Let it be put on record, as suggested by Mister Tim Beverstock, that JJ Murphy’s outdo themselves with their bar menu. Oh sure, on laminated card it says “fish and chips’, or some variation thereof, but Foo will tell you that the resulting order will be vast and teeming with food, and that even a man with his constitution would find it hard to finish a plate (he did. Almost) without sinking like a chip-logged supertanker. With a turn out of 7 fans (not bad for Friday the 13th), there was enough conversation to keep us afloat. Topics included;

• A little on series 3 but oddly enough not too much. While Tim loved Last of the Time Lords, Foo had felt that the episode let things down with the chanting of ‘Doctor’ and Alden preferred it to The Sound of Drums which he considered a bit too much running around . Other opinions… well, Jamas has his views here, and Peter opted out to let Jono speak for Zeus Plug. Foo had pretty much reached the conclusion that series three is his favourite even though it has three of the potentially worst episodes of the new series to contend with.
  
• Soo… Who’s going to buy Timelash when it comes out? Much shuffling of feet and looking away followed. We predict that at least two present will cave in.
  
• iPods and iPhones – yeah, they’re great but people do seem to go gaga over something that’s not really anything new.
  
• Slight lamentation of no Zeus Blog to wipe up beer and tears (well blogs don’t tend to be that absorbent, Foo – Ed)
  
• The Sarah Jane Adventures may be airing in September but are there going to be any returning monsters…there may be but we will only know in two months time. Foo had heard that a previous new series monster may give Sarah something to contend with…
  
• Catherine Tate returning to Doctor Who (see: Timelash)
  
• The appearance of Kelly (of Random Static) and friend Annie. Not a lot of faction Paradox gossip (for obvious reasons), but some discussion of the next years Sci-Fi con which will have Kate Orman and Jon Blum as guests
  
• And finally the flicks – namely the Transformers movie – had both good bits and bad bits, it was a bit of fun but not a masterpiece – a very mediocre movie. General disapproval of Fantastic Four with far too much focus on the Invisible Woman’s impending wedding, and I think everyone was looking forward to the Simpsons movie and a couple the next Harry Potter as well.

 Er, and that’s it!

Foo, PA

Our meeting on the Sunday was attended by six on a windy Wellington evening with special guest star JP – no, not Jono nor Jacqueline Pierce but Jon Preddle. With all of us crammed into the snuggest snug of all, it was a little tight, but we managed, just.

 Our conversation dallied over many topics including: 

• Lost, Heroes, The Sopranos as well as focussing on the new Who series
• The template that the new series seems to take and what we can perhaps expect next year
• The way the new series is planned out compared to how the classic series was done (paint by numbers versus inviting submissions and picking the best ones)
• The New Beginnings DVD release incl. commentaries
• A reassessment of Matthew Waterhouse’s acting abilities!
• Torchwood
• Who the next Doctor might be…
• Big Finish’s Doctor Who audios
• The next TSV and David’s EDA article
• A quick whip around of desired DVD releases:
  • Image of the Fendahl
  • The Silurians
  • Time and the Rani
  • The Krotons
  • The Happiness Patrol
  • Anything first or second Doctor that has been cleaned and Vidfired
  • A yearning for good looking Pertwee stories with better video quality wise then the early to mid nineties video releases.

• Our Torchwood discussion focussed on the fact that David Lawrence‘s favourite episodes was Out of Time and this seemed to be a popular episode all round. There were queries as to what is the point of Torchwood, the unevenness of the plot, the role of Jack as a Doctor figure as opposed to the comic hero (though admittedly Torchwood Series One is post his resurrection so this can be explained). Overall the feeling is that Torchwood was a little disappointing, but there is hope that the second series is going to be a lot better, especially with the later starting date (meaning more time to get it right).

• Who would be the next Doctor after Tennant – following the idea that The Second Coming was an audition for Christopher Eccleston, Casanova was Tennants’ and The Unquiet Dead was Eve Myles’ for Torchwood, where could we expect the next Doctor to come from? Perhaps a guest star in Torchwood, the Sarah Jane Adventures or even Who itself will be number Eleven.

