Sunday, November 24, 2013

Doctor Who: Today's The Day...

...and it was awesome.

Fantastic. Brilliant. Cool. Impossible. Non-specific term of endearment.

Seriously.

You know, I have to admit that Moffat has lived up to his promise to make 2013 epic. It's a far cry from his "meh, anniversaries, whatever" attitude that no doubt is part and parcel of being married to a TV professional almost as busy as he is to celebrate needless turnings of the calendar. But we've had two brand new Doctors, the return of Paul McGann and Tom Baker to the screen, the chance to watch Enemy of the World on DVD without any missing bits of any kind whatsoever, a half-decent documentary by Mark Gatiss that reduced Mad Larry Miles to a drooling gibbon insisting that he is the only true fan of Who because he hates it so much, sparacus is a nutter wandering the streets, Monsieur Cookson is not even that and Nala Snevets is weeping uncontrollably as the entire english-speaking world refuses to waste a second on Radio Bastard.

It's amazing to think that a few months ago, the Twelfth Doctor's casting barely merited more than a few inches of column space whereas now you would literally have to be blind-deaf-dumb-stupid... well, basically Chris Lilley not to be drowning in Who stuff. Admittedly, it's not all of a high quality (the SMH's "Eccleston is grate and you alls suxz you gurlz" article was clearly written by someone who wasn't a fan and resented having to sit through The Ultimate Guide last night... and fair enough too. Shut up, John Culshaw! SHUT UP!!!), but like it or loathe it, it's going to feel very weird next week not being drowned in drumbeats and sonic screwdrivers from all media.

Of course, it continues Moffat's sickening anti-Dalek agenda where he continues to downgrade them from whatever status RTD sweated blood trying to achieve. Seriously...

Continuity Errors - in his first and only pre-05 Doctor Who work, Moffat notes that the Daleks are pathetic and only appear evil because the Doctor is bigging himself up. Ka Faraq Gatri does not translate as "Bringer of Darkness" or "the Oncoming Storm" but "Nice Guy If You're A Biped".

The Curse of Fatal Death - the Daleks are stupid because they have no noses, or legs, or can aim straight, and are "a bunch of metal gits" who need saving and even give up being evil because they're crap at it.

The Girl In The Fireplace - a pivotal scene takes the piss out of the Ninth Doctor confronting the Daleks by having Rose try and fail to impress the Clockwork Men to be afraid of someone who scares Daleks. Because, hell, what's impressive about that?

Silence in the Library - the Doctor thinks that Vashta Nerada are way scarier than Daleks. Given Vashta Nerada don't kill anyone and run away when he tells them to, this is damning.

The End of Time - Moffat refuses to allow RTD to use the Daleks, and so reveals that the Daleks weren't the big bad of the Time War, just easy scapegoats that never really threatened anyone.

Victory of the Daleks - the bronze, hardass Daleks are replaced with stupider, immobile and unimpressive Daleks who don't even merit getting blown up at the end.

The Pandorica Opens - the Daleks are part of the alliance because they're not as cool as the Silence, and so stupid they let the universe end by accident.

The Big Bang - again, a Dalek is so stupid it tries to end the universe. Then it wets itself when River Song pops a cap in its ass because River Song is way more impressive than a Dalek.

The God Complex - Daleks are listed as irrational fears. The Weeping Angels are way scarier.

The Wedding of River Song - the Daleks are only good for one thing, telling the Doctor about the Silence, since they are so crap they can get blown up by anyone.

Asylum of the Daleks - the Daleks are so rubbish they go mad if the Doctor doesn't blow them up, hell, they go mad anyway. The Doctor can defeat an entire asylum with one sonic screwdriver. At the end, their minds are wiped and thus lose any possible threat they could have had.

A Town Called Mercy - some desperate 19th century yankees are scarier than a Dalek, apparently.

The Angels Take Manhatten - written because Moffat said the Daleks weren't good enough to be in the Ponds' farewell story

The Name of the Doctor - "Daleks" is reduced from the epitome of hatred and death to what the Doctor calls mildy annoying children.

