Of Course!!!

I considered many a topic for this post. The demise of the MX, the deaths of Christopher Lee and Ron Moody and James Last, the heartbreak of Journey's End (seriously, you'd never find Moffat do something that epic - he had to invent three brand new characters for Day of the Doctor because he didn't have anyone to bring back...) or even the fact I've finished novelizing two, count them two, PMG audios. Maybe even the mysterious Mardi Knopfler who's linking me up to anti-NuWho facebook groups as some kind of pagan sacrifice to the great god Kyron.

But no, what I feel needs to be posted is the following image from a comic book which shows how insular and skeptical society has become since the 1960s when everyone was open-minded enough for this panel to comprise serious science fiction.

. . . OF COURSE!!

And people today bitch about moon-eggs and magical forests...

And So It Ends

NIGEL AND DAVE REENACT THE EVENTS ON THIS BLOG

Ian "Turps" Turpie is dead. A jolly, kindly face of Australian counter culture and of course the infamous compere at Club Buggery for Roy, HG and the Nissan Cedrics, his loss cannot be filled or comprehended. This is a tragedy, especially after the loss of other luminaries like Phillip Madoc or Gina Rinehart who is, devastatingly, still with us.

It's a world-shattering event like this that makes you look back at life, stare yourself right in the eye and think "Hang on, I had two of those yesterday..." and in this reflective introspective state of mind I had an epiphiny.

I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR THIS SHIT.

Yes, even though it's consumed not even a whole weekend, I have wasted it on Ron Mallet - who has confirmed my statement back in 2006 that sparacus' greatest redeeming feature is that he is NOT Ron Mallet. In terms of genial behavior, tolerance, writing talent and open-mindedness, I'd go with Mark Goacher every time. Now, that probably means nothing to Monsieur le Matt, but to the readers of this blog and indeed ANYONE who popped in from Gallifrey Base, it is obvious that is about the most utterly crushing insult I could give to anyone. Even I tremble at the thought.

I considered a reasoned debate with him but... how can one debate from someone who actively closes off all communication and is moronic enough to accuse of cyberstalking in the same breath as revealing he's chasing everyone on facebook, twitter and blogger.

I am not obsessed with you Ron Mallet.

Alysson Hannigan, Emilia Fox, the tambourinist from the Dandy Warhols, Dylan Moran, sparacus, Jayma Mays, Paul McGann, Matt Smith, Nick Briggs, my parents, the other bloggers on this site... ALL of them have more reason for me to care about them than you.

I don't care what you do, who you are, what your real name is or even what you think of me. All I know is you're unable to control your own behavior, language or paranoia and your firm belief that anyone who disagrees with you is some retarded loser shows massive insecurity on your part. Your abject refusal to answer any emails or allow people to talk with you shows you as a coward yourself. Your full-throttle cyber-bullying campaign of banning and blogging also proves you don't have this "life" you keep bragging about, and are instead an obviously very lonely and angry person.

And I am not surprised.

You have no sense of humor, self-deprecation or honor, with a hairtrigger temper and a foul mouth. Your numerous bannings, multiple ids, and the fact an idle google of your name gives us a list of people insulting you as a "nuisance" shows you treat everyone this way. I've never once seen you have a kind word for anyone or anything. You never praise or compliment or encourage. There's nothing but bitterness and spite.

You are, to misquote Ben Chatham, unworthy of my hatred.

I nearly died two years ago. Nearly, properly died. I lost seven and a half pints of blood in an accident that anyone who reads this blog could tell you about. My mortal existence, the only provable link to reality any one of us, was on the point of snapping.

I fought. I physically, literally, metaphorically, emotionally fought to be alive.

And when I regained consciousness, drenched in my own blood and unable to move, thoughts of you were not in my head. Thoughts of you haven't even been on this blog since then. You don't matter to me.

In fact, you never mattered me.

