

The Doctor and Rose return to Cardiff to refuel the TARDIS on top of the rift they established in a previous episode. Mickey arrives by train, called in by Rose to give it another shot. Jack is there, and he and the Doctor have fun poking Mickey. Everything is going well and everybody seems nice and comfortable until the Doctor notices a newspaper across the room that shows one of their old Slitheen buddies is operating again in town and the political spectrum.

2) They desire something

The Doctor wants to find out what she’s up to and stop her, which is pretty much what he always wants and desires during one of these episodes. What Margaret wants though, is a different story. She wants the ultimate thing that many space-traveling people who have grown weary want. She wants to go home. She’s indeed trying to avoid her responsibilities at home but you can tell that she is homesick for something and of course, as a villain what she decides to do endangers a whole lot of people to get what she wants. The difference here is that she’s on her own now and trying to operate on her own and she’s running out of resources. The Doctor has a whole lot of that on her, so as she runs out of resources he catches up with her pretty quickly. Margaret wants to destroy Cardiff, and by extension the entire world because of course it is Doctor Who and destroy a new nuclear power plant to ride the explosion away from this planet.

3) Enter an unfamiliar situation

Margaret is captured quickly. There’s a lot of business about bad Wolf and what that means in this episode, but that’s not what the real point is about here. She’s captured and brought aboard the TARDIS, which of course gives her other ideas. The Doctor will return to her home, even if it is a death sentence. None of the TARDIS crew feel good about this, and none of them can look her in the eye although they all believe it’s the right thing to do. This is new territory for the Doctor. There’s a certain amount of mercy involved and he can take mercy on someone who has tried to destroy the world over and over again, and can he feel sorry for her and do the right thing of course there’s a combination of both those things going on at this in this episode.

4) Adapt to the situation

The Doctor does something that he is not used to doing. He grants her last request, a final meal so to speak. She tries to kill him two or three times during the meal, but he’s not unprepared for that. This to me, this marks a certain turning point in the Doctor’s development. Before he was always someone who would defeat the enemies no matter what and there was no gray area involved but he’s taking a second look is Margaret as bad as she says she is or is she just trying to survive which of course is something that he’s trying to do. She’s a renegade and yet homesick and so is he and he would like to do nothing better than to help her and give her another chance but he doesn’t know how.

This interaction is incredibly interesting to me because I think it will set up the kind of Doctor he will be in the future, someone who cares a lot more about his enemies than he lets on. Eventually, way down the line in the 12th Doctor’s era, I will see him return and visit Davros, the old creator of the Daleks because he was sick, and he asked the Doctor to come. We are moving into an era where the Doctor wants to help everybody not just the people who are the victims, but also the villains.

5) Get what they desired

The confrontation inside the TARDIS. Margaret has smuggled in a trans diamond channel surfboard of sorts, and we get our first view inside the heart of the TARDIS. It’s that bright subtle light that transfixes his people, and it’s a setup for what we’re going to see in the parting of the ways in a few episodes, but it provides two things. It provides the Doctor’s means of defeating someone that he doesn’t want to vanquish personally and provides Margaret a way out except it doesn’t quite turn out that way.

6) Pay a heavy price for winning

Margaret both loses her life and gets to start over. The TARDIS returns her to the form of an egg. It’s a hairy squiggly-looking egg, but it’s an egg.

7) Return to their familiar situation

The crew is off to return Margaret to her home, but now they’ve come out different.

8) They have overall changed

The Doctor will question from now on how far he needs to go. Ultimate destruction is not always the right choice. He will falter, but every time he goes too far he always remembers, that sometimes everyone, even he, deserves a second chance.

Doctor Who on DvD

“The Doctor Dances,” Doctor Who, Season 1, Episode 10 (2 of 2)

This show’s entry follows the style of Dan Harmon’s story circle.

Just this once. Everybody lives!

The Doctor Dances

Much like the last one of these, this is part two. The Doctor Dances culminates the story of the Doctor and Rose visiting the London Blitz. We’ve already covered parts one through four, so here are five, six, seven, and eight. Dr. Constantine has just turned into a zombie, Rose and Jack have found the Doctor at the hospital, and the children have surrounded them. Then the Doctor does something very interesting, taking advantage of how the child will probably think. He sends him to his room. It’s a saving grace in a kind of a great way to get out of being cornered by all the children but backfires on them later.