• Jon expressed relief that he didn’t have to pick as many holes (continuity errors or just goofs) in series 3 as he wasn’t writing for the Telos third series book. A definite case of enjoy the episodes first, analyse them second.
• Jon also tried to make us do a drabble on the spot – you can lead horses to water but we didn’t seem thirsty and politely declined…maybe next time Jon!

• The increasing number of Doctor Who audios that are sitting on shelves not being listened to, probably due to the inundation of the new material at the moment. This led us to discuss the fact that the Big Finish audios may not be doing so well since Who has been back on our screens, as people can get their fix for free rather then paying for audio consumption. By all accounts Jon seemed to enjoy The Companion Chronicles, specifically – The Blue Tooth and The Beautiful People – with The Beautiful People sounding like it had a lot of in-jokes and a Douglas Adams sort of humour.

• The next part of David Lawrence’s BBC EDA book article is being worked on although he is having trouble locating Time Zero. If anyone can find this, I’m sure he’d be appreciative. It was noted that it’s always the same books that seem to come up regularly on second-hand book shelves. SFX magazine is currently selling their magazines with free Doctor Who ‘Target’ novels (in reality BBC PDAs) as freebies – obviously there’s a fair bit of PDA stock floating around out there!

• With David Lawrence in attendance we talked about his upcoming King Lear production which almost clashes with the other King Lear production (which has a certain Who actor as well as some Wizard from LOTR).

• David and Jon explained away Tim’s question re: the Macra in Gridlock. Tim had wondered why the Doctor didn’t deal to them. It seemed that it was implied that they would either die out due to the lack of polluting fumes or the New Earth population would deal with them themselves. I guess the Macra could make a nice snack for hungry New Earthers (although polluted crab meat is probably highly carcinogenic).

All in all, a great meeting and we managed to get five food orders on a small table, balance all the plates, eat our meals and talk. And they say guys can’t multi task!!

SB

Another fine Wellington day and one with which we had decided to break with tradition and meet on a Tuesday rather than a Friday or Saturday. I’m rather new to the group and this was only my fifth ‘outing’ as it were but I feel I’m getting to know the guys, their likes, dislikes and opinions of both the new and old series as well as Torchwood.

It was lovely to meet Christopher Owen for the first time. Chris wrote the TSV novella “Glory of the Daleks” about 15 years ago and it was a pleasure to meet him, alas he had to leave early but hopefully he will be able to attend a future meet. He did mention he had been ‘in absentia’ from Who fandom for quite some time and we had a quick chat about the new series. I always find it fascinating to see what the fans of the ‘classic’ series think of the new series.

Let’s see, what else did we talk about? Well, in the Doctor Who realm:

• Torchwood…do we like it? I do, but others in the group have mixed opinions. Tim was given the first four episodes to view, so maybe he can be wooed to the light side.
• Zeus Plug – we devoured the latest issue with some of us turning to it immediately while others dipped in and out. One thing that is clear, is that Peter can really hold the floor on this topic
• The Tachyon TV incident at the Dimensions on Tyne convention where an old review of The Twin Dilemma was republished lashing Colin Baker. Colin happened to be a secret guest at the end of the con where he went on to rip apart the review and received a standing ovation for his troubles.
• Ian Levine ‘quitting’ fandom and his argument with RTD at a press conference!
• RTP! and a possible Torchwood-themed issue.
• The state of fandom re: people who really don’t enjoy the new series. I always wonder about people who continue to watch something they really can’t stand… is it like a car crash and you want to turn away but you can’t?
• The new 8th Doctor audios that are coming out – while Peter is looking forward to them (as I am) Jamas seemed a little disillusioned with the audios in general.
• We briefly considered the future of Who (past the 4th Series) – who would take over assuming RTD/David Tennant both leave at the end of series 4?
• We recapped on some of David L’s theories from the previous month.
• Possible future developments with TSV – smaller but 3 times a year, the effect of Adam moving to the UK.
• Prime repeating the series over the next few months.