Ban me from your forum where I was the only person to post as many things as you. Ban me from dwexpanded for reminding everyone of your shameful behavior which you are eager to hide. What else are you going to do? Spam this blog with hatred? Whinge to your mates on proboard (which, by the way, is dealing with a series of complaints received about your conduct?)

Will that make you happy? Will that put a smile on your face? Restore order as you see it to the universe? Please do. Stop making yourself miserable and grumpy and actually embrace life, the universe and everything (and what an original and not-at-all-pompous blog name).

You've got so many people you hate and despise. You mock and jeer at three good, intelligent people you know nothing about for the simple reason they're my friends. You call me a delusional liar cyberstalking you after you request to be a friend on facebook. You've been turned down by forums and fans for your "playful nature", but you're never the one at fault, are you? Doctor Who fandom, Countdown fandom, facebook, twitter and all points in between! You've always got other people to blame.

And now you have one less.

I withdraw any concern or interest I had in your incoherent existence.

Say this is a victory. Say you convinced me to see reason. Say you won. Say anything you like that stops that empty hole in your gut from making you tear your hear out. I am no longer going to provide you with an excuse to be an arsehole to the world.

I have a loving family and more than the three good friends who post here.

You?

You're on your own, which seems to be the only way you like it.

GOODBYE

From BEYOND THE GRAVE!!!

Something resembling a Greek punk version of In The Hall of the Mountain King was playing as I picked up my glass and sipped from it. Oh, the halcyon days of yesteryear when I might have indulged in fruit juice. This is lemon, lime and bitters and mostly water. The various components have begun to separate again so I centrifuge them back together.

I ponder my condition. Is diabetes really curable as the endocrinologist says? Why, sticking so slavishly to their diet, am I left so shagged out I need bottles of energy drinks to stave off unconsciousness? And would Big Finish ever try and get Chris Eccleston to appear in a play but not as the Doctor? Eccles said he'd be into it, and let us remember these are the folk who outstared Paul McGann, Janet Fielding and Tom bleeding Baker. Only their famous ineptitude at resurrection spells is preventing them from summoning Jon Pertwee back into corporeal existence.

A cloaked figure stepped out of the dark smoke and slipped into the booth where I was sitting. In a typical den of thieves like this, somewhere in the Northern Suburbs, such meetings were common. Indeed, that's why there were such an array of booths and tables arranged throughout the bar.

I could tell little about the figure opposite, but something hinted that it was man called Peter whose surname began with a Q. Perhaps it was some kind of extrasensory perception on my part or the big badge pinned to his cloak saying "HELLO, MY NAME IS PETER Q. WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND?".

We sat there for a while, saying nothing. After all, what is there TO say?

Eventually, Peter Q seemed to think of something to break the ice. I cannot deny, I was intrigued and leaned forward. What secrets had he to impart? The word "conspire" means to "share breath" which was presumably why Peter was wearing breathing equipment that made him look and sound like a cross between Darth Vader and Christopher Skase.

He spoke but two words. Or, to be exact, one name.

"Kyron Mallett."

I supped on my tepid juice. There was a name I had not thought of in many moons. Mainly because in my mind he'll always be "Ronald" Mallet rather Kyron, which sounds like a constellation Robert Holmes came up with when he actually meant to say galaxy. But what, dear readers, did this mean?

Ron Mallet had vanished from reality some time in 2007. His websites abandoned, his connection to the DWADs and Who in general left to rot. The massive interview he'd given justifying his wholesale theft and plagiarism of Loose Canon reconstructions still can be found if you look, and overall one gets the feeling that he hasn't been missed. One could only wonder what he'd make of the world today.

The knowledgable stranger had more to say - which was something of a relief as the conversation between us was not in good shape at the time.

"He hasn't vanished," was the next revelation.

I put down my glass. Of course, I'd never honestly considered Ron's waveform had collapsed causing him to blink out of existence. In the fraction of a second I might have devoted thought to the horrid little partisan, I assumed he'd either got over himself or been brutally murdered by his long-suffering fan fiction in a metatextual revenge pact.