The Day of the Doctor - not only is an entire Dalek force wiped out by a blunt instrument, they can be destroyed by sonic screwdrivers. Oh, and the Time War ended when all the Daleks were so stupid they shot each other and they're all totally dead now. Zygons are way scarier.

I look forward to the Capaldi epic Grudging Contracual Appearance of the Daleks where some inflatable Dalek punching bags are defeated by a passing mosquito while the Doctor confronts the terrible danger of the Flying Typewriters of the Lovecraftian Tapioca Pudding Cult. Which are, of course, way cooler than Daleks anyway...

But yeah. I'm happy. This is good.

And since the bandwidth is on my side, I thought this might as well be uploaded. It just goes to show that the only place the Goodies didn't make a huge cultural impact was in the BBC itself, as Spiderbait cover one of Bill Oddie's antiestablishment chants. For pictures, TimeBase productions whose take on the Cybermen is still, regretfully, ten times better than any other TV version. Seriously, it's like Phase IV is the one story where they actually behave the way they should...



Happy birthday, Doctor.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Good Will To All Trolls

I haven't mentioned sparacus in a while, as frankly his attempts to garner attention and controversy have gone from Luke Rattigan stamping his foot and screaming "I'M BETTER THAN ALL OF YOU!!" down to... well, we don't even have a name for that. His strategies to trigger flame wars range from claiming that Prince William and Kate Middleton are fantatical fans of Ben Chatham because they named their son George (no, don't follow the logic there) to his deranged Eleven Doctor story which was scientifically calculated to infuriate and annoy every right-minded Who fan in existence... alas, the fact the exact same story had been released by Big Finish several years ago under the title The Boy That Time Forgot has stopped that in its tracks. His forum is a ghost town where he's had to start talking to himself, while his blog (the place designed for you to talk to yourself) is gathering dust. The Chatham forum on GB has been destroyed and the followers have scattered to the four winds - even their affectionate attempts at Chathamnalia have gone.

But, as Paul McDermott noted, you can't keep a good man down - or even a mongrel like sparacus.

As the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who hurtles towards us in a blaze of advertising, radio specials, youtube vids that refuse to load, and the increasingly-valid-suspicion this might actually be good, sparacus has gone for trying to spark a flamewar on GB. After all, what's the point in unifying in this one-time celebration when we can be screaming abuse at each other and trying to king-hit and glass fellow fans?

It all started with this quote from David Tennant in the Radio Times, when he was asked if he found the decision to return to Doctor Who a tough one:

"No, not really. If the call comes to celebrate Doctor Who's 50th anniversary then it would (be) churlish to turn it down."

Sparacus reaction was slightly less subtle than Ricky Gervais impersonating John Cleese mentioning the war.

Another dig at Christopher Eccleston. First is was a comment at an awards ceremony asking Euros Lynn if he was happier working with him or Eccleston and now Eccleston is churlish. Its possibly a dig at Eccleston's working class roots. The word churlish comes from the anglo-saxon word coerl meaning a landless peasant.

Because, of course, David Tennant is well-known as being a vicious little passive aggressive bastard and his tendancy to mock the weak using archaic anglo-saxon terminology is one of his many unique vices. Why, his response to Dimensions in Time required a degree in medieval French even to translate, as well as a sound knowledge of Victorian legal terms discussing progeniture.

Just why would Tennant reserve this incredible spite for Eccleston, though?


Its because of their history. There was the comment to Euros Lynn. Also Eccleston landed the role of Jude in the film of Thomas Hardy's 'Jude the Obscure' wheras Tennant had to make do with a minor role. I know that many posters don't buy the argument that there is a rivalry and its all circumstantial evidence, but it does all add together to make a possibility.

Yes. For a five second scene, Tennant had to play an upper-class twit in a pub who made fun of Eccleston, who downed a pint and recited a poem that left Tennant looking like a total moron while Eccleston, broody and rite-of-passagey, left the pub the uncontested victor.

