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Dumpster of Fire

Review of Planet of Fire (#134)
DVD Release Date: 07 Sep 10
Original Air Date: 23 Feb – 02 Mar 1984
Doctors/Companions: Five, Vislor Turlough, Perpugilliam Brown
Stars: Peter Davison, Mark Strickson, Nicola Bryant
Preceding Story: Resurrection of the Daleks (Five, Tegan, Turlough)
Succeeding Story: The Caves of Androzani (Five, Peri)

For some reason, Planet of Fire has always sort of flown under my radar. In the back of my head, it had become “the story where both Mark Strickson and Nicola Bryant were scantily clad for their farewell/introduction, and there were volcanoes or something—oh yeah, and the Master.”

According to received fan wisdom (at least in the form of io9’s Best-to-Worst ranking, which puts PoF at #227 of 254), I can hardly be blamed. Even if I’d forgotten some of the key elements (the Master’s predicament, the final appearance of Kamelion, the revelation of Turlough’s secret past, and where all those intersect on a geologically active planet), there wasn’t much in any of it to endear it to viewers. (The exception, of course, is the aforementioned minimal costuming; I’ve heard at least one person say they learned something about themselves seeing Turlough in those shorts.)

Poor Kamelion stands out as one of the biggest problems. I’m sure the idea of a shape-changing robot sounded exciting to the writers (or JNT? I don’t know who’s responsible for Kamelion) when it was first proposed, but creating a plot that works well for such a character—and then realizing it satisfactorily on screen—appears to have been too difficult a task. (I did, however, once win a round of the Verity! Podcast “In Defense Of” game at Gallifrey One by successfully arguing for 60 seconds that “Kamelion is better than K-9,” using its role in helping to defeat the Master in PoF as one of my talking points.)

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Gallifrey One: 30 Years in the TARDIS – Day Three

This year I got an early morning flight home on Monday, and didn’t have time to finish this post before leaving. After a full day of travel, I didn’t have the mental fortitude to finish it off once I got home, either. My apologies for the tardiness.

Sunday got off to a bit of a rough start, when the hotel room alarm—that none of us had set—went off at 6 a.m. I’d been keeping a pretty early schedule anyway, so I just got up and headed for the lobby for breakfast and blogging.

After that leisurely start, I headed to Program A for the commentary on “Heaven Sent” with director Rachel Talalay. She was joined by writer Sarah Dollard, who wrote on Series Nine and Ten. Aside from the full cut of the episode, Rachel showed us a few other goodies, like deleted scenes and a pre-visualization clip. My favorite moment, though, was Sarah’s comment as we watched the Doctor break his hand on the wall over and over again: “Narratively speaking, this is the Doctor practicing to punch a racist in ‘Thin Ice.'”

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Gallifrey One: 30 Years in the TARDIS – Day Two

Saturday was cosplay day for me! Ever since last year, when the usual suspects got together on Sunday night and said, “What’s our group cosplay going to be next year?”, I’ve been looking forward to wearing this costume. Having already done TARDISes, K9s, Doctor Who/comics mash-ups, and one of us (with a different group) Daleks, we decided it was time to try Cybermen.

Our different decades approach worked well for the TARDISpod, so we decided to go that route again for the CyberSquad. Unfortunately, a couple months later, one of our number decided she wouldn’t be able to make it to the con this year, and I kind of stopped talking about it with the others. Another of us sadly had to skip Gally entirely due to a death in her family, and the remaining two of us never really coordinated anything. We saw each other briefly in the hallway before the Masquerade.

However, I enjoyed the hell out of my ’60s-themed Cyberman, which I dubbed the Cyber-hippie. I’m particularly proud of the Cyber-paisleys on my tunic, which I designed, and my fabulous husband (who constructs all my costumes) translated into a pattern and stitched on his embroidery machine.