Still, give Peter Q his dues, this was a surprise. I'd been expecting more talk of Rudd and Gillard and Carr and Abib. Or at least the sinister coincidence of Richard Armitage being replaced in Spooks by Laura Pulver.

"You sad, opinionated little oxygen thief."

I was expecting more and that was it. It transpired it was an insult of some description, and judging by Peter Q's respirator, he was determined not to lose an ounce of oxygen to anyone, let alone myself.

I've been insulted before, of course. Usually by myself. Frankly, the insult from Peter Q felt very forced. Where was the bile? The hatred? The anger? It sounded more condescending than enraged, somewhere between Sir Richard Richard and Russell Brand. It certainly wasn't imaginative. Perhaps Peter Q didn't think I deserved imagination, which is rather harsh. Everyone deserves imagination.

"I'm not little," I said. You have to admit, I had him there.

Peter Q didn't hear me through his life support get up.

"He simply stopped watching crap."

"And talking it too?" I wondered lightly.

"He's still a vocal and informed critic of the new series!" Peter Q rasped.

I blinked. I assumed the "watching crap" referred to NuWho. Mind you, I was assuming "new series" meant NuWho as well. But surely this argument meant that NuWho WASN'T crap, else Mallet would not be watching it - and he had to be, for how else could be a vocal and informed critic?

But vocal? Where, prey tell, was he being vocal if google couldn't find him?

"He posts regularly on http://retroztv.proboards.com/index.cgi."

Peter Q, satisfied I had taken the point, rose to his feet and dissolved in the smoky darkness, leaving me with a rubbish drink and the nagging feeling that my novelization of The Whispering Forest was never going to get me laid. My novelization of Planet of the Dead, however, would get me sauced to Marakesh and back, but Stephen Cole's generic runaround? Not so much. Oh well, there's always a wierd customer.

Still, I now had info about Ron Mallet - a mere two years after I'd last even mentioned him in passing. And that was "mentioned him in passing". It was about four years since the Youth of Australia had MST3K'd his ass.

Was he still writing Sixth Doctor stories? Reviewing Big Finish? Describing in totally unnecessary detail how BBC Wales only got to produce Doctor Who because Russell T Davies kept giving Michael Grade blowjobs in order to use the revival to destroy the show forever? I did always wonder if he noticed Colin Baker's full-bodied support of the new show, which is not exactly secret and was noted quite clearly during his Australian tour back in 05 (together with a love for the Doug Anthony Allstars that, at the time, made me doubt the workings of my own brain).

I cracked open the sub-etha net on my vortex manipulator and sought out the coordinates Peter Q had given me before returning to Dorium Maldovaar for a new set of testicles. The screen lit up with a crude forum site against a wallpaper of cut-and-pasted kaliedoscope pictures. The Silver Smurfer (one of the names Mallet went under when fandom at large declared a jihad on him) seemingly ran the place.

"Classic Dr Who versus the new series" seemed as good a place as any to start.

To me there's no comparison between the original and new series.

While better resourced the new series is a pale imitation of the original. Thin plot lines, soap opera character development, a terrible theme and shitty performances. If there was ever an example of standing on the shoulders of genius and offering nothing (or very little) that is new and innovative, this was it.

Odd that. He seemed to be quite enjoying the new series when he was posting on DWRG...

I wanted so much for the new series to be good... but unfortunately RTD and Moffatt have tried to appeal to the lowest common denominators.

Sex has been used to 'make it more accessible' at the expense of concepts and plotting.

Failed badly, considering the flak Series Fnarg-plus-one got for being so confusing.

I also can't watch a show where a character talks about sticking his penis into a block of concrete that used to be his girl-friend.

Well. Good for you. Of course, that's in no Who episode I know about. Unless you're suggesting Elton Pope was so poorly-hung it would fit inside such a shallow recepticle. The fact is he was talking about kissing poor... um, what was her name? You know, Moaning Murtle. Ester? Was that her name? Oh, who cares?