No wonder Tennant never forgave Eccles. He apparently sent flaming dog turds to Spike Milligan's house for that time Spike got the punchline in their scene in Taking Over The Asylum. It's also well known that Peter O'Toole dare not leave his house for fear that obscure anglo-saxon might be etched into his front lawn in weed killer. The entire marriage to Georgia Moffat was, of course, a cunning plan to keep her in the kitchen and off-screen where she might steal any limelight from Tennant - and the fact she's Davo's daughter is clearly a double whammy because Tennant never really got over Time-Crash.

And as for what he's did to Daniel Radcliffe, well, let's just say the fact his only other job has been to bugger a horse on stage is surely no coincidence?

I am well aware that many posters don't agree that there was a rivalry over Jude. However I'm just saying that it could be a possibility that is all. It was, I think I'm right in saying, Tennant's first role in a film but Eccleston was playing the lead. The latter received all the attention.

Yes. Because a life-long actor with huge respect in and out of the industry for his professionalism is still nursing a grudge that he didn't get the lead role in his first film. If only the audition tapes still existed, no doubt we would see Tennant going absolutely apeshit and smashing up the place with a baseball bat when he didn't get the role, swearing in fin de sicle Glaswegian until he was given a role specifically to look like a git and be embarrassed even further by Eccleston's character rather than the man himself.

I've no idea. Just look at it from Chris Eccleston & David Tennant's points of view. Tennant wants the role of the Doctor, yet Eccleston beats him to it. There must have been some jealousy on Tennant's part, I would be if someone grabbed my big part.

As ever, you can't argue with either plain facts or sub Carry On innuendo...

Then Eccleston loses the role due to reasons still not entirely clear and Tennant jumps in and grabs the role from him. There presumably must be a degree of resentment by Eccleston of Tennant.


I'm amazed spara hasn't made the obvious connection and realize that Eccles didn't quit - he went into witness protection because every day he found Tennant hiding in the changing room, doing the knife trick from Aliens with a sonic screwdriver and laughing "I am going to be the Doctor after you dieeeeee...."

I do not "hate DT". Not at all. I have no idea what the guy is like in real life. I do not like his portrayal of the Doctor or his Virgin media adverts but that it not the same as hating the man.

Now, given the Virgin media adverts were never actually screened this seems a bit bitchy. That's like me listing the reasons I hate Chris Lilley as a DVD extra I haven't seen... though, yeah, probably I do.


My point is that Eccleston, according to some theories posted on here (not by me) did not want to leave Doctor Who. Therefore he would surely feel some annoyance at Tennant grabbing his role. I also think Eccleston was better on the job as he had a more serious edge in his portrayal, despite the grinning.

Yes, as you can see, spara has literally climbed inside the psychological state of Eccleston despite admitting to have absolutely nothing to go on and ignoring various facts - like personal bereavement during Boomtown! - that may have warranted it. No doubt Eccleston also hates Smith, Hurt and Capaldi for also grabbing the role that was not theirs by right and being such a quiet, introverted and tow-the-line sort of guy, Eccles has remained totally silent for nine years about the whole thing.

David Tennant, however, apparently hires a singing telegram every week to arrive at Eccleston's door and insult him personally with a giant inflatable banana.


No I am not trolling. I am just speculating. I do not claim to be the font of all wisdom.




A personal idol of the Royal Family at Windsor, yes, but not the font of all wisdom.


Yet, in fairness to spara, he does NOT believe Olag Gan is a cat-strangling sex killer - so his grip on reality is five times stronger than Nala Snevets who is still reeling from the idea that Paul McGann actually played the Doctor, as PMG is too much of a wussy-no-fist-coward to ever do that...

Monday, November 11, 2013

Spoilaz, bitch!

Mwahahahaha!

Seriously, compare and contrast with 1993 and 2003. This is gonna rock.