It was very gratifying to have so many people smile, comment, or ask for pictures. A few people clearly liked the costume, but didn’t clue into the “hippie” part until I made the peace sign; watching their eyes light up as realization dawned never failed to delight me. It all made for a good reminder of why I enjoy original cosplay.

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Gallifrey One: 30 Years in the TARDIS – Day One

Gallifrey One 2019 got off to a slightly rocky start, with LA weather creating a bit of difficulty for folks flying in. Luckily for me, the worst of my travel was turbulence. And everyone I talked to who came in on Wednesday said the same—a few flights never even turned off the “fasten seatbelt” sign. By Thursday, things were even more dodgy; the skies opened.

As a Midwesterner, I tend to roll my eyes fondly at places that freak out over a little bit of rain or snow, but this time LA had real reason for concern. There was flash flooding and some serious nastiness (which sadly prevented me from getting together with local friends). But of course inside the Marriott, all of us nerdy types kept doing our own thing, and LobbyCon was effectively rolling by midday. (Okay, if I’m honest, it was rolling on Wednesday.)

The Thursday night ice cream social kicked off the officially sanctioned events. To my surprise, I couldn’t just walk into the ballroom when I got to the con floor. By the time I got there, a queue snaked and stretched well down the hallway. I didn’t actually want any ice cream—I only wanted to get in and find my friend Jeff to get one of his commemorative coins—but I played by the rules and stood in line until I got into the room. I made it to Jeff in the nick of time.

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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Once more, the year has turned to that most blissful of times: Gallifrey One!

Every year since the blog started (with the exception of that first one, when it was only a few weeks old), I’ve made the pilgrimage to Los Angeles over Presidents Day weekend to rub elbows with Doctor Who creators and just generally have fun with some three thousand other fans, who become my closest friends over those three-plus days (and some of them, beyond!)

This year is no exception. The con runs from this Friday (15 Feb 2019) through Sunday (17 Feb), with a “pre-con” social scheduled for Thursday night, though many attendees extend their stays for extra days before or after those dates. I’ll be among those, giving myself just a smidge of extra time to adjust to the time zone change before things get into full swing.

Each iteration of Gally is unique, awesome in its own particular way. Offerings depend on which guests are present, what’s been going on in the show recently, and obviously which fans are in each panel to share their opinions. For 2019 (“Gallifrey One: 30 Years in the TARDIS”), headliners are Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor), Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), and John Barrowman (Capt. Jack Harkness). Pearl Mackie (Bill Potts) had also been slated to appear, but had to cancel a couple of weeks out due to a new work obligation—sad for us, but great for her!

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Missing the Point

Review of Meglos (#110)
DVD Release Date: 11 Jan 11
Original Air Date: 27 Sep – 18 Oct 1980
Doctors/Companions: Four, Romana II, K-9
Stars: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, John Leeson
Preceding Story: The Leisure Hive (Four, Romana II, K-9)
Succeeding Story: Full Circle (Four, Romana II, K-9, Adric)

Who doesn’t love a talking cactus? Or, better yet, a Doctor-shaped talking cactus with spine-covered skin? (If you guessed me, you’d be right.)

As with so many of the stories we’ve explored in this Bad Reputations series, there are some good ideas lurking at the heart of Meglos, but somehow they never come to fruition. The weirdly realized antagonist, its incoherent plan, and the heavy-handed religion-v-science subplot all contribute to an underwhelming product that lands at #200 of 254 on io9’s Best-to-Worst list.

Sometimes a rewatch helps me find something in a story that I hadn’t appreciated before. Usually, I find that my vague recollections only cover the surface of the plot or setting or characterization. To a certain extent that’s again true for Meglos, where Tom Baker’s cactus-y mien overshadowed all other memories such that even the identity of his Companion(s) had been lost to me. Realizing I got not only Jacqueline Hill (though not as Barbara) but also Lalla Ward’s Romana II was thus a delightful re-discovery.