Surely Love and Monsters was the lowest point in television history?

Unless Chris Lilley was in it, that seems rather difficult to believe.

Love and Monsters was Episode 10 of Season 2 of the new series. It was basically a fingers up to older fans who had started to go at him for desecrating a beloved institution from their youth.

...I thought it was actually about mocking Ian Levine. And it shows amazing foresight on RTD to write a story like that before anyone had had a chance to "go at him".

Still, why not? Holmes did something like that to the tax office...

It's very strongly suggested in the story that central character (not the Doctor as this is the first 'Doctor-lite' story) Elton Pope as played by actor Marc Warren, continues to have a 'love life' with what's left of his girl-friend who has been transformed into a face on a garden tile.

He says "we have a bit of a love life" and Ester? Eliza? her, she says "never mind that, get to the story". Considering how chaste their relationship was, and the amount of effort it took for Elton to ASK HER OUT TO DINNER, that he'd be bragging about oral sex on a video blog is rather unlikely, don't you think?

'Suggestion' is the cowardly way RTD got away with lowering the tone of the show to make it appeal to 'the youth demographic' and small animals. It's also suggested earlier in the season in 'School Reunion' that the third or fourth Doctor had a sexual relationship with Sarah Jane Smith.

Um. No. Must have missed that. Mickey calls her the Doctor's "ex", but I never saw the scene where the Doctor boasted to Rose about doing Sarah over the TARDIS console while he made Harry videotape it ("I say, old thing, I think I deleted the bukkake shot..." "HARRY SULLIVAN IS AN IMBECILE!!!")

Unless, of course, Ronny is mistaking Charles Daniels' version of events for the genuine article and (let's all be honest here, people) who hasn't done that?

The young ones lapped it up and the older fans squirmed, either left or told themselves it wasn't true (like Jonathan Blum).

Or spent the next five years obsessing about three seconds of dialogue on an opinion forum...

Instead of showing faith in the younger demographic to have sufficient members of intelligent people that could appreciate well plotted innovative sci-i/fantasy we got increasingly nauseating does of Fantasy/Soap.

...wow. I didn't think anyone remembered it after THE FUCKING DALEK/CYBERMAN WAR!!!!!!! which seemed more interesting at the time.

And if you didn't like it under RTD you hated gay or black (fill in the minority blank here) people. Under SM you simply 'don't get it' and are part of the world that's against him.

Yeah, cause Jabba the Moff (to give him his preferred moniker) really is a paranoid obsessive, too afraid to leave the house in case he meets someone who disagrees with him and is convinced Mad Larry is in the bushes with a bowie knife.

...

Actually, that last one may not be so paranoid.

It's no coincidence that fans like Garry Russell and Stephen Hill have distanced themselves from Doctor Who over the last several years.

HAHAH! Gary Russell? Who got a job with RTD in 2009, quitting Big Finish specifically so he could get closer to NuWho than ever before, script editing everything in sight, writing the epic Wilf-Mott-versus-the-Mandragora-Helix novel and doing another encyclopedia? As for Steve Hill, he's been too busy banning me to care about the direction

As for Matt Smith, he's simply too young to look credible in the part.

You gotta love Ronny. He's not one to be superficial, as he always saw past Sixie's coat...

He's a talented actor but his call up was a couple of decades too early.

So instead of getting talent now, we should wait for TWENTY YEARS?

If the show had been done right, McGann would have returned for a year and handed over to Eccleston or Bil Nighy or someone around that age bracket.

Except McGann refused point blank the idea. So, that was never going to happen, was it?

A 'Doctor in Love' premise would never have been considered by any producer of the original series.

Apart from Verity Lambert. And Barry Letts. And JNT. Who all did it on screen.

Even feelings between companions was down-played.

"Were". Not "was". Try for English.

That was an option but RTD went the easy way and simply wanted more 20 something women or gay men to watch the show (like most of his others). Just because someone was a fan in their youth doesn't mean they're qualified to 'reinvent' an institution.