5) Get what they desired

Essentially, Rose gets what she desires, in that she gets the Doctor alone. They’re trapped, or at least eventually they become trapped, and it’s pretty early in the episode. The children are bearing down on them. Jack has escaped with the teleporting device back to his ship. The Doctor and Rose believe him to have left for good, but then the radio plays. Jack is taking control of it. He’s playing his old radio tunes, and Rose takes this moment to put the screws to the Doctor and corner him. The Doctor makes up a bullshit reason about resonating concrete to affect their escape, but Rose isn’t buying it. She already knows that Jack’s on his way because of the radio, so she takes over the conversation and pushes him. Does the Doctor dance? Obviously to us what they’re talking about is sex, or at the very least, romantic relationships.

Yes, he does. We all know he started off this journey with his granddaughter in the first show, so he has family. And since you know, granddaughter, he’s done plenty of dancing in his time. You get the idea, that the Doctor has not done this for some time. There’s a long-standing belief, that the Doctor should not have any kind of relationship with the people that travel with him. Some believe this to be the best. This is supposed to be a family show, and it’s supposed to be partly about looking into the past and looking ahead at the future. But I think that shorts our lead character to a certain extent. I think there needs to be room for these kinds of relationships, especially for a lead. One thing about Doctor Who is that to a certain extent, he has never been the lead, at least he wasn’t the lead directly until much later in the original series. It was almost as if the companions were the leads because we were seeing everything through their eyes. I think it gives the show a chance to grow up. If the Doctor can have these kinds of relationships, then this is no longer just a children’s show. Now this becomes an adult science fiction drama. Still family-friendly, just now with “dating and dancing.”

I believe that he’s had relationships with multiple companions over the years. For instance, I believe that Jo Grant and Sarah Jane were sexual partners of the Doctor, and I think Teagan Jovanka was also a sexual partner of the Doctor. Romana? Debatable, especially since Tom Baker and Lalla Ward had a “Hollywood” wedding. These are people he had trouble leaving when the time came. In Teagan’s case, she’s the only one in the original series that the Doctor chased after and asked not to leave.

At this moment, however, the Doctor gives in. He’s been harboring feelings for Rose the entire time but hasn’t been able to bring himself to broach the subject. Rose now does the work for him, which is a relief. By the end of the episode, you can tell that they are accepting the possibility that they are a couple rather than spending all their time telling people they’re not.

6) Pay a heavy price for winning

The person who ends up bearing the heavy load in this episode and pays the heavy price for winning is Nancy. The way to beat the aliens and bring everyone back is for Nancy to own up to the fact that the boy, Jamie, is hers. She’s been hiding the fact of her teen pregnancy for so long that it’s been wearing on her, body and soul. She’s poured all of her nervous energy into helping all the children that she can because she couldn’t face the fact that she had one that she needed to be taking care of herself. She’d been acting as his sister, but that didn’t change the fact that she was his mom. It’s that big mom’s love coming through that saves the day. The Doctor was there and Jack got rid of the bomb, but what did the work was Nancy taking over officially as Jamie’s mom.

7) Return to their familiar situation

The Doctor and Rose, get back to the TARDIS and Rose pushes the Doctor to save Jack. The Doctor was already going to do it; I think. I think he wanted a couple of extra tender moments to himself with Rose before he did it.

8) They have overall changed

This episode marks not only a change in the Doctor and Rose and their relationship, but it’s a fundamental shift in the entire show. In the space of these two episodes, Russell T Davies has shown that the Doctor can have and maintain an adult relationship while inside the framework of a show that remains friendly to families. There is room for innuendo and room boogie while keeping the show heading in a direction that works for its intended audience.

Doctor Who on DvD

“The Empty Child,” Doctor Who, Season 1, Episode 9 (1 of 2)

The Empty Child

This show’s entry follows the style of Dan Harmon’s story circle.

“Gimmie some Spock! Would it kill you?”