And outside the Who realm…

• The new James Bond movie – don’t even try and understand continuity…yes, Casino Royale is the first Bond movie and yes M is still the head of MI6 but…just enjoy the film!
• The Borat movie – a thumbs up from Foo.
• Work Christmas parties (again!)
• Bill Hicks/Chris Rock & comedy in general
• Gigs: David Bowie, Pixies and Elton John (I had no idea that Mr Adamson was a fan) [He's not but blah blah U2 yadda yadda scalpers etc etc arm and a leg to get to Auckland anyway, oh look! A long-legged horse!- Ed.] 
• The impact of technology on getting access to new shows. No longer do we wait for grainy copies of new episodes to come over from the UK, we can literally watch them hours after they have aired.

Finally, our evening ended with the Pub quiz through which we managed to get through 4 rounds before we started to drift homeward. All in all, a great end to the year and I’m looking forward to the next one in late Jan.

Pub Report by Foo – cheers there, fella

Wellington Chapter Meeting 24^th November 2006

I’ve come to enjoy the rejuvenated pub meets of the last couple of months, they’ve become a great opportunity to catch up on news, new releases, website gossip and what people get up to outside of the club (Yes, there is life beyond the sofa) Murphy’s is a good venue with a relaxed atmosphere, decent sized snugs, sport on the big screen for those awkward moments and a house band (if you’re lucky). They also offer a reasonable menu for those wanting food for thought (or is that the other way around?) Though running out of ice cream is the best excuse I’ve heard for not receiving the dessert I ordered (particularly given it was an ice cream sundae) however I settled for a discounted Apple Pie instead.

The second to last meeting for 2006 managed to drag seven souls out of the blazing sun and into the cooler climes of the resident snug where season three was definitely not on the agenda. Foo got the merchandise distribution out of the way early on (calendars and DVDs under the Christmas Tree makes for happy fans) and it was into the first discussion of the evening the merits of office Christmas party locations (I never knew there was a bowing alley in the Wellington CBD), followed by Torchwood (seven episodes down and is it any good?), the U2 concert (why weren’t YOU there?), upcoming TSV articles (After hearing his description of it, I’m hanging out for part two of David Lawrence’s BBC EDA retrospective) and whether Blake’s 7 has stood the test of time (it hasn’t).

ZeusPlug 7 was duly received and perused – another well balanced mix of the serious and sublime (The idea of Battle of the Seasons was an unexpected surprise). The Eds are to be commended for constantly getting it out on time each month, only one more to go guys and then you can take a breather (Though I still think a bumper A2 Christmas special could be a nice tie-in with this year’s Christmas Invasion And it got ‘freed out’ in one sitting which makes a nice change. Highlights of the evening for me were: David’s conspiracy theories regarding whether Matthew Jones actually exists (or is RTD under another name), David Tennant’s acting abilities (or is he really playing up the Doctor’s manic depressive side?) the none-too-subtle plugs for RTP (particularly the interview Dave gave them, which I really, really want to read – not-so-subtle hint can anyone out there hook a guy up ) series one versus series two (and an interesting conversation around the structure and ongoing character development of series one vs the lack thereof in series two) and of course how can we overlook Simon Granville finally being able to make an appearance (Welcome back mate!)

At nearly four hours it was one of the more lengthier and energetic meetings we’ve had this year, I wonder if the final one will top it? Here’s hoping.

Report by Tim B, Posted by Peter A

Whilst we weren’t quite at our attendance record (13), the eighth Auckland pub meet of the year took place on Saturday the 11th of November at the Muddy Farmer with a good turnout of 9 (much better than 6 the month before!).

As usual, there was the five-minute silence after ZEUS PLUG was presented. It’s always interesting to watch how people read it – some have the quick skim saving most for later, Jon P usually jumps straight to the cartoon, and others do the full read through.

Highlights of the night included:

• ZEUS PLUG presenting Paul with his very first spoilers for series 3 (we?re good like that!).
• Farewell to Adam McGechan who leaves the comfort of the snug for the vicious and potentially health-threatening world of UK fandom.
• A different (and possibly libellous) take on ‘companion autograph’ collecting
• Anthony Ainley, god rest his soul, and the decline of the Master over the latter years
• Those behind-the-scenes rumours that never get published
• Reminiscing about the old Traken / WhoCon days (yes, I admit! I did walk out on Pertwee’s Q&A session to watch Keys of Marinus!)

We did however miss out on the much-hyped fat-o-gram that was apparently arriving for the 30th birthday bash on the other side of the bar. Shame.