The Tardis Adventures Ep One Trailer

Marc Boxen does more Doctor Who based movies in Second Life. Here's his latest trailer! Features a fair bit of New London, home of the Doctor Who Zone!

http://mdwtv.wordpress.com/

DALEKS!!!!!!!!

High above New London, a Dalek saucer is caught in a vortex . . . . . .

 . . . . . and one lonely Dalek patrols the corridors of the damaged ship, left there to defend the almost lifeless hulk. 

This is what faces you should you decide to start a Dalek/human role play in the skies above New London. While much of the construction and reconstruction happening down at ground level focuses on the upcoming Olympics, New London also wants to keep to its roots, the very best Doctor Who and British Sci-Fi related sim in the known sky (extra credit to those of you to whom that statement makes any sense and who I was paraphrasing)

The Dalek Saucer is open and available to anyone wanting to participate in a role play session and is easily accessible from any teleporter on the ground. There are damage meters to be had and it's a safe place to bring any weapons that are otherwise banned in New London. Who knows what else may happen as the Olympics approach – Synchronized Dalek swimming, Tardis Races, Cybermen in the 1000 meter dash, Idris and Orac playing chess, Cylons attacking the Battlestar Gallactica in the skies over New London, we're not sure yet, the the Dalek Saucer is ready and open for business, so go explore.

Doctor Who Rewind - "ROSE"

While we, the Doctor Who fans of the world, are on the Unending Hiatus (there's no word on when the next new episodes will be aired – Damn you BBC !!!! - fist shake, fist shake) I've decided to travel back in time to 2005 and do a Doctor Who Rewind.

So back to the beginning, or re-beginning if you will. We can't forget that Doctor Who actually started with William Hartnell back in 1963 and with the 50^th anniversary of the original broadcast coming up in 2013 we will have plenty of opportunities to celebrate the entire series, but for now 2005 is our focus.

2005 was the year that we were introduced to the latest incarnation of The Doctor, a dark and brooding character who had eschewed the bright colors and question marked clothes of the past for a black leather jacket, black pants and almost painfully short hair.

So here we go – in keeping with my usual format I am going to get into what I liked and what I hated while adding another segment, what we learned. I am adding that because much has been added to the mythology of Doctor Who since it's been back on the air. Mythology, in this “Post LOST” television landscape is important, more important than it's ever been. TV show mythology has always been out there, but it seems in the last decade or so, outside of the Star Trek crazies out there who live pretty much for only mythology, the continuing stories and back stories of our favorite characters have become as important as the characters themselves, even more so in a show like this.

ROSE - Season 1 - Episode 1

WHAT I LOVED

This is pretty obvious – THE DOCTOR IS BACK! I had heard rumors of a re-launch back on 2004 and sqeeeee'd – note it was all true and here on my computer screen. One thing I learned, having been a fan of LOST was the art of the torrent download from fellow LOST fans over in the UK. So this was kind of coming full circle for me. BBC America was not up to full speed, not knowing, I guess, exactly what the BBC had on their hands, so no same day broadcasts back then.

On March 26, 2005 Doctor Who returned to British screens, on March 27^th I had it here.

I loved that the Tardis Console Room had been totally remade, and had the look of a machine that was old, REALLY old and held together with bubble gum and gaffer tape. Gone was the almost antiseptic whiteness of the original series Console Room. I guess the 1996 movie kind of killed off that concept, what with The Doctor traveling around time and space in a Victorian era country estate library Console Room. Even the exterior of the TARDIS looked really beat up and on it's last leg, you could almost feel like you would get a splinter running your hands on the exterior.

IT'S BIGGER ON THE INSIDE!

WHAT I LIKED

That Rose was your every day shop girl who went home to her flat, shared with mom, she had a boyfriend, she was like everyone else, very relatable.

“Run!”

RUN!

The Doctor flipping through a trashy magazine on Jackie Tyler's coffee table, “That will never work, he's gay and she's an alien.”

“There's a strange man in my bedroom.”

The sonic screwdriver is back!

That the Mr Davies and company decided to relaunch with the same enemy that launched Jon Pertwee's run as The Doctor (in “Spearhead from Space”), the Nestene Consciousness.

Plastic never looked so good

That the companion has a home life, a mom, a boyfriend just like your average 19 year old.

The using of the London Eye as a transmitting dish for the Nestene Consciousness, very cool.