So who is qualified? Would their initials be RM by any chance?

RTD's vision is a reflection of the gay sub-culture that took control of the concept from the New Adventures period on. There was plenty of sex and violence and it was realyl very un-who and a bit sad.

"Un-who." It sums up so much of this argument, doesn't it?

My only consolation is that Big Finish have a lot more respect for the concept and have resisted taking the easy soap route (not that their audience would buy it).

...you're really not listening to it, are you? I mean, seriously? Listen to Graceless, Loups-Garoux, hell, anything by Nev Fountain...

McGann has continued to be an excellent radio Doctor on BBC7.

Which are meant to ape the RTD era. Hmmm?

There is lots of humour and the relationship between the Doctor and his companions is a lot more frank and 'modern' in a sense... but it is still actually Doctor Who.

That's nice isn't it? Heh? Nice? Remember that? Being happy about things? Instead of whinging and moaning like Eyeore with syphilis...

My guide is that if you can't picture any of the Doctor's saying some dialogue or in a situation in the new series, its a good guide to the fact that they've lowered the bar. William Hartnell would never have said 'But I can't bear to lose you' any more than Sylvester McCoy.

Hartnell would never have said "The proof of the pumpkin is in the squeezing!" any more than Sylvester McCoy would have said "You'll both end up as a couple of cinders floating about in Spain!" either...

Can you imagine Patrick Troughton's head appearing from under a woman's dress as Matt Smith's did in the first episode of the last series of the new?

Actually yes. In fact, if we're talking about Troughton the man in real life? The sex machine giggilo that made Frazer Hines look like a choir boy at the time? Yes. Definitely. I can also picture Troughton wearing a woman's dress and flirting with prositutes. Because he actually did that in The Highlanders. One of which was his companion at the time.

But then again, if we all thought the same way, it would be a boring world with nothing to argue about!

Yeah, cause arguing is such a wonderful passtime.

Fuck this.

I switched off the screen and waited patiently for Peter Q's inevitable return.

Last Word on "Waters from Mars"

Well, it's mere minutes after Tenant's penultimate episode concluded on Auntie and the three kids next door are IMMENSELY, screaming-at-the sky upset. The expression "It's not fair!" was used more often than a catchphrase in a Moffat script. Mind you, they aren't such uberfans that they understand the concept of regeneration, so the Doctor's "I'm gonna die" is taken absolutely literally...

"He means he's going to regenerate," I tried to explain.

"What's regenerate mean?" they ask, hopeful.

"He's going to change," I said. "Like he did before, with his hand?"

"...he doesn't HAVE the hand any more," they point out impatiently, clearly assuming I'm not the best authority on spoilers about Doctor Who and that I assume the Doctor will cheat those four knocks by growing a clone from a body part to continue the series.

God knows what conversation I'm gonna have when Matt Smith appears.

Interestingly, they didn't quite get the idea that Adelaide blew her brains out. One assumed she'd just died in a domestic accident (fell down some stairs in a dazzling blue flash apparently) while the others actually believed there was some kind of mad squatter in her house that had killed her when she walked through the door.

...

That's actually far nastier than what genuinely happened, really, isn't it?

Oh, I Get It...

Having finally managed to get that corrupted version working by burning it a different way, even my parents were stunned as the slow realization that our hero's tried-and-buyed the whole "absolute power and corruption" deal.

Which lead to the following realization:

They weren't talking about the story.

They were talking about the main character...

Grudgematch!!

Way back before I even had a blog, I tried sending an article to Kaldor City website. Nyder/Alan Stevens/Fiona Moore wanted some stuff sorted out before they'd publish it (and fair enough) until it became clear to the website they could do without my input as I was clearly deluded. Before the foregone conclusion I discovered this critique on my harddrive, taking up space.

To be clear, the article's quite crap and wouldn't have merited publishing anyway...

