Science Fiction

Doctor Who – Series Six, Part One

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Doctor Who – Series Six (Part One)
  • tv.com: link

doctor-who-series-six-part-one-blu-rayIt begins with a trip to Nixon’s White House, a scared little girl (Sydney Wade) with the power to regenerate, the death of The Doctor (Matt Smith) and the first appearance of the Silence. And it ends with true identity of River Song (Alex Kingston) revealed.

The two-disc Blu-ray includes all seven of the first half of Doctor Who Series Six including pirates, Flesh created doppelgängers with minds of their own, the TARDIS in human form, and The Doctor and Rory (Arthur Darvill) mobilizing an army to save Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and her young daughter from those who would use her as a weapon against The Doctor.

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Torchwood: Miracle Day – The New World

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Torchwood: Miracle Day – The New World
  • tv.com: link

Torchwood: Miracle Day - The New World

Torchwood has the unenviable task of following up Children of Earth (one of the best sci-fi stories I’ve seen told in any medium in recent years) with not only a change in network (at least here in the United States) after a long layoff, but also moving the characters themselves across the pond to America. It isn’t a reboot exactly, but it does feel like a brand new beginning.

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Doctor Who #6

/ / Comics

doctor-who-6-coverThe Doctor visits on an old friend by taking Rory and Amy to Multiworld, a holosuite planet built on a Fluctuation Rift which allows the complex the ability to create 13 fully immersive realities built on top of each other. And then, as you would expect any story involving a “holosuite,” something goes horribly, horribly wrong.

The Doctor and his companions sample a few of the realities including the Old West, the Prehistoric Age, King Arthur, and the Swinging Sixties before a damaged Sontaran ship comes too close to Rift while leaking Fluronic Gas which begins to destabilize the Rift and separates the Doctor and his companions in different eras. Yep, holosuites are trouble.

For a Doctor Who comic this feels an awful lot like a lazy episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it does have a couple of fun moments including the Doctor and Rory’s duel, the talking dinosaur named Kevin, and Amy’s attempt to get the Doctor to behave. Not memorable, but some Who (and STNG) fans might get a kick out of this one.

[IDW, $3.99]

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Green Lantern

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Green Lantern
  • IMDB: link

green-lantern-posterHere’s the thing, I’ve been waiting for a Green Lantern movie since 1980. That’s a long time (and a big stack of comic books). On hearing Green Lantern was finally getting his own live-action franchise I was cautiously optimistic. And then every still, trailer, and commercial I saw made me increasingly less so. Was this really what I waited so long to see?

Director Martin Campbell unleashes a CGI extravangza which certainly isn’t the Green Lantern of my childhood. However, the script by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Goldenberg gets enough of the character right and does a fair job of combining various story threads, told over several decades, into a single cohesive narrative that by the time the credits rolled, I’ll admit, I had a slight grin on my face.

Of course it’s also possible that my longtime love for the character and my growing unease at something during its marketing began to look all too similar to Marvel’s botched Fantastic Four franchise may have caused a psychotic break.

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Doctor Who – A Good Man Goes to War

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Doctor Who – A Good Man Goes to War
  • tv.com: link

“Demons run when a good man goes to war.”

I’ve been pretty hard on Doctor Who this year, but I’ve got to say the Sixth Series mid-season break delivered the season’s best episode and finally gave us the identity of River Song (Alex Kingston). If you haven’t seen the episode yet go ahead and skip the review, because we’ve got spoilers.

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