CALLING ALL MANEQUINS - CALLING ALL MANEQUINS

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

There wasn't much to not like, it was a quick and enjoyable episode, a nice re-introduction to The Doctor.

WHAT WE LEARNED

That The Doctor was hanging around in Dallas on November 22, 1963, the day President John F Kennedy was assassinated. This had to be a shoutout to the original broadcast date on November 23, 1963 the day after the assassination, then he saves a family from sailing on Titanic and is maybe responsible for the Krakatoa eruption???

That Jackie Tyler doesn't seem to work but has money to go shopping at the mall – hmmmmmm – living off of Rose???? On the Dole???? Kind of young to be a pensioner. Luring other strange men into her bedroom???? Just how does she make money?

The Rose evidently can't tell the difference between a plastic version of her boyfriend and the real one.

The TARDIS is bigger on the inside than the outside. (Kidding)

The Ghengis Kahn tried to get into the TARDIS

Lots of planets have a North!

The first hints of the Time War.

Welcome to The Citadel of the Time Lords

As those of you who have been visiting New London over the past few weeks have seen, the sim is under reconstruction as Kat and Laredo ready things for the upcoming Olympics.  Much like real world London and many London based sims in Second Life, our beloved New London is going through a facelift of epic proportions and while that work goes on unabated the Citadel of the Time Lords has been reactivated high above the City.

The Citadel

Able to be reached by both teleporter and the convenient elevator (lift) systems, the Citadel, while being home to Time Lord government may also have hidden wormholes that will take you to other places you can explore.

A Dalek Base????

The Citadel is also the new home of the Radio Theater.  Theater managers Hoi and Ebak have been hard at work moving their amazing theater up into the Citadel area and continue to offer the best Big Finish audio tales of The Doctor and his companions, featuring the very actors who played The Doctor and his companions.

Sit back and relax!

So while construction continues all around New London why not pop on up to the Citadel and see what's going on up there - you might find the odd Dalek hanging around, maybe even an Ood - or plan on your own role play, it's all up to you.

The Games are Afoot . . . . .

1908, 1948 and 2012. What do these years have in common? Not much other than those were the years that a tiny village that was once home to the greatest empire the world had known, London, England, hosted the Olympic Games.

Yes, the city that straddles the Thames River, the home of The Gunpowder Plot, founded by the Roman Empire, will be hosting their third Olympics, the 30^th Olympiad, between July 27^th and August 12^th, 2012.

In honor of London's third hosting of the world's premier sporting event, New London Village has undertaken quite a facelift, on the West side of the sim (opposite Adipose Square – across the Thames) and the transformation has been amazing and is ongoing.

The transformation of New London into the Olympic Village is nothing other than the biggest construction project undertaken by sim owners Kat Kassner and Laredo Lowtide since the sim was founded and we look forward to its completion in time for the actual games.

The first part of construction has resulted in some of the shops from the A-1 Mall being brought “down to Earth” so to speak and all that have arrived are open for business – some come across London Bridge and stroll down Carnaby Street and visit shops such as HA!, 5^th Dimension, Kershaws. Heels by Humm, Lost In Space Creations, Sci-Props, Tempest, Inc. and Novatech. As construction continues more and more shops will join the shopping area, but you can always visit them via teleport or elevator in their current area above the sim. And you'll find the best selection of both Doctor Who and general Sci-Fi related articles in all of SL all in one place.

There will be more reports as construction continues and maybe even word of games coming to New London (there have been rumors of bumper car relay teams who will be fighting it out in the skies over New London - but that's just a rumor for now).

Here are a few shots of the new area . . . .

Jayne  

HAPPY TEARS

I want to preface this review by stating something that I have said in a few online chats, that being that when reviewing Christmas episodes of Doctor Who Christmas Rules apply. Christmas Rules basically mean that you cannot apply regular episode rules, you need to REALLY suspend your disbelief and just go with it. There's no need to get on the writers for canon mistakes, or sappiness, or taking liberties with things, it's a bloody Christmas episode! And for all of you Moffatt haters out there, Mr Davies wasn't much better when it came to tear inducing Christmas episodes.

I mean not since “The Next Doctor” have a I been driven to tears before the end, or at least not at a point in the story where the full story had been told. Yes, I was a bawling fool at the end of “A Christmas Carol” and slightly before the end of “Voyage of the Damned” when Astrid made her sacrifice to take out Max Capricorn in his effort to destroy the Earth, so Davies got to me too.