I think it’s impossible to tell the story of “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances” without splitting up the standard steps. Since this episode ends in a massive cliffhanger, it’s important to see that you can’t possibly close the circuit and have anybody return to their familiar situation without the second part and conclusion to this story. So that’s what I’m going to do. In this entry, I’m going to go through steps one through four, as if this were all one big story and then I’m going to pick it up in the next entry with the second half and wrap it up.

1) In a zone of comfort

In this story, I think that the zone of comfort is the Doctor doing what the Doctor does. Rose is desperate. Maybe desperate is not exactly the right word, but she wants his attention. He impresses her; she thinks she’s hot, and she doesn’t understand why he won’t make a move on her. He’s going around, saving the world or saving the universe or saving whatever it is he’s saving at the moment and Rose doesn’t understand. She’s right there. The big lug doesn’t seem to catch a hint. She even begs him on the way out of the TARDIS when they’re looking for the cause of of their search, the space ambulance, she says “Gimmie some Spock! Would it kill you?” She’s pushing his buttons, seeing if she can crack his shell and see if sex (dancing!) is a possibility with him.

2) They desire something

So Rose lays it out for him. She wants some flash. She wants him to show off gizmos. She wants him to sweep her off her feet, and not just be the hero she’s looking for a little more. She wants him to impress her, to pursue and win her. Frankly, I think she just wants to get into his pants. It’s a pretty straightforward desire in an interesting backdrop to the rest of the story. I think the story addresses directly a common gripe about Doctor Who stories. There is this ambiguous line usually drawn, where the idea of what kind of sexual or romantic drives the Doctor may have rarely appeared on screen. We have only had speculation about which companions may or may not have carried on romantic relationships with the Doctor. Is it all of them? Are his companions all just best friends who have been traveling with him? Or is it (mostly) a long list of ex-girlfriends? Throughout the years, some companions had a stronger bond with the Doctor, possibly even romantically, but the show never explicitly showcased it. It’s part of why all the kissing involved in the Paul McGann television special caused such a ruckus. Everyone knew or at least expected that the Doctor had relationships like that with many companions who traveled with him, but he didn’t openly involve himself romantically with them.

I think part of the controversy arises from the show being perceived as a children’s show.

Now it’s time for the show to grow up, and Rose will take us there.

It’s a new show, in a new time, for a fresh audience who were probably all children when the original show was on, at least many of us. Since the show targets those people, it only makes sense that we tackle these kinds of topics. The Doctor is reluctant to open up, and he plays this part well as if he’s speaking for all those previous Doctors where we didn’t know what his feelings were about. As the Doctor slowly opens up to Rose, he also opens up to us, and she’s the one who brings it out of him.

3) Enter an unfamiliar situation

The unfamiliar situation is the London Blitz. We arrive in a period of history where the characters can get lost. During the London Blitz, we are describing the period in World War II when Hitler was bombing Britain regularly. As the Doctor and Rose spread out, they encounter strange things going on. The Doctor faces the telephone in his front door ringing when it isn’t connected to anything, and the little boy with the gas mask chases away Rose. The Doctor meets Nancy, who warns him about the phone. Besides the show growing up and addressing the romantic feelings of the Doctor and how much he represses them, Nancy is an incredibly interesting character because she does two things that also cross the line and help the show grow up. Her story is about hiding a teen pregnancy. She also confronts a man about having a homosexual love affair, which was unheard of in the show.

4) Adapt to the situation

As they adapt, the Doctor and Rose are both telling different stories. Rose meets Jack, who has a flashy spaceship tied to Big Ben. He is all the open flash that the Doctor isn’t. At the time she doesn’t know that he’s a bisexual human from the future, another line this series crosses that would never have shown up in the original show. It’s almost like Russell T Davies gathered up all the sexual insecurities people had about the show and jammed them all into these two episodes.

While Rose’s off doing that, the Doctor is taking an interest in Nancy’s story. He can tell that she is helping children during the bombing and he wants to know more about her. In the end, she tells him he needs to go to the hospital and talk to the Doctor to find out more about The Empty Child. Just for a second, you could tell he wonders if when he goes up to the hospital he’ll encounter himself. I think that’s what everybody wants to happen, even though it doesn’t, and it’s fine. He thinks he might meet himself, a thought that only occurs in a brilliant facial move by Christopher Eccleston. I think what it means is that during this episode what’s happening is the Doctor is learning something about himself.

