The doctor is in

Just as the actor playing The Doctor changes periodically, so too do the staff behind the scenes.

Rarely, though, has anyone behind the scenes had as much of an impact on Doctor Who as Russell T Davies who quit as exec producer this week.

He’s moving on to other things, as is to be expected, following the most astonishing comeback in TV history. Forget wossname (hah) waking up and finding her dead husband in the shower on Dallas. Forget Magnum waking up after walking off into the clouds. Nobody in their right minds expected a Welsh writer to revive TV’s oldest SF show and make it into a drama for grown-ups as much as a homage to the children’s TV show it once was.

That Davies is moving on is sad news, but not a surprise. He had a career before The Doctor and he’ll have one after.

The great news is that the man shoulder tapped to take over is Steven Moffat, the writer behind such episodes as Blink and who clearly loves the show as much as Davies and as much as the fans.

From the BBC story:

“Moffat, … said the whole of his career was ‘a secret plan to get this job’,” which is just lovely.

Even Neil Gaiman weighed in with a post on it, although I prefer his ode to David Tennant playing Hamlet as The Doctor. Scroll down a bit.

The secret history of Star Wars

I’m unsure whether to recommend this book or not. So far I’ve only read the first 50-odd pages.

It’s a history not only of the Star Wars phenomenon but also of the changes to the storyline as it’s developed over the years and it certainly resonates with me.

I remember clearly going to see Star Wars for the first time. It was a simpler time and a much simpler movie. The changes that followed were… well, odd. Even my teenage brain could see something wasn’t quite right. Add into the mix the whole Prequel disaster (yes, George, I know it made oodles of money. Was that the point?) and the disquiet grows.

The book really does a good job of getting to the bottom of that.

But it’s 500 pages long. Five Hundreds Pages. On Star Wars. Seriously.

So read it and weep – love it or hate it your eyes won’t be thankful.

The Tron

Mysterious Dave and I have been discussing why it is that people don’t seem to understand Hamilton.

We grew up there, on the banks of the mighty Waikato River.

In winter time the fog rolls in and it can be so thick you can’t see the end of the car’s front bumper.

In summer time it can get so muggy (it is, after all, built on a swamp) that at night you want to lie down and melt.

It’s a nice town. Good size population. These days it has seven movie screens. Of course, Auckland does have more, but I’ve noticed a tendency for every one of the movie houses to show the exact same movie that’s being shown on all the other movie houses at the same time. Seven o’clock? Must be Horton Hears a Hoo in Cinema 3. So in this instance, the number of screens is pretty much irrelevant.

There’s a university, several high schools, a polytech. There are local radio stations. There are a good dozen restaurants or more on the main drag alone that are worth a look.

And yet there are still people who are surprised by Hamilton. Slackers likes to use it as a term of derision when talking about the North Shore. And I quote:

There is plenty to like about Hamilton, it’s just a matter of where you look. I ran along the bank of their mighty river. It was tranquil, brooding, and, in the morning light, quite ethereal. The museum has its own distinct identity, with its marae leading visitors to the water. There was an exhibition on Italian immigrants to New Zealand which was precisely what I was in the mood to see.

Of course, Slackers doesn’t see the point to Lone Star restaurant, whereas readers of this blog will know it’s the Cobb and Co of the 21st century. For the love of god.

And then there’s Jane Yee, whom I always liked on C4 music station but bump into less often now she’s a blog.

Jane’s been twice now. Yeah, that’s right, twice.

First time round, she played the “Aucklander Just Passing Through” card.

Look, I’ll be honest with you. Like many Aucklanders, I’ve traditionally held a pretty grim view of Hamilton – don’t ask me why, it’s just an inherent disdain. Previous Ham-bound journeys were born of necessity, and there hadn’t been a trip to that fine pinnacle of Waikato living that has managed to change my opinion. That is… until this weekend.

Even her second visit didn’t disappoint, with the self-appointed Waikato Bloke to demonstrate some good old-fashioned ‘Tron Hospitality.

So about twenty minutes later, there we were happily minding our own girly business when this same guy comes hurtling towards us yelling “you’re not from Auckland! You’re from Morrinsville!” – um, no, no we are not from Morrinsville. Where is Morrinsville? Anyway, this guy’s theory was that we didn’t look old enough to be allowed to drive alllll that way from Auckland (as opposed to driving from Morrinsville where there are no laws… apparently).

But you tell people you quite like Hamilton and they look at you funny. And I’ll leave Dave to expound on his points of view in the comments rather than steal all his good ideas and claim them as my own.

Hamilton. It’s not entirely, necessarily for weekends you know.

Now that’s more like it

See, a little bit of faith and The Swede delivers.

Still not sure, but now I’m not sure as in “WTF is going on?” which is generally how I like my entertainment.

Can you see the pitch in the limo with the Fox exec though?

