Doing Things Other Than Watching Doctor Who Pt. 1: Wrath of Khan

Beer blogging was cool for but simply cost too much. Thanks to my local library, Who Watch 2012 is much cheaper. However, it also makes for extremely repetitive entries. So here we go with round 1 of quick reviews of things other than Who I experienced in the past week.

A John Waters Christmas @ Lupo's 

John Pinette ruined stand-up comedy for me. He's a good, oftentimes funny, guy. However, I grew up next door to members of his extended family. They'd talk about their amazingly talented  cousin and put on Simon Sez or the third Revenge of the Nerds movie. This forged a link in my head between painfully horrid films and his real job during my formative years. I've found over the years that the solution to learning to appreciate something in my extreme-discomfort zone is to look at it through a lens controlled by John Waters. I mean Serial Mom made Barry Manilow awesome. His Christmas show continued that streak and made stand-up-as well as the holiday itself- downright magical.

Only part of it that sucked as much as Junior was the venue-side of the meet and greet. For more than double the cost of a regular ticket, you got to get yelled at about having the right class of stub to be herded into a line. Then someone bellowed at us about making damn sure our cameras were ready or we would get NOTHING. By the time I got the phrase "thank you for your work" out of my mouth, security had me 3/4 of the way through the door. It was like a book signing run by illiterate people who were hell-bent on punishing anyone who could read.

Cabin in the Woods Blu-Ray

I remember being a teenager and getting told how Scream was this staggering work of genius which totally reinvented the wheel then seeing it and wondering if the film was intended as a parody. Similar things occur when I watch most modern horror movies. Things generally seem to be done to some sort of formula which renders it all fairly un-horrific in my eyes. Leave it to Joss Whedon to play with that and co-create a pithy little romp of a film. This is one of two movies I liked enough in the theater to purchase later in 2012.

Stephen Fry Making History

I always loved the What If... comicbook series from Marvel. Some creepy dude with a huge head called The Watcher peered through the curtains of established continuity and asked what if certain key events happened differently. Yet, alternative history novels aren't my thing. I have the attention span of a kitten and they tend to be a bit dull. So I decided to take a chance on Stephen Fry, figuring he would at least break any potential monotony with some humor. Wound up devouring this one whole over two days. Engaging characters, engrossing universe, good read.

Tree House Brewing Co. Snowtober

It's rare for me to do a joyful jig over beer. However, the pour on this badboy was that damned exciting. A perfect head. Beautiful toasty aroma. Astoundingly rich flavor profile. Felt like perfection on every surface as it went down. These guys make me glad I'm broke because I could see myself drinking my liver to death damn quick just because the beers are that damned enjoyable.

THQ WWE '13 (Wii)

Why I keep playing these is beyond me. They've been the same basic title since the N64 days. Yet, I get giddy for about a week then realize the redundancy and give up. Not total  shit but also far from unique.

A Boy and his Blob (Wii)

Nice modernization of one of my more beloved NES titles. Not sure why I liked the original so much. Rarely made it past the first couple of screens without dying. Guess it was something in the premise. Feed a blob jellybeans to solve puzzles. Worked for me then and works for me now. Only real issue lies with the fact my copy keeps crashing and glitching out. Ah well. 

Rayman Origins (Wii)

Nice to see a solid 2D platformer once in awhile. Actually has some difficulty to it. Intuitive controls. Nothing that new going on here but it's quite playable.

The Not-so-Great-or-Organized Doctor Who Watch Through Vol. 1: It's all about the Hartnell YEAH! The Hartnell! YEAH! Give me a piece of that... bacon?

One day, the ex decided we needed to follow up our first watch-through of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with James Marsters kissing another dude. A kindly friend of hers informed us the relevant episode of Torchwood was awesome but we needed to contextualize it with at least the first series of the revived Doctor Who. Russel T. Davies' sci-fi/soap opera/Whedon-worship formula worked well for me. Then I went through a couple regenerations and curiosity about the character really set in. So now through the wonder of Blogspot, you get to read my inane ramblings as I try to watch every surviving episode and in some cases reconstructions of the lost ones!
So here are a few things you should probably know:
 1) I'm using the numbering numbering scheme found on Wikipedia's List of Doctor Who Serials.
 2) My sources are a combination of the C/W Mars library network, Netflix, and the kindness of fellow Whovians. As such, I've got minimal control over what's available to me when and will jump around.
3) This initiative started a good two years ago but got derailed by multiple deaths in my family. There were some notes made most of which I will endeavor to parse and make readable. Other times, I will find myself bemused by their oddity and just leave them be.