It wasn't the appearance of what I thought to be Douglas Adams' Vogon Constructor Fleet at the beginning with their announcements to the people of 1937 Earth (not that any of them would have heard it and Arthur Dent hadn't been born yet anyway) just before The Doctor blew up their incredibly large spaceship and chased down a spacesuit in the vacuum of space (yes – Time Lords can survive short amounts of time in the vacuum of space as was shown in the Peter Davison era episode “Four to Dooms Day” where he wore nothing but a space helmet - but I am not going to get into how he survived entry into Earth's atmosphere wearing only that spacesuit – and backwards at that), I made it to the the moment when Cyril's Dad, flying his damaged Avro Lancaster heavy bomber back to England on December 20th 1940, knew he wouldn't make it, touching the photo of his soon to be widowed wife in the cockpit of the doomed plane that got me all teary eyed, and they story hadn't even properly begun.

OK, before I go and get the box of tissues again it's time to get on with this review . . .

WHAT I LIKED

This is the first episode of Dr Who since the end of Season 6 in October and it's Christmas! Welcome back!

Cyril, with his red hair and big glasses reminded me of a tiny Elton John.

The entire kids' bedroom – I want those drop down from the ceiling hammocks, as I am sure every kid in the UK does now. The Christmas tree was pretty cool too.

That the Christmas Gift/space/time rift led to Androzani major, last heard of in the 5^th Doctor's final episode, “The Caves of Androzani”, and I can only say that the harvesting crew seemed to be high on Spectrox, they were a (comedic) mess!

The shoutout to moms being the strongest force in the Universe! Of course they are! Where would we be without moms. We'd be Sontarans and Daleks and Cybermen, though The Doctor's daughter didn't have much of a mom and she turned out pretty hot, I mean she turned out pretty well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the estrogen in me speaking, live with it.

The guiding light home through the Time Vortex that brought Dad home for Christmas, as Mom promised, yeah – it was sappy and somewhat predictable, but, as I said, Christmas Rules apply. If that had happened in a regular episode I'd be a lot less charitable in my view of it.

Humany Wumany – a sort of reference to Timey Wimey – but it just showed that The Doctor, for as long as he's know humanity, still doesn't get them at times, in this case their shedding of tears of happiness. He understands sadness, he's obviously experienced centuries of that, but the shedding of tears at happy times makes no sense to him. He seemed to shed at least one just before closing the door to the Ponds' house.

FAVORITE QUOTES

“I got dressed in a hurry.”

“Suddenly the last 900 years of time travel seem a lot less secure.”

“Staircase . . . seems to have broken down. . . . we'll have to walk up.”

“Time is shifting across dimensional plains. What do they teach you in school these days?”

“This is a military engagement. There's no crying in military engagements.” (a bit of a paraphrase on that famous line in the movie “A League of Their Own” (also set during World War II) - “There's no crying in baseball!”

“I have mother issues, it's all in the file.”

“Crying when you're happy. . . . .That's so human.”

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

The whole “sonic screwdriver doesn't work on wood” joke is VERY tired at this point. I almost wish the Tereliptils would show up and blast the thing out of existence again as they did in the Davison Era episode “The Visitation”.

Continuity Error - Madge tells the Androzanians that she's from England in 1941 - her husband was killed over the Chanel in 1940 - she told The Doctor that she hadn't told Lily and Cyril yet - the London Blitz ended in May of 1941 - so she could not have been at Uncle Digby's place at Christmas 1941.  Either that or she had pulled off a rather elaborate ruse on her kids and had them believing their father was still alive even though he'd been dead for over a year.  I think not!

WHAT I HATE – A Jayne Rant

Much like the birth of a child, it will probably not be for another 9 to 10 months, some time in October, before we see another episode. I get Mr Moffat's recent contention that Dr Who should be watched when it's dark outside. Daleks and Cybermen and whatever other monsters are out there are less scary when the sun's out and the kids are still out playing, but damnit, there are the Winter months that are just as dark and this Christmas episode could have been the launching pad for Season 7.1 with the Doctor's reuniting with Amy and Rory at the end of the episode. Season 7.2 could have started in October.