Next time, does the Doctor “Dance?”

The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co. #1), by Jonathan Stroud

The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Netflix series impressed me based on a series of books by Jonathan Stroud called Lockwood and Co. about a group of teenagers who fight ghosts in England. I thought it was incredibly inventive. I think possibly the only problem with the series is that it seems to be limited to southern England. I was even more delighted after watching the series, which I meant to watch one at a time, but ended up binge-watching because it was that good. It was then that I found out it was based on a series of books, and I knew that had to be the next book series that I got into.

Thanks, Netflix, I suppose for going ahead and canceling this beautiful series before it had a chance. I like the soundtrack; I like the series; I think the casting was beautiful, and the books are great. I read the first book, The Screaming Staircase, and I liked it so much that I went and bought the rest of them and I’ve got them sitting on my virtual bedside table ready to go. I committed to reading the entire series, hoping that the show would include them, but then they canceled it. Way to go Netflix. I do not understand your current plans, because you seem to cancel all the good things that you brought so far. I don’t have any confidence anymore in a Netflix-produced show, because I don’t believe you’ll ever get to a 5th season or the ending of a character arc or pretty much anything.

So aside from the fact that I’m fairly disappointed that the Netflix show ended and interested because The Screaming Staircase took up the first half of the first season of the show, I like this book. When I got the rest of the books, it took me a little while and I came back and reread this one before I started in on any of the rest of them; I found it to be just as engaging as the first time I read it.

It’s got a great first-person voice in the form of Lucy, who keeps us interested in what’s going on. We get to join her as she grows up learning how to fight ghosts and knowing that all the kids have kind of potential end date to their usefulness as ghost hunters. Stroud has set us up with a situation, where people get older. They are less and less attuned to the supernatural, so their ability to deal with what the story calls the problem becomes diminished.

It’s a great read, and I am looking forward to the rest of the series of books that come behind it.

View all my reviews

“Father’s Day,” Doctor Who, Season 1, Episode 8

This show’s entry follows the style of Dan Harmon’s story circle.

It’s probably harsh to say that I hate this episode. I never particularly thought it was a strong episode, and I think that Rose having a father who is missing growing up is almost sadder than getting to know him. He’s always been this kind of force in the back of her mind. I lost my father to Octobers ago; I lost my mom last December and I would do anything to get them back. So I understand Rose a lot more.

I would break the laws of time to have either of them back for a minute.

Father’s Day

1) In a zone of comfort

It starts with Rose as a child, remembering her mother telling her stories about how great her dad was, even though he was not. Her mother is telling stories about them like they are fairytales, building him up to be something in Rose’s mind that she could remember favorably, when he was no good, always trying some kind of scheme and running him and her mom out of money all the time.

2) They desire something

The desire in this episode is simple. Rose wants to see her dad. She knows when and where he died and she has access to a time machine. At first, she plans to go to him so that he doesn’t have to die alone, but she misses her chance waiting too long and wants to try again, and that’s when it all goes wrong. She races out at the wrong time, passing herself and the Doctor who are still standing on the street, and then saves his life instead of being there for him when he dies.

3) Enter an unfamiliar situation

Rose gets some time here with her dad, a time that she never would’ve had before. She’s able to talk to him about his schemes and talk to him about his relationship with her mother and how strained it is. She avoids being found out for who she is, but she confuses Pete because he trusts her implicitly and doesn’t seem to understand why he would just leave the house and later give her the keys to his car without thinking.

4) Adapt to the situation

At the same time, creatures begin to patrol the streets. They hang on the side of buildings giant black-winged monsters and attack people. They are wraiths who want to set time right. They get people in their backyards, and get people as they try to walk to a wedding. At the wedding Pete and Rose meet her mother Jackie who has baby Rose with her. Pete had been on his way here with the wedding present when he met his fate originally.

I just put that together “Pete Rose” really? Coincidence, right?