Serial 001 - An Unearthly Child
I was very pleasantly surprised by this serial. People kept talking about how dated everything was. However, the establishing shots of the TARDIS were timeless. I went in knowing why a police box warranted so much screen time and still wanted them to tell me why. Susan spouting science beyond her years/era and her teachers subsequent curiosity felt quite natural. The whole "The Doctor=Grandfather" thing threw me for a bit of a loop at first but I wished Hartnell's Doctor was my own grandfather soon enough and got over my initial shock.
While I wanted to hop in the TARDIS with Grampa Doctor and suffer his awesome brand of contemptuous verbal abuse fairly quickly, that desire faded a smidge once the story kicked into overdrive. I prefer my quests for fire full of dueling guitars and soaring  vocals. Still, Hartnell was fun to watch. Started hoping fairly early on that the man-of-science/man-of-action combination I knew from later Doctors would kick in quickly so they could ditch Ian Chesterton. Dig the actor and all but if there's a spare adult around, part of me wants them put solely on "stop Susan from letting off that bloody piercing shriek" duty. All in all, not bad and I'll happily watch some more.

Serial 002 - The Daleks
Part of my sporadic desire to be a British kid in the 1960's stems from the first Dalek experience being 2005's "Dalek." I get that it had a nice long shot establishing stairs were no longer terrifying but when the first unstoppable, remorseless, brutal, supreme killing machine you ever see goes emo seemingly to give The Doctor another reason to want to smooch Rose, it's sort of natural to feel a bit robbed. At least in this episode, the only thing approximating a "human moment" for the Daleks is the fact they want to kill the Thalls. Personally, if I had to deal with a bunch of melodramatic pretty boys prancing around in the forest with their perfect pecs and blond-haired blue-eyed beauty giving soliloquise about peace, I'd want to kill the bastards pretty hard too. There's some serious silly going on in the form of the ultimate enemy being limited to moving on specially treated metal plates but they're still bad ass enough that I had to hide an eye while a toilet plunger was thrust at Barbara. All in all, a very worthwhile viewing experience.

Serial 003 - The Edge of Destruction
The first serial established the "history book" approach and the second did the same for sci-fi stories. This one was all about character development. Ian is shown to be more than just brawn and The Doctor displays a bit of heart. Feel much of what this one accomplished could've been done through subplots woven into "proper" episodes but honestly it's the first season so I can understand some clunking in  the gears.

Serial 004 - Marco Polo
When I heard 108 episodes were lost but I needn't fear as geeks who made my charity fundraising in honor of a dead TV show crew look a but south of diehard had done some reconstructions, I was a bit unsure about attempting a watch through. The Loose Cannons crew honestly did a very nice job on this one. They had an amazing variety of stills at their disposal and the audio quality only became an issue on a commuter train once or twice. As for the episodes themselves, I felt the pacing was somewhat shit. If I tried to summarize seven episodes here, it would take one paragraph. So much of what was going on involved showing off set dressing and teaching a bit of history. Perhaps if the video still existed, things wouldn't drag so much. All in all, a bit dry but not too shabby.

Serial 005 - The Keys of Marinus
Interesting approach to storytelling on this one. The TARDIS  crew need to gather multiple keys and episodes become little quests to do so. Weird BDSM bikers who I somehow got the impression were reptilian try to stop them. Much "look at science and technology gone awry and BEWARE" and narrow escapery ensue. The plant episode in particular shows a lot of thought went into this serial so I don't want to be flip but it really didn't grab me.

Serial 006 - The Aztecs
This one was a lot more fun than I expected. There was an obvious desire to educate the kids about Aztec culture. However, they approached it in some enjoyable ways. Barbara is mistaken for a god, decides the prime directive is for wimps, and nearly gets her friends killed. Ian winds up in period costumes wrestling another burly man. The Doctor arrogantly professes he understands the meaning of cocoa and winds up accidentally marrying someone. It felt like there was less lecturing about how history worked and more history teaching those who tried to tell it how things were a lesson in this serial. For me, that made things a bit less dry and a lot easier to watch.

Serial 007 - The Sensorites
Conspiracy! Intrigue! Diplomacy! Funky looking aliens! Fairly effective suspense! Important life lessons for our political leaders! (You know those raw, unedited notes I said I might share at some point? Enjoy!)!
p, s, !!!!!!!!

next up: It's still all about Hartnell, Alfie.