Doctor Whosday: Telepathetic Politics

In reviewing stories from the 60s, as I have been both here and on Marvel Mondays, certain themes come up again and again. One of the biggest is the contrast between democracy and communism. The freedom and individuality of the West is championed, while the collective juggernaut of the East is castigated.

"The Sensorites" begins much the same way. The brave, British astronauts from Democratic Earth are menaced by the Sensorites, insidious aliens who, while cowardly, have the ability to control the minds of humans. They have a collective society where each Sensorite is given their task, and they are in a cold war with the astronauts, refusing to let them leave peacefully yet also not killing them, yet. They are the communist threat.

And yet, in a bold move for 1964, "The Sensorites" takes a very different, and in many ways more modern, turn. And that is to be commended. But is it enough to overcome the weaknesses of the story? That is a good question.

Marvel Monday: Terrorists, Communists, and Carnies

In September of 1962 Fantastic Four became monthly. Added to the monthly titles of Journey into Mystery and Tales to Astonish (both now linked to Superheroes), and the bimonthly Incredible Hulk, Marvel Comics was starting to look like a true superhero lineup. And that started with the return of a familiar face in a new superhero context.

You know he's a superhero this time, because the bad guys are Communists.

Apocryphail Phriday: Knee Deep In The Dead

I haven't seen the movie with the Rock.
But it had to be better than this.

In 1993 a video game came out from ID Software that would more or less invent the First Person Shooter genre. This game was Doom. It became wildly popular. This being the nineties, that meant it got spinoffs. And so, in 1995, Dafydd ab Hugh and Brad Linaweaver published "Doom: Knee Deep In The Dead", a full novelization of the first video game in the franchise.

It remains a textbook example of how never, ever to write a video game novel.

The problem is not the hard-on for the Marine Corps that makes Michael Bay look like a weed-smoking flower child. Nor is the problem the confused gender politics and inability to decide whether the heroes are snarky nerds or grunting jarheads.

The problem is not even the network of cliches that renders this story completely and utterly unengaging.

The problem is that this novel, this novel about the most badass Marine in the world mowing down an entire army of demons on the moons of Mars, is terrifyingly, life-suckingly dull.

Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull from Dullsville with a side order of dull and something dull on top.

Let's jump right in, shall we?

Jeffrey Rewrites Voyager: Eye of the Needle

I consider this episode to be typical of the problem with Star Trek: Voyager. A good setup, an interesting and engaging crisis, particularly excellent acting, and a muddled ending that seems to undermine everything.

Plus, this episode makes absolutely no sense less than halfway through the first season. I mean, no sense.

Plus, it's a "Voyager may get to go home!" episode. Which automatically means the audience is just waiting for some deus ex machina excuse for why it won't work, which is what happens with every single "Voyager may get to go home!" episode to the point where I can barely remember any other distinctions between them.

At least this one has Romulans, and I love me some Romulans.

Doctor Whosday: Fixed Points and Macehuitl Fights

It is always a risky thing, creating a story set in a foreign culture. The typical writer for western television grew up in the west, so while foreign cultures like European nations, or the United States, Canada, or the UK if you are not a native, can be difficult, they are at least similar to the writer's experience.

But when a western writer tries to write about a culture that rose up in isolation from the shared Roman Empire history of the West, be it Eastern culture or Hindu culture or African culture, that writer is often having to learn everything from scratch. If the writer does not care enough to do the research, this can lead to glaring stereotypes and errors.

This is doubly true for stories involving Pre-Columbian America, which does not have any shared history with Europe, Africa, or Asia (unless you subscribe to the African Origins theory, but as that is not the current scientific consensus we won't get into that here.)

So when I say that "The Aztecs", the sixth Doctor Who serial, does a magnificent job of realizing pre-Columbian Aztecs, both the good and the bad, and creates one of the most interesting and thoughtful Doctor Who plots yet seen, or indeed seen since, I want my readers to have a sense for just how impressive that is.

This is one of my favorites, and I may gush. You've been warned.

Marvel Monday: Heroes At Last!

Despite the fact that the only hero in the Marvel universe thus far has been Bruce Banner, August of 1962 saw two new entries into the ranks. And one of them is a bona fide hero! The other isn't yet, but he will be by the end of his issue and the uttering of the words, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility."

Why did he ever lose the underarm-netting?

Apocryphail Phriday: Fray

I'm sort of cheating twice with this one. First, word of god says that today's subject is actually canon, and it has been referred to in the comic books that followed the TV Series and the series itself. Second... it's actually not that bad. In fact some things are really awesome. But then there are some things that just... yeesh.

Anyway, this is Joss Whedon's Fray.

It's like Buffy meets 5th Element meets Hellboy meets Shadowrun meets...

Fray was an 8-comic miniseries published by Dark Horse, and was the first Buffy: The Vampire Slayer comic actually written by Joss Whedon. In a crapsack future version of New York City, the supernatural and magic has been gone from the world for so long that everyone has forgotten about it. But in the shadows the Vampires are returning. And Melaka Fray, a petty thief, discovers that she is the heir to the legacy of the Slayers. Which mostly manifests as her having all the worst problems of Superman and Goku.

Welcome to the 23rd century, ladies and gentlemen!