5) Get what they desired

Rose has her dad, however, people around, in a church at a wedding, and doing yard work start noticing it get cold, the Doctor can’t get back into the TARDIS, and the car that killed her father keeps showing up. Rose meets herself as a baby and sees her mom and dad fight. They love each other, but this is what they are really like,

6) Pay a heavy price for winning

As Rose lies about how good a father Pete was as she grew up, he figures out who Rose is. The creatures arrive to collect Pete and they hide in the church until Pete figures out he has to sacrifice himself.

When Rose touches the baby version of herself, it’s like the last straw, and the demons can get into the church. The Doctor being the oldest thing there, sacrifices himself to slow them down. Rose now has her father, but she’s lost the Doctor and she is stuck in time. The Doctor has put a heck of a lot of faith in Pete, that he’ll figure it out, and do the right thing to fix this.

He runs to the car that killed him and takes the hit, and the creatures vanish.

7) Return to their familiar situation

Now Jackie’s bedtime story has changed and an anonymous Rose comforting him is a part of it, having been there as he dies.

8) They have overall changed

Rose has learned how fragile time is, but is better for having met her father.

I will admit, for now, this episode makes me cry more than any of the rest of them do.

Doctor Who on DvD

“The Long Game,” Doctor Who, Season 1, Episode 7

This show’s entry follows the style of Dan Harmon’s story circle.

The Long Game

This is an amazing Doctor Who story for me on many levels. One of the most interesting things about it is that it is a Doctor Who story where he kicks out a companion, returning him home for misbehaving. The Doctor bans Adam from the TARDIS and leaves him to avoid being detected after altering his brain. The mechanical third eye reminds me of someone. I think this is a missed opportunity and could have been an interesting way to introduce Davros to New Who, the scarred companion left behind.

1) In a zone of comfort

Everything starts easy enough. They arrive on Satellite 5 and the Doctor allows Rose some hints so she can look smart for Adam when they first come out of the TARDIS. He appears to take a lot of time to adjust to being on a satellite that exists many years in the future. Everywhere they look, are televisions showing various news segments from around the world. It looks like a lot of terrorist activity and bloodshed. Rose shows Adam her phone and permits him to call home since he is having trouble adjusting. I’m not sure if he gets the idea then, to send information about the future home, but after standing up when the Doctor returns to find them, keeps Rose’s phone, tucking it in his pocket. There’s something fishy going on with him, but I’m not sure if at this stage he even knows what he’s up to.

2) They desire something

After a demonstration of the broadcasting process from Cathica, the Doctor can tell that the technology is wrong. He can tell that it’s not as up-to-date as it should be for the time. Looking around, he can tell that progress is been stunted. This desire drives the Doctor.

Cathica longs for a promotion. She feels like it’s overdue; she feels overworked, and she feels like she’s earned it. She wants one more than anything else. She has been good. She has followed all the rules, and it’s gotten her nowhere. She is driven by this desire, and eventually, it is Suki getting promoted over her that drives her to join the Doctor and break the rules.

During this period, Adam slips away. His desires, as an alien artifact cataloger, come later.

3) Enter an unfamiliar situation

Adam gets hungry for power and tries to send a coded message home. but can’t. He needs a chip.

The Editor is looking for something wrong going on because he has vague suspicions and targets Suki. He decides that it’s enough to bring her upstairs. So she’s promoted over Cathica, who is furious about it. She happily takes the elevator upstairs, acting like it’s the break she’s been looking for and disappears. She physically enters an unfamiliar situation, by going into the cold desolate 500th floor. She searches around, encountering dead bodies connected to control panels, and eventually finds the Editor. The Editor confronts her and outs her as a revolutionary, which is something that I did not expect the first time I watched it. She pulls a gun, and he introduces her to her boss, hanging on the ceiling.

On a different level, Adam finds a computer terminal. He has told Rose he wants to go to the observation deck and get used to things, but that’s not what he does. What he does is he goes and tries to access a computer. With Rose’s phone, he’s hoping to send some kind of message home with information about the future. He runs into trouble because he can’t access the computer properly. He doesn’t seem to have the proper chip installed in his head. So instead of saying I may need to get back to the Doctor, he goes looking for how to get a chip of his own.