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CONsole Room 2019 Recap

First things first: Welcome to year nine of Confessions of a Neowhovian (~throws confetti~ ~releases “Happy Blog Birthday” balloons~)!

As I look through my posts, I realize that I haven’t reported back regularly to my readers about the happenings at my local con these past few years. I can understand why I’ve done it that way; after the first couple of years, my attendance at CONsole Room has been a bit more casual. I don’t have anything particularly scintillating, like photos with the guests or even my own cosplays, to share.

But although I haven’t ignored it completely, mentioning CONsole Room in passing from time to time, I thought I should be a bit more formal about it this year—especially as CONsole Room has moved from May to January.

As usual, experiencing it as a commuter con colors my perceptions of CONsole Room, as does the added factor of bringing my daughters along. There were plenty of panels and activities that, had I been a “captive audience” for the con, I would gladly have attended, and almost certainly would have enjoyed. Given my personal constraints, though, this year my attendance was limited to Saturday and a single Friday evening panel.

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Bookends

Review of Resolution
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Last month when we watched the final episode of Series 11, we weren’t actually watching the final episode of Series 11. This was the final episode of Series 11.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2019 BBC

Resolution ties into the rest of Whittaker’s tenure to date so seamlessly, I can’t help but wonder whether or not it was Chibnall’s intention all along to make an eleven-episode series. Evidence of that idea is peppered throughout the special, making Resolution and The Woman Who Fell to Earth a pair of perfectly matched bookends.

For starters, both episode titles have double meanings. In TWWFtE, the identity of the eponymous woman is up for interpretation, while here the titular resolution could either be the Doctor’s stated intention to come for the Dalek or the completion of a plot through-line or two.

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Marking the Unremarkable

Review of The Rescue (#11)
DVD Release Date: 07 Jul 09
Original Air Date: 02 – 09 Jan 1965
Doctors/Companions: One, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Vicki
Stars: William Hartnell, William Russell, Jacqueline Hill, Maureen O’Brien
Preceding Story: The Dalek Invasion of Earth (One, Susan, Ian, Barbara)
Succeeding Story: The Romans (One, Ian, Barbara, Vicki)

On this fourth Wednesday of December, when another regular blog post is due, we find ourselves in that liminal space between the end of Series 11 and the airing of the New Year’s special, looking for a bit of Who-ey goodness to tide us over. With such awkward placement on the calendar, what better choice for a post than another entry in our Bad Reputations series?

Percentage-wise, it was time to return to the First Doctor, but since there aren’t that many of his stories left that are both (a) still on my un-reviewed list and (b) extant, the selection is pretty minimal. That’s why we ended up with this little two-episode bonbon. While it’s the lowest-rated of my remaining First Doctor options on io9’s Best-to-Worst list, it’s only three quarters of the way to the bottom (#194 of 254).

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Saving the Universe Like Adults

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Review of The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I think nothing sets apart the nascent Chibnall era from the RTD and Moffat eras so much as the final regular episode of this first series. Whereas previous showrunners have gone all out with bombastic, plot-heavy tours de force for their series finales, Chibnall… did not.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2018 BBC

There are still some familiar elements in The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, in that a thread begun back in the series opener (and continued in the second episode) was woven back into the TARDIS Team’s lives. Graham, and to a degree Ryan, finally had a chance to come to terms with the death that sent him scuttling into the TARDIS in the first place.

But it was more in the callbacks—both subtle and stated outright—that I was reminded of prior finales. Without the “Tim Shaw” tie-in, TBoRAK would be indistinguishable from any other episode in Series 11, and certainly not readily identifiable to a casual viewer as the series’s “big finish.”

That fact will make the episode a big disappointment for a certain segment of fans. For those who loved Moffat’s twisty, tricksy, over-stuffed plots, Chibnall’s writing will feel far too straightforward. If, however, you’re someone who loves stories grounded in character, there are plenty of satisfying moments to be had.

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