The penultimate segment of The Trial of a Time Lord by Pip & Jane Baker (variously known as The Ultimate Foe, The Vervoids, and Terror of the Vervoids) is widely considered to be one of the better Sixth Doctor stories, and definitely one of the more enjoyable Trial 'evidence'.

AS: But is it though? Although “Mindwarp” is deeply flawed, much of the dialogue and characterization is much better than anything that appears in “Vervoids”. The incidental music is also fantastic, and both Nabil Shaban and Christopher Ryan are outstanding.

FM: Also, is it true to say it’s “widely considered to be one of the better Sixth Doctor stories”? I thought the consensus was fairly mixed on that, as with most Colin Baker stories.

Although naturalistic dialogue has never been the Bakers' strongpoint, it has a plot which is easy to follow

AS: Well, it’s only easy to follow if you aren’t really paying attention to what’s going on. If you give it any thought at all, the story makes very little sense.

and a clear purpose as 'evidence'.

AS: I think that is in dispute as well. If it’s meant to be evidence for the defence, why does the Doctor end up on a more serious charge after it has been shown?

The Doctor has chosen this material to show that, in the future, his behavior

FM: "behaviour"

becomes more acceptable to the Time Lords (it appears that only the Valeyard picks up on the main fault, while the Inquisitor and the jury seem satisfied).

AS: How do you know that the jury seem satisfied? They never speak.

For example, the first choice of evidence against the Doctor (the Ravalox segment) has no such purpose, but instead arguably strengthens his case (he is shown to save lives and the universe) and also implicates the Time Lords (who moved Earth to protect their secrets).

AS: All true, but that still doesn’t justify the inclusion of “Terror of the Vervoids” as a legitimate piece of evidence for the defence.

FM: Also, as an introductory paragraph it’s very long, and seems mostly to be devoted to justifying the story’s inclusion rather than actually laying out an argument.

The plot is not without its flaws, but considering that the Bakers were chosen by producer John Nathan-Turner due to their proven ability to write scripts rapidly

AS: It may also have had a lot to do with the fact that they were personal friends of JNT.

(and the fact JNT also had to act as script editor during the time), it is surprising the story hangs together at all

FM: Well, considering what gets said below that’s a debatable statement, but also, better scripts have been written under similar/worse pressure: cf. “The Ark in Space,” so that’s not much of a justification.

There are a few minor problems

AS: From what the analysis is uncovering, I’d say that the flaws in the story are enormous.

that, with a bit more time, could easily have been fixed

FM: No, I think it would have needed a top-to-bottom rewrite to actually work.

For example, the first episode has the Doctor imply that some of the passengers will survive the journey

AS: No he doesn’t. Again, what the Doctor says is. “The crew is aboard. The last passengers are reporting in. Many will never complete the journey”. When the Doctor says “many” he may well be referring to the passengers and the crew as a whole. The fact that all the passengers appear to have been killed doesn’t contradict the Doctor’s statement, because some of the crew survive.

(none do, which suggests that this particular plot point had not been decided at the first).

AS: No. See above.

It appears that the locks to the sixth and ninth cabins, if not all of them,

AS: We only have evidence that the locks of cabins nine and six are identical. There is no evidence to suggest that this is the case with all the locks.

are identical - an unlikely event on a Grade 1 security craft - and this could easily have been remedied by the script (i.e.: the door to cabin 6 could have been left open accidentally).

AS: The reason why this key mix up takes place is to introduce the audience to Lasky.

FM: What Pip and Jane should have done is found a better way of doing this, rather than coming up with a convoluted idea involving doors, luggage and numbers. This might be a holdover from the Bakers’ early days writing cheap-and-wacky British farce movies, as it seems more like something from a silly comedy than a space opera.

The Hyperion 3 is described as an intergalactic liner, when it is said to only travel within the Milky Way (it travels between Mogar and Earth, which is in the same galaxy).

The Doctor, Commodore Travers and Professor Lasky at various times observe that Rudge is totally useless as a security officer,

AS: Travers does criticise Rudge on at least two occasions, but when do Lasky and the Doctor criticise him?