I find it unusual, that in a Doctor Who episode it would focus as much as it does on a side character. The companions are important, as they are our point-of-view characters who encounter the Doctor’s wild world for us to enjoy, but there’s something fishy about Adam. He’s taking up too much time, so he makes me wonder. The Doctor wants to stop whatever’s going on, but I think what’s really going on revolves around what Adam is doing.

4) Adapt to the situation

Adam walks onto the medical floor and inquires about getting a chip and is deftly up-sized to the full Info Spike. She knows how much credit is on his chit, and she wants all of it she can get.

While Adam is getting his surgery, the Doctor, Rose, and Cathica sneak around. The Doctor easily figures out how to get the elevator to take him to Floor 500, but Cathica won’t go with him. She’s still trying to follow the rules.

While the Doctor and Rose search Floor 500, unaware of what they will find, the Editor delves into their identities and becomes completely baffled because of the absence of any information about them in his database.

5) Get what they desired

Adam gets his brain Info Spike, learning to flick it open and shut with a finger snap. (or click.)

The Doctor and Rose go find the Editor, and his boss, the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe (Max.) I do not envy Simon Pegg for having to say that with a straight face. He’s the reason for all the air-conditioning blasting upstairs and upsetting the heating on the other floors. The Doctor finds Suki dead, but somehow still working. Ever feel like a job is sucking the life out of you? She certainly does.

6) Pay a heavy price for winning

Despite the Doctor and Rose being captured, Cathica sneaks upstairs.

Adam takes over the satellite and away with the show and broadcasts too much information home through time. In doing so, he gives the Doctor and Rose away.

Cathica takes Adam out by getting in a dentist’s chair of her own to kick him out and heat the Jagrafess up. Break rules on her watch? I don’t think so. I’d hate to be a creature that explodes when it gets too hot.

The Editor tries to escape, but zombie Suki stops him.

7) Return to their familiar situation

The Doctor then bans Adam from the TARDIS, sending him home, and he destroys the archive. (It all fits on an answering machine?)

8) They have overall changed

The Doctor only takes the best.

Doctor Who on DvD

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Hexagonal Phase: And Another Thing… The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Quintessential Phase by Eoin Colfer

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Hexagonal Phase: And Another Thing… The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: The Quintessential Phase by Eoin Colfer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dirk Maggs beautifully adapted this dramatized “radio show” from Colfer’s novel And Another Thing… as the 6th installment in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.

This is a finishing piece to cap off the Hitchhiker’s Guide series after Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adam’s last entry in the story, which left us on a dark note. In Adam’s original end, we are left with the conviction that everyone is dead. I saw an interview with Adams where he expressed regret that the series ended so darkly and that he intended to add a better ending eventually, which unfortunately he wasn’t able to provide.

It also reunites many of the original cast members from both the radio shows and a short-run television series from 1981, including two different Trillians, and workable reasons for that. It’s a beautifully blended cast of old and new.

This brings together just about everything you want to know about what happens to each character. Does Trillian run off with the best and sulking in the universe? Does Arthur ever find Fenchurch again? Whatever happened to Zaphod Beeblebrox’s other head? What will be Random’s legacy as former President of the Galactic government? These are only a few of the great mysteries you will uncover in this edition of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

An important note to anyone reading my thoughts on books or dramatic audio like this is that I make zero distinctions between paper, ebook, or audiobook. The media used does not matter because the process the brain goes through to interpret the information is the same.

View all my reviews

“Dalek,” Doctor Who, Season 1, Episode 6

This show’s entry follows the style of Dan Harmon’s story circle.

You would make a good Dalek.

The Doctor, Rose, Adam, and Henrey van Statten, face off against the Dalek.

1) In a zone of comfort

The Doctor starts this episode showing off for Rose in Henry van Statten’s underground museum. The Doctor and Rose appear in the Museum of Alien Artifacts. The Doctor points out several of them, including the head of a Cyberman, something that we haven’t seen thus far in the series, and calls it a former enemy or friend. As they look around, security notices them and surrounds them. Statten has a vast collection, and the Doctor’s in-depth understanding of it leads directly to what he labels as the cage where his greatest specimen is kept.