Jeffrey Rewrites Voyager: The Cloud

Normally I am all in favor of character development episodes. I think there needs to be more character development in most television series, especially action and/or sci-fi series. So by all rights I should love this episode, which has the flimsiest of plots stringing together a series of vignettes that develop the character of the main cast.

The problem is, this needs to be good character development. And oh boy, is it not.

So as Voyager plunges headlong into the "It's actually a life-form!" plot that should be enjoyable, but somehow isn't, let's try to rewrite these terrible characters into something better.

Especially Chakotay. For Gene's sake, writers, what were you thinking?

Doctor Whosday: Six Episodes, Five Keys, Four Quests, Three Companions, Two Hangers-On, One Sexual Assault, No Joy

Fresh off his success creating The Daleks, which catapulted Doctor Who into television history, writer Terry Nation wanted to do a historical story. When that fell through, the producers asked him to create another extremely marketable villain, like the Daleks had been. It was with this directive in mind that Nation wrote "The Keys of Marinus".

The serial was a series of quests for the titular keys, with each episode encompassing another adventure, with another key as the object. This plot would be replayed on a season-wide scale during the excellent "Key to Time" season, with Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor.

Unlike that story, The Keys of Marinus is crap. Welcome to Doctor Whosday!

Marvel Monday: Ouch! My Science!

Look, I get it. Science and comic books are like oil and water. Comics are a world where FTL is easily attainable, where radiation may as well be magic, and Nuclear Bombs Are Minor Inconveniences.

But sometimes the suspension of disbelief is snapped so completely that you have to wonder what kind of drugs the writers were on. This being July of 1962, I'm going to guess LSD. Welcome to Marvel Monday.

This is almost entirely unlike the actual cover. There was no disco in 1962.

Apocryphail Phriday: The Return

In 1994 the first Star Trek: The Next Generation movie was released: Star Trek Generations. And while some fans were willing to forgive the movie's glaring flaws in order to celebrate the pairing of Captain Kirk and Captain Picard, the flaws still existed. Perhaps the worst flaw is that Kirk dies by having a bridge dropped on him, while fighting a minor villain who just existed for the movie.

It was a terrible way to send out one of the galaxy's most beloved heroes. William Shatner apparently agreed, because he pitched an idea for the second movie, one which involved Kirk coming back from the dead and getting a far more appropriate send-off. It was doomed to failure, of course. The writing staff, quite rightly, decided that no matter how bad Generations was, the torch was passed to the Next Generation crew now, and they should have their own adventures.

All of the recycled plot. None of the emotional depth.

I mean, who would be foolish enough to keep on stealing plots from an old series while presumably attempting to establish a movie franchise of their own, right?

Since Paramount didn't want his plot William Shatner decided to write a novel of it. This spun off into the "Shatnerverse", an alternate timeline version of Star Trek. By all rights this should have been awesome. The return of one of science fiction's most enduring and beloved heroes, written with the sort of insider's perspective that only William Shatner could provide.

Let's see why it didn't work. This is William Shatner's "The Return".

1,000 Views!

Today The Jeffrey's Tube hit a milestone. A milestone of 1,000 views!

Now those of you who are internet savvy may be saying, "Views? But that means almost nothing. That could be 1,000 separate people, or one person who just keeps visiting the same pages."

Well yes. But I only just got analytics on this site working properly, so views is all I have. And I hit 1,000, and I'm very proud of that, and STOP KILLING ALL MY DREAMS!

Thanks to all my readers (especially my Russian readers who apparently got linked here from a Battletech forum. I hope you're enjoying all the Cold War comics and Doctor Who serials!)

Keep sharing the links, and keep the dream alive.

Jeffrey Rewrites Voyager: Phage

Some Voyager episodes are so bad that they are legendary. Some Voyager episodes would be good, if only they had fixed one or two fundamental problems. But some Voyager episodes should have been good, but for some reason they just weren't. Perhaps the acting was just a little sub-par. Perhaps there were some minor problems that built up. But for whatever reason, what should have been a decent show becomes mediocre at best.

Phage is one of those episodes. It is difficult to pin down just why Phage is mediocre. It should be great. And yet... somehow it is not. Oh, it's not bad, which in Voyager puts it in the top tier, but it's not the great show that it should be. Because the basic plot is solid, it will not require much to turn this into a classic Trek episode. Let's see what we can do.

Doctor Whosday: The Greatest Story Never Told

Being a Doctor Who fan has many frustrations. We have to deal with the neutering of the show by Mary Whitehouse and her ilk. We have to deal with certain stories being, how shall I put this... less than fantastic. In fact some of them are downright awful. We have to deal with continuity being an old rag to be beaten up, dirtied, abused, then torn to shreds, and the very word "canon" to be meaningless.

But perhaps most frustratingly, we have to deal with missing episodes.

There are a number of early Doctor Who episodes that were destroyed by the BBC during regular purges of old material. Of these, some of them have been recovered thanks to copies that were sold to foreign television stations, copies made by private enthusiasts, and other such discoveries. However, many First and Second Doctor stories remain missing, and as time goes on the chance of more being found diminishes.

The very first Doctor Who serial with currently missing parts is missing in its entirety. It was also perhaps the greatest First Doctor story ever produced. The serial is known by the name "Marco Polo".