So people…

So people….

Who in Australia here sat down watched TV’s night of nights?

Gah.

Trashy TV was on the adgenda, and first up Erin, my father and I watched the “Gatecrashers” Big B(r)other special. Pretty average, but a laugh to see Nobbi’s reaction when Terri (or Nanna, as Kyle seems to call her) walked back into the house. The TV execs left the bleeper on as he went off (actually watched the uncensored moment a few minutes ago. Kinda weak actually. Just a lot of f bombs) and to see that little Corey Worthington (a kid who threw a party while his parents were away. party got out of control and was proud of the incident, played it up on the current affairs shows, got a publicist and now wants to be a professional party planner or something) shit in the house.

Actually, that was VERY VERY amusing. He got boos from the audience (causing Kyle to revert to his yob ways and telling the crowd to “shut their mouths”) and you can tell the kid was packing it on stage, and even in the house. Everyone was civil to him, but it’s kinda funny seeing “Mr. Cool” out of his depth. I find it disgusting that Ten are paying him twenty grand for this stint but I just hope the creators give him hell, make him earn it while he’s there. The three most popular web people were typical two-dimensional characters that they have been trying to get rid of. You should know by now that the audience doesn’t know shit.

As for the Logies? To be perfectly honest it was a little safe and bland for the 50th night. The clips of Logies passed were nice to see. As usual though, the over-hyped won. Kate Ritchie of course for leaving Home and Away and Chris Lilley/Summer Heights High were the big winners. Honestly, how can anyone like that shite? Self indulgent Little Britain for Australia. Oh, he got up and sung his “Bad Habit” song, but one thing I liked about that was he had some disabled teens up on stage being part of the dance number.

What else? Westlife, were Westlife. You should know my stance on pop music by now. Adam Hills, Stephen Curry and Peter Helliar (sorry, “Strauchanie”). The funniest (unintended) moment of the night was Darryl Somers up on stage for a small “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” moment with old characters Plucka Duck and Dickie Knee. Commenting on that the show should probably return to the screens was met by deathly silence from the crowd. Hahaha.

Doctor Who was very good this week. Even though Boy wonder was useless yet again (well, until the end). Nice Rose moment and a Brigadier reference made the old school fan squee with glee. “Sir Alistair” is very much alive and stuck somewhere in Peru. I hope to god this means we’ll get some sort of cameo from Nick Courtney one day. I know he’s too old to run up and down corridors these days, but even to see him behind a desk, or still happily retired with Doris… (No, I think Doris is alive. The books don’t count for the new show) And The Doctor’s Daughter? I need to see the forums for this episode. I can see it now “OMG! The Doctor shouldn’t have kids! It has to be a clone! whinge whinge whine whine”

I still have Lost and this Week’s behind the scenes of Doctor Who as well. GTA 4 has been sucking my time away. The story is a little cheesy at the moment, but it’s brilliantly made (and gruesome), easy enough for me to get the hang of it (I think I need some shooting practice though) so far. I don’t know what has been censored. I’m guessing something to do with the hookers. Australia doesn’t car about violence at all, oh no… I’m sorry New Zealand you get our copy as well….

I’m still alive

As glados would say.

Here, have an update. I have been lazy with this thing. It’s Friday night, it’s beer o’clock and I’m waiting for someone to come round so we can get some dinner.

We, you hear? Well, apart from work insanity that’s one of the reasons I’ve been neglecting my web that little bit.

Did anyone watch this last weeks Who? I really enjoyed it. Reminded me of the old school Who now we have a proper UNIT episode not just “oh hai remember us now we’re dead”. And Anything with Martha in is cool in my book. I can’t get frightened with a short arsed Sontaran though. Especially one with the voice of Mike Thecoolperson. Still the makeup is brilliant, and it’s great to see the Sontaran race properly fleshed out as characters and not the baddie of the week they were in the original series. Actually I’m surprised noone used the clone angle properly before this. Martha though - she’s getting a little too cocky for my tastes. Yeah, she’s pretty cool but you only just started travelling with The Doctor. You can’t pass judgements on what happened to Martha once she left. Oh, yeah. The Doctor’s daughter. I can’t wait to see the shitfight on the forums over that one..

Lost isn’t bad so far. Ben Linus is just brilliant, and I’m starting to think there’s shades of grey on both sides of this “evil corporations” story that’s going on at the moment. Oh yeah, Ben summoning Cerberus (or smokey, whatever its name is)? Pure awesome.

Oh yes, If you haven’t seen this already. I bring you this short piece of youtube goodness.

Plus - Awesome to see, but I can’t believe they showed it online only. I hope they can somehow add it to a flashback soon, or something. I think I know what the big surprise is going to be at the end of this year.

What else? Oh yes. Bought myself a PSP. Just so I can laze it up and watch videos in bed or when I go away. I also have Lemmings, which is an old childhood favourite. With This Play TV accessory coming out at the end of this year, I’m starting to kick myself that I didn’t save up for the ps3. Being able to copy TV onto the Ps3 HDD, transfer it to the PSP, and being able to copy it to portable drives? That’s my home entertainment system that I want. Fuck the gaming aspect. Even Blu Ray - Big deal! (I still think Blu Ray has a tough ride now that HD DVD is gone - there’s still HD downloads to consider). It would be brilliant, and I’d never get off the couch again.