2) They desire something

It turns out to be a Dalek, which we as huge fans all immediately recognize. The Doctor, finding himself locked in a room with one panics and tries to get out. He confronts it. Pieces of the Time War come out. They’re both the last of their kind. The Dalek is waiting for orders, and the Doctor thinks that the only way any of them will escape dying themselves is to kill the Dalek. What Henry wants a vain sort of Americanized and misplaced validation of himself.

3) Enter an unfamiliar situation

The Doctor, now identified as another form of alien, stuck down in Statten’s collection of alien artifacts, is poked and prodded. The Doctor finds himself in an unfamiliar situation as he and the Dalek are both tortured, prodded, and tested by Statten’s people to get information out of them. It’s the first time in this series that we see the Doctor’s two hearts, something that I think is very important to him as a character and not just as a Time Lord.

4) Adapt to the situation

The Dalek, faced with its apparent impotence and inability to kill the Doctor is visited by Rose and Adam. I have more to say about Adam, but that will probably wait until the next episode. For now, Adam is a smart but goofy kid who works for Statten, cataloging new artifacts that come in. He has sort of a soft spot for Rose, who is probably the first girl his age that he has seen in however long it must be.

Rose touches the Dalek, a creature that seems just to be sad, and the Dalek does something that I’ve never seen happen before. It’s more than a physical touch. It works on the Dalek emotionally as well. It assimilates her DNA and extrapolates her relationship with a Time Lord, who must be the Doctor. To me, this is a subtle nod that not only is the Doctor in love with Rose, but they probably already have a physical relationship by this time. It takes this information and dissects it then manages to revitalize itself, some say it regenerates and begins to gain its power back. It easily breaks the code on the cell it’s in after they try to lock it back in there, and it chases Rose and Adam down the halls killing every military operative between them.

Near the end of the chase, Adam escapes through bulkhead doors that are being shut by the Doctor and Statten. Rose falls behind on the other side of the door, but not before the Dalek surprises everyone by flying up the stairwell when Adam remains convinced it couldn’t, possibly. It still can’t kill her and isn’t sure why.

It is not the first time as a die-hard fan that I’ve seen the Daleks fly. During the seventh Doctor’s time, in a show titled Remembrance of the Daleks, was the first time I saw one fly up the stairs. And although looking back on that clip now, it hardly looks as scary as it used to. I remember when that happened, completely flipping out. Oh no, now that the Daleks can get up the stairs, there is no hope for anyone now.

5) Get what they desired

Eventually, they have the Dalek surrounded. The Doctor is in command, Statten is playing along, trying to survive himself, and for the moment Rose and Adam seem to be out of danger. They cut loose, firing at the Dalek as many times as they can, but it doesn’t work the way they want to.

6) Pay a heavy price for winning

Statten’s military fires, but the Dalek rises into the air, shoots a pipe that causes it to rein in the room, and then electrifies the air, killing all the military personnel left.

The Dalek then faces off against the Doctor over the video comm and commends him, saying “You would make a good Dalek.” This horrifies him, and he takes a few minutes to fully understand what the creature means.

7) Return to their familiar situation

As the Dalek and Rose are coming up to the surface, the Dalek is thinking about what it wants. It needs someone to command it, to give it orders, and it doesn’t see its place in the universe anymore, so it wants to die. They do that as the Doctor and Adam are rummaging through the old broken tech, looking for something, anything to fight the Dalek with. I think it’s funny that they use the old hairdryer joke when they’re going through the old guns. Many a hairdryer have become sci-fi guns after they were spray-painted black.

8) They have overall changed

The Dalek doesn’t want to kill anymore. It reaches the surface with Rose, wanting to feel the sun on its skin. It opens up, allowing Rose to see its soft underbelly. It’s fully vulnerable, and when the Doctor arrives. It would be easily killable without its armor protecting it.

The Dalek is done. It only wants peace and to be allowed to stand down. The Doctor can’t kill the Dalek, either. Through Rose, he sees the change, and maybe for the first time, just how much even the life of a Dalek means.