Steven Moffatt and company have already put out there that The Ponds, Amy and Rory, will be leaving the series. Why put that out there so far in advance of their actual leaving on the show? That's just wrong. Season 7.1 could have started in January, run for 7 weeks and ended with the leaving of Amy and Rory, preferably with Amy pregnant again with a normal baby that the Universe doesn't want to kidnap and the Doctor dropping in on Craig's son Alfie (the former Strormageddon) some 23 years down the road and taking him with him on adventures.

I get that you want to keep interest alive in the show, but if you're not going to come back until at least October at the earliest, why leak that out now? It seems kind of pointless. Season 7.2 could have started in October with the Doctor and Alfie hopping around the Universe and starting Season 8 with a visit to Poppa Craig at Christmas.

I know the BBC is trying to stretch things out until 2013, specifically November 23, 2013, the 50^th anniversary of the very first broadcast of Doctor Who, but they run the risk of losing their audience. There are a ton of other shows to get interested in to the detriment of Doctor Who, and I mean on both sides of the Atlantic and whatever other countries the program is shown in.

In closing, the BBC runs the risk of losing fans who have been there since the re-launch on 2005, who suffered through the 1996 movie (no reflection on Paul McGann - he deserved way better), who found this crazy British show on their local American Public Broadcasting Station and grew to love it. If they wait and hold off without giving the addicts their hit, they may reach the 23^rd November, 2013 (as you Brits write dates) with an all time low audience. Nuff said.

Rant Over!

Christmas Preview Review

Like many Whovians, I have been going through withdrawal since October and waiting for the annual Christmas special. On Thursday the BBC released the preview of this year's Christmas offering during the annual Children in Need fundraiser and, to be honest, it looks like “the . . . best . . . . .Christmas. . . . ever.”

What follows is based solely on what I saw in the preview, there are no spoilers here, unless you haven't seen the preview and I know you have. If you're reading this, you as much in withdrawal as I am.

It appears that this Christmas Special will be The Doctor's fourth broadcast story taking place during World WarII (the others being “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”, “Victory of the Daleks” and “Let's Kill Hitler”). There have been many ancillary written and audio stories having him popping in here and there during Mr. Churchill's time leading the British Empire, but we're just dealing with the broadcast stories here.

This is also the 11^th Doctor's second Christmas Special and the second of Mr Smith's tenure that takes its name from a famous piece of literature, though this year's plays with the title a by, paraphrasing the famous C S Lewis title swapping it out for “The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe”. My guess is that the Lion and The Witch are a bit miffed to have been left out.

Anyway, on to the preview review.

Once again, The Doctor is flying solo at Christmas, having left Amy and Rory at their new home. I wonder what the deal is with the Doctor Who crew and their not wanting a companion (or companions) to travel with the Doctor during the holidays. I mean we met the 10^th Doctor on Christmas Day and he hung out for dinner with Rose, her mum and Mickey, but since then, the Doctor does Christmas solo? Hmmmmm.

WHAT I LIKED

It appears that The Doctor is having some sort of a problem with the Tardis – based on all of the fire and general mayhem with his running and flames behind him – probably something he does that makes a mess of things that Idris will have to fix . . .. . . or has tied the Tardis to a certain point and time that is connected to a wormhole through which weird space marines and woody tree people come through.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE

I didn't like that I am in withdrawal and have to wait for Christmas evening to see the latest of the Doctor's Christmas adventures. I do hope they learned their lesson after last year's “Christmas Carol” and they don't have The Doctor marrying “The Widow”. The whole marrying Marylin Monroe thing was silly, though the (implied and not seen) duet with Frank Sinatra was kind of cool.

It also looks like maybe they used the same house that they filmed “Night Terrors” in and those creepy dolls still scare me.

FAVORITE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

I have to admit that so far, my favorite Christmas special was “The Next Doctor”, maybe because of it's “Oliver” like Victorian workhouse set, maybe because there was a hot air ballon Tardis, but mostly I think it was because of the story of Jackson Lake, the poor fellow whose wife was killed and child abducted by the Cybermen. His travels from being infostamped into thinking he was the last of the Time Lords to realizing he was a Mathematics teacher whose life had been destroyed by alien creature and then finally getting his son back just tore at me.

Let me know what your favorite Christmas special was.

Until some time during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day with my Christmas Review – this is Jayne signing off – except for seeing your faves for Christmas :)

Jayne