And how about you all??

Doctor Who - Planet Of The Ood

Donna gets her first trip to the future, and it’s not as rosy as she thought it would be…

The Doctor goes all random on the TARDIS (in other words, business as usual) and he ends up at The Oodsphere, the main planet of the futuristic slaves we saw last time in the episode The Impossible Planet during The Earth’s second galactic empire. Of course, something strange is happening with the Ood again, the eyes are going all possessed and red again, but there’s no Devil this time around. In typical Doctor fashion, he slips into the official party of prospective buyers and soon as he can is snooping around the base and finding out something’s terribly amiss with all of this.

It’s not the scariest episode of the series. Although I do like the crazy army guy’s enjoyment of trying to kill The Doctor just for the fun of it, it’s mainly a go at slavery and how most probably in the future we will be doing all these things again and again. I do like Donna’s reaction. Not seeing the universe is as shiny as she thought makes her want to go home, but by the end she realises why The Doctor travels - to fix things right, when he can. I think it’s that kind of positive step at the end of the episode that makes her keep going. I have to say, Donna keeps growing on me. The whole “marraige” thing is a little on the annoying side, but she has her “oi” moments, and also some sweet beautiful moments that shows us she’s not just another Peri. The bit where she hears the “song” of the Ood is a really nice moment for the both of them.

The setting is a welcome change too. The first big future episode not set on a spaceship or New Earth. Don’t get me wrong, I like the whole “New Earth” setting, but we don’t get to see a lot of the bigger parts of The Universe. And also, big geek points for setting the future history of the human empires around the old series. He might ignore the books, comics etc but you can tell Russell is a big fan of the old series and tries to appease the old fans as much as he can.

The whole arc story is a little small this week. We get a new reference to the bees, and a sly comment to a return at the end of this year, but other than that I think this is probably the most standalone we are going to get.

All up, a good episode. The bad guy was a little rubbish (but his come-uppance at the end was clever) and the Ood are too silly looking to be that scary but a solid episode. 3 outta 5.

Doctor Who - The Fires of Pompeii

The Doctor takes Donna on her first trip back in time and (of course) gets it wrong. At least his mistakes have style.

In short, wow. What an episode.

Maybe I’m a little bias being a fan of The TV show Rome, but I had a big goofy grin just seeing the set of Cinecitt%C3%A0 again. It’s one of the great things about the relaunch - the old series probably would of made the episode look weak. The story may have been good, but you couldn’t immerse yourself fully with something that would of probably looked more like something out of Logopolis.

The acting itself was pretty good. While The Doctor gets a little too Time Lordy and is a little heart(s)less (compared to last week where he’s quite happy to let the little Adipose go). To be fair, it was to show how Donna tries to make The Doctor more human, I just thought it a little too unlike what we’ve seen of the Tenth Doctor so far. The Ninth maybe, but the Tenth would of happily let the family in the TARDIS without a second though. The whole fixed point/etc timeline chat is a quite an interesting one, and also reminded me of an episode of the old series, The Aztecs. Barbera wants to help the Aztecs and The Doctor is rather nasty to her, yelling at her “You can’t rewrite history! Not one line!”. I think it’s better explained this time round, though. And Donna? She’s still a little shouty, but less annoying and shows a lot of acting range. I think the whole Doctor/couple joke is going to grate real quickly.

The story moves at a million miles an hour, and If I did have one problem with this episode, it probably is the speed. For sure, it never gets boring, but there’s a few lines I think that are rushed at a million miles an hour and if you miss it makes for a little confusion in the episode. The Arc? I think I know where it’s slowly going. Things, planets are missing. What I think is this goes back way to the beginning (The Gelth Planet in The Unquiet Dead), how it all adds up will make for interesting viewing. It did remind me a little of a previous radio story The Fires of Vulcan, this takes the idea in a different direction. That story had the volcano as a background object, only used as the whole death and destruction angle. This time round how it all adds up is far more interesting.

All in all a really good solid episode. Give this episode maybe ten minutes more and I think it would of been perfect. (Two-parter? I think it would of dragged). Some great references to the old series and some brilliant moments between The Doctor and Donna. Four out of Five.

Sydney - The Wrap Up

I’ll quickly post this. In the middle of work, so haven’t had a chance to write or really check anything online yet.

The wedding was beautiful. I do have photos, so I’ll update them later. Apart from getting some old friends names mixed up on the day, I didn’t make too much of an idiot out of myself The wedding was outside, sweet and full of Buffy music (geeks!) the reception was nice, was all had a nice lunch at the Botanic Gardens where afterwards we went to some pub near the Opera House for a couple of drinks, which I think was more than enough after the day.