Ed Note: Lasky disses him in their first scene and the Doctor calls him "a weak man gone rogue".

which makes you wonder how he got to the position in the first place and why he feels so badly about being given early retirement or, more likely, long overdue retrenchment. His idiocy does not appear to be an act, as he is shown to be nervous and bumbling around his own conspirators and when doing his duty that’s because when he is talking to his co-conspirators and doing his duty

AS: He’s doing it in front of everyone else.

- besides, why would acting incompetent aid his cause?

AS: Because if the audience think he’s incompetent, then they aren’t going to believe that he is capable of devising and following through with a plan to take over the ship.

FM: At this point, you seem to start arguing within the article with someone who isn’t actually there; presumably this is because you are responding to editorial points, which is fine, but the argument should be integrated within the essay rather than actually addressing the absent editor.

(In a deleted Trial scene, the Time Lords ponder over Rudge's uncharacteristic efficiency when calling on the Mogarians, so even if Rudge was pretending to be a fool,

AS: Which he clearly was doing, because the reason why the “Time Lords ponder over Ridge’s uncharacteristic efficiency” is because it is out of kilter with the persona he has been presenting the audience up to this point.

it seems odd of him to stop moments before it is actually important not to arouse suspicion).

AS: The ship is being flown into a black hole. Which is hardly the time for Travers to say, “Hang on a minute? That’s a very clever plan. How did you come up with that? You’re supposed to be stupid! You’re not a hijacker , are you? Intent on stealing my cargo?” Now it’s true to say that Rudge, for the first three episodes, is acting too stupid to be credible, and that his sudden change of character is crudely done, but that ‘s because “Vervoids” is a story written primarily for children, who need things spelt out for them.

It is also unclear what the original plan was to take over the Hyperion 3, indeed if there was an original plan at all.

AS: Well, there must have been an original plan. What happens, however, is that Rudge cleverly takes advantage of the emergency to take over the bridge. The fact that Bruchner is able to highjack the ship by running on to the bridge and pointing a gun at Travers, indicates that Rudge could have easily done the same thing. The reason why he doesn’t act sooner is because they have to wait for the pick-up.

Also, Mogarians can drink tea quite happily, but exposure to water seems fatal (it is possible the fluid thrown on their masks is some kind of acid and it is the oxygen that kills them, but it is never confirmed). Travers' revelation that the bridge is 'supposed to be hijack-proof' while he is locked outside the hijacked bridge with a gunshot injury is presumably an ironic quip, but Michael Craig plays the line earnestly, making the scene redundant. This is compounded when we find the doors can be cut through and the bridge itself can be accessed via the air ducts.

AS: The bridge can’t be directly accessed through the air ducts, because none of the Vervoids make it onto the bridge, but the bridge can be viewed from the air ducts, and gas can be pumped into that area.

...

Meh, this is getting too much hassle to type out. You get the picture, though.

Last Word on "Planet of the Dead"

Absolute gospel truth: today I was chatting with the kids next door (the disturbing Gabriel, the beautiful Maeve and Gene who is the five-year-old equivalent of Happy Italian Guy from Turn Left). Anyway, as conversations are want to do we ended up discussing the Scary Movie franchise and awkwardly explaining that it wasn't SUPPOSED to be scary, it was actually making fun of such horror films. Irritatingly, the only gags I could remember from the film weren't particularly satirical ones, unless you count the black guy sodomizing the evil possessed clown doll under a bed... but that's hard to describe at the best of times.

"I prefer things that are funny and scary," says Maeve as her brothers attempt to climb trees and release wild dogs on the public. "Like in Doctor Who. There was this girl and she stole something from a museum, and Dr Who said 'Can I have that?' and she said 'Look after it' and he said 'I will' and then he hit it a lot with a hammer."

We both chuckle at the thought.

"Yeah, I'm glad he smashed it up," adds Maeve. "She was really a mean person."