JS: Got a new show for you.
FF (Fox Fuckhead): Yeah? (chews cigar to other side of the mouth) Does it have any aliens in it? (FF sniggers and ends up coughing juicily for a bit. You know he’s working on half a lung).
JS (calmly): No, no aliens. But it’s got girls. And they have no memory. They kick your ass on a mission and then you wipe their mind and they start over again the next day as someone new.
FF: Sounds like my first wife.
JS: Think Alias but with a science fiction twist. Joe 90 meets Alias.
FF: I’ll think about it. But really what we want is a musical comedy that features animatronic hobbits. Hobbits are big right now. Maybe we can bill it as The Hobbit meets Electra, will that work?
JS: No.

and so on. Although to give them their due, the FF this time round does at least appear to be a bit more stable than the whackjob who greenlighted Firefly then crapped on us all from a high height.

The Listener and science

I’ve complained before about The Listener, and about its coverage of science in general.

I should point out here that The Listener just won the Qantas Media Award for newsstand magazine of the year, so my views are somewhat in the minority (although readership is in freefall (although curiously missing from the ABC figures) so maybe not a complete minority).

The Listener’s approach to science and to rigour has been somewhat lacking, in my opinion. Imagine my surprise when I read on page 45 of this week’s issue that The Listener, in conjunction with the Royal Society of NZ, is sponsoring the Manhire Prize for creative science writing.

Either, The Listener takes its science journalism seriously, despite all evidence to the contrary. Or they’re taking the more liberal interpretation of “creative” (as in “He was an accountant who believed in ‘creative accounting’.”) or perhaps they’re just having a joke. All I can say is I’m glad the RSNZ has appointed the International Institute of Modern Letters to judge the award.

Amusingly, the topic of this year’s award is “evolution”.

Let the games begin.

The Dollhouse. Hmm.

Click here if you want to live.

No, I mean, click there if you want to see a clip from the new Joss Whedon series. It stars the Other Slayer and That Guy off Battlestar Galactica. Y’know, the one that boffs the Cylon. Back before we realised they were ALL Cylons.

Of course, I haven’t seen series four of BSG yet, so anything could happen.

Watched it yet? Go ahead. I’ll wait.

So, what did you think? I’m not sure, myself. Looks like a cross between Bones and Alias and I’m not sure that’s the best use of The Swede’s time (cough cough Firefly II: After We Forget About The Movie cough).

No, that doesn’t mean I won’t watch it. Of course I’ll watch it. I’ll watch it, buy the DVDs, probably upgrade to the widescreen edition when that comes out, then the BluRay and hell, probably the crystaline memory chip version as well.

There’s a hint of Whedonesque. “You’ve got to be straight with me”. “Do I? Because you people have been pretty frickin’ bendy with me”. But the music… that’s not right. It’s thriller music. What’s that all about?

Of course, there’s not a lot you can glean from such a short clip. I’ll need to watch three or four series before I make my mind up.

I’m just saying, that’s all.

Paul Henry

has an appreciation society. On Facebook.

Seriously.

I know Paul, well, I know him vaguely, and I do appreciate him. Honestly.

And so I’m going to copy this Minties Moment so you can watch Pippa earn her money.

(hattip Rod Drury).

It’s a funny old world

I’m an Englishman who grew up in Wales, schooled in Hamilton and lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

The other day I had lunch with an Irishman who comes from Australia.

We went to a Japanese restaurant in Chinatown in Auckland in New Zealand.

We had sushi and Sapporo beer.

The beer, Japan’s finest, comes from Canada.

It’s a funny old world.

You know you’re getting old when…

the guy who cuts your hair says “Would you like me to tidy up your eyebrows?”.

I did not reply: “Touch my eyebrows and die, old man” but I’m not sure why not.

There’s nothing wrong with my eyebrows. They’re perfectly fine at doing… well, whatever it is eyebrows are supposed to do. They don’t need tidying. It’s not like they’re someone’s bedroom or the back yard or anything. They’re eyebrows. They don’t meet in the middle. No mono-brow, caterpillar for me. I have two. See? One, two.

Whatever next? Will he ask to trim the hair in my ears?

Have I become a hobbit?

Next time I’m going elsewhere, even though this guy a: is close (about 20m from the front entrance to the building where I work) and ii: has a vacuum cleaner thing that he uses after he’s shaved your head to suck up the loose hairs. Interesting use of technology, I thought.

Eyebrows. Seriously!

Governments. You can’t live with them…

and you’re really not supposed to depose them in bloody military uprisings. Well, not too often anyway.

Still, some days it’s a struggle not to form a cell and foment revolution.

This is one of those days.

And I quote:

The threat of a nuclear attack on the UK in the 1950s caused concern over the supply of tea, top-secret documents which have now been released reveal.

D’you know, I was wondering how we’d get on for a cuppa once we’d all been fried, boiled, broiled, blasted, nuked, irradiated, disemboweled by flying debris and had our skins blister in quite an annoying fashion. Even tea drinkers such as myself, who has been known to make two cups – one for now and one for soon, soon my precious – probably had several other priorities in mind ahead of drinking tea come the Apocalypse.

Bet they spent quite a tidy sum of quids on the research too.

Come the revolution…