Got no sleep afterwards. People, DO NOT STAY at the Maquarie Boutique Hotel. It’s basically a pub with rooms upstairs. The rooms are nice, the staff are nice enough but unless you want to be constantly woken all night by traffic, drunk people and sirens, It’s not worth it. Honestly, last night’s sleep in my bed was one of the most relaxing sleeps I have ever had.

Spent way to much, and discovered the ol’ Credit Card wasn’t even dented that much. Couple of weeks and it will be gone. Stressing over nothing!

Oh yes. Thank you Kings Comics for feeding my addiction more and more. And thank you to the people with no computer skills. No, I have no idea who you are but you kept me in contact with the Internet world

Sydney #3

What I’ve been doing today -

Proper post to come. I have a splitting headache and need to lie down for a while.

Sydney #2

(One is a blog post) - This is me, in Sydney slightly drunk last night.

Sydney trip #1

Day two here and im writing this down to either update later or whatever.

it’s absolutely amazing with no knowledge or where i was going, I managed to find both galaxy books and kings comics.
my credit card is a little heavier and i found somewhere (jb hi fi, of course) that sell the eeepcs. damn, they’re cute.

want one want one want one! i have this laptop already so it’s very very hard to justify that i need one.

went out afternoon shopping in the shops again, had to hold back friend from looking at the macbook air. yes, they look cute
but come on, waste of cash!!

then, to a japanese restaurant where i try japanese booze and am sorely disappointed. really, no different to normal beer.
maybe it’s my expectations of the japanese being amazingly cool in other ways that the beer would be slightly different.

the night ended with gelato and my friends going home for work the next day. silly people and their 9-5 jobs

god damn, nice place here but I dont think I’ll stay here again. the pub downstairs has a “funk band” playing in the
evenings. the sound is nicely muffled, but the bass isnt. and it’s a pretty busy street where i am, so if its not the club
its the bloody life outside. i was very tempted to go downstairs and drink with the rest of them but i still have problems
drinking in a room full of strangers. i hate it.

anyways. its lunch and im getting hungry. meant to be meeting up with my friend, but god knows if she can leave work or
not.

i hope everyone is doing well.

be right back

Away for the rest of the week going to a friends wedding. Depending on wireless access in Sydney, don’t know if I’ll be online. I hope you all have a good week.

Doctor Who - Partners In Crime

Donna returns, just in time to encounter the cutest aliens the Whoniverse has ever seen.

Oh, yes. Spoilers ahoy. If you don’t want any kind of spoilers for Torchwood or Who, I’d advise you to bookmark and come back later.

Only a night after the finale of Torchwood in probably one of the most frustrating but sad endings, which seems to be Russell’s style, we have the fun romp of Who back on our screens. It looks like it’s been some time since The Titanic - The Doctor’s talking to himself, missing having someone with him and regretting his actions with Martha. (I think, one of the nicer moments Russell has given the whole Martha/Doc angle) Still, no rest for the Time Lord. He’s investigating some strange goings on with the latest diet fad gripping London. People are taking diet pills, and strangly enough, it’s actually working! The Doctor knows this is too clever for normal humans. What he doesn’t know is Donna has figured the exact thing out.

Time has passed, and she’s beginning to regret her refusual to join Team TARDIS. Who can blame her. She laments to her Grandfather (remember the old guy in Voyage? Yep. That’s Donna’s grand-dad. There’s a reason for this. It was originally meant to be played by Donna’s father but the actor passed away days after filming the first episode.) and ignores her mother, who still is annoying as ever. She’s sticking her nose into weird conspiracy things hopefully she’ll eventually bump into the Doctor again. But we join the adventure as they both sneak into the same building and (of course) continually narrowly missing each other time after time. It gets a little tedious after a while, but their eventual meeting is one of the funniest moments of the entire episode.

The alien threat and the bad guy is probably the more disappointing element of the episode. Miss “Foster” is an alien “nanny” of these little cutesy creatures that are being made out of peoples fat. The creatures are all CGI and cute, and there really isn’t a moment in the entire episode that you feel any kind of fear for these creatures. Even Miss Foster, which is a deliberate cliche of the whole “supernanny” TV craze. That’s one thing about Russell, he doesn’t do subtle well.

Still, we get a lot of running up and down corridors, the beginning of the arc mystery (bees, anyone?), a few surprises here and there and a satisfactory conclusion which is essentially a re-introduction to this year’s main Doc/Companion duo. Donna is much less annoying this time around. She’s still loud, and it looks like she’s not going to take any crap from anyone, Time Lords included. What I do like however is their relationship is set from the get-go. “Mates”. Friends, even behind the scenes they’ve said this as far as it goes. Apart from the obvious scene with Donna/Doc/Donna at the end, I thought we’d get a few moments of witty dialogue and next week’s preview. How wrong was I.

They throw this small scene at us. Brilliant, but annoying as we’re going to have to wait probably until episode ten to see what it all means. If you dont want to be spoiled, don’t click on this link -

I just hope they don’t make her so she’s still pining for The Doctor and she hasn’t moved on. I hope there’s much much more to it than that.

Either way, a good but not perfect start to the Season. 3 and a half out of 5.