Another dawn breaks over the Death Zone and as we survey the carnage of last week’s Monster Mash we see that the winners are absent. Yes, it’s progression to Round Three for the Vogans, Judoon, Macra and Krillitane, with nary a protest from the crowd. The losers of course carry on to meet other losers in a pick-off of the most rubbish.

So to this week then, with eight new teams returning. Let’s meet them again!

Location: The Technodome

 Lizard-men of science! Having lost to the Sycorax last time, the Silurians are in no mood to be the patsy to yet another Johnny-come-lately. They have head-weapons and enquiring minds ready for the Terileptils, one-time Cheetah-bait and wielders of energy weapons and crafty hunting knives. But who will be dissecting whom?

Location: The Crystal Coastline

 It’s a rubber-fetishist’s wildest dream! More crafty knives courtesy of the web-footed Voord, quietly stalking the technological wiles of the Zygons about the Death Zone’s jagged-edge rock pool. This could be a tricky one, and the Zygons don’t have their pet Skarasen to call on this time.

Location: The Windfarm

 You too may not want these in your back yard. The flatulent Slitheen with their great talons and ferocious speed versus the methane-breathing, toxin-injecting Vervoids. Nobody light a match!

Location: The Ragged Heath

 Our final match-up for his round sees a rounding-off of alternative futures for mankind. The Haemovores are out for blood with their claws and teeth, ready for the faithless. The Primords have brute strength on their side, and you probably wouldn’t want to taste what’s inside them. Who wins?

And that’s round two introduced! The winners of this round of course meet round one’s champions, while the losers face-off with their counterparts for the ultimate humiliation. Next round though features Wild Cards for those who didn’t get to play them first round. Don’t miss it!

[At right: another abandoned contender from the first game]

Welcome back to the Death Zone!

And what better time than the finale of another series of Doctor Who than to pick through the bones of its less-than victorious monsters? And so, patched up and assembled once more for battle, here are the losing teams from the first round of Monster Mash, each eager to be the top of the heap. Let’s meet the first set:

Location: The Icefields

It’s the return of the Cybermen’s most- er, singular enemies! The Cryons are armed with Cyberguns, thermal explosives and have the advantage of terrain, while the Vogans have percussion rifles, quilted armour padding and big foreheads. If the sun comes out, they’ll be the team left solid. It could be a close one.

Location: The Forum

Rhinocops the Judoon were left all in a tingle after their first-round loss to the Rutan last season, so here’s hoping their strength, laser rifles and slow-mo mojo will win the day. The Nimon on the other hand have built-in lasers and a bullish attitude. If these guys butt heads it could get messy…

Location: The Pinnacles

The Tetraps pit their web guns, venomous tongues and quadroscopic vision against the swift and vicious Krillitanes. The Krillitanes lost out to the Sontarans, meaning they were denied their genetic advantages. But maybe this time they’ll get lucky?

Location: The Undercity

Some punters were left feeling a little crabby when the Macra lost to the Krynoids last time. Will their superior minds come up trumps against the intellect vampires that are the Krotons? Giant crabs versus cyborg pillarboxes – you’ll only get that here, folks!

And that’s all for this round! Place your bets below, and we’ll see the results next week. And if you’re feeling a little underwhelmed, remember that next round features plant-men, dinosaurs, really really really mad scientists and more vampires than you can shake a stake at. It could be worse, you could have had these guys…

Mmmm. It’s a common complaint, but here at ZeusBlog Terraces we think we can provide some relief. We understand – you’re tired, scratchy, your mind is clouded and you feel like you’ve done nine rounds with a Pool Cleaning Robot. But still you yearn for more. You’re a sad case, but you’re not alone.

What you need of course is less of that ‘shipping’ smoochy finale stuff and some more mindless monster-a-monster violence. A new batch would be silly (Hath versus Adipose? Too soon!), but there’s still the question of who will lead the bottom league play-off of last competition…

Ah yes, that’s more  like it.
We’ll start with the patient soon enough, nurse. But first let’s reaquaint ourselves with the lovely contestants:

In alphabetical order then:

Cryons, Haemavores, Judoon, Krillitane, Krotons, Macra, Nimon, Primords, Silurians, Slitheen, Terileptils, Tetraps, Vogans, Zygons

You’re drooling again. It’s very fetching. But hold off on the predictions for the time being – the blood (gween, naturally) will flow over the next few days – let battle recommence!

It’s all over bar the squeeing (and probably not a small amount of screaming). We have roughly four Doc-less months before the as-yet-unnamed Christmas special reaches UK televisions, and shortly thereafter, the torrents, probably. in the mena-time it’s as good a time as any to be pausing for breath and taking stock.

Over on the Doctor Who Forum they’re busy assessing the 2008 series and pointing fingers debating the dynamics of Moff and RTD’s influence over where the programme will go from here.

‘Mad’ Lawrence Miles offers some very good and reliably opinionated analysis, plus his 25 suggestions for future Who. The side-bar mathematics is strangely convincing, too.

And over on Kasterborous there’s RTD whistling a merry tune as he strikes matches over the good bridge Fandom. Or perhaps it’s just for the ‘Ming-Mongs’.

So, plenty to talk about, and lots doing it. Excellent. Meanwhile on this side of the world, the terrestrials among us are just now tuning into series 4 and Torchwood 1. Good luck everybody!

MIchele Hewitson’s NZ Herald review of ‘Voyage’ is here, already linked to over at NZDWFCMB.

And Wellington blogger Poneke offers his ten cents on the new series and its influence (outing himself as more than a casual watcher in the process), and the scheduling of Torchwood. Discussion ensues  -hi Morgue!.

Read. Enjoy. Join in!

PA

(more…)

July already? That’s crazy talk. Here at ZeusBlog Terraces the passage of time and the changes it brings are not unknown to us. Jono has left the building, series 4 and Torchwood: The Puberty Year are mere days away ‘free for the first time’ as TVNZ is fond of saying (whatever that means), and things just tick along. We marked them, as usual, so you could reads them later. And so…

TOOTHGATE!
Wash ever sho much made about the shtate of a Who alumnush’ teeth than in the return of the Piper? Well, some of us recall vague comments from US fans about the number of fillings young Davison showed during Caves of Androzani, but we can’t all have dental plans and a bewildering electoral system. And surely those gags about British teeth are as old as… well, the JN-T Era at least?

Speaking of products of the Davison years…

“HELLO DAD!”
Now this might be true or it might not be true. We’ll leave the serious factfinding to the celebrity bloggers (that’s people who blog about celebrities, not, y’know..) on Stuff and t’Herald and the like. Regardless, is it us or does it make this picture seem all the more – awkward?

UNCOVERED!
Al tells this story best:

“A certain Wellington-based designer and frequenter of this Blog was elated to find himself in the position to create a Doctor Who cover for a national publication.  Not TSV, but the Dominion Post’s TV Week supplement – the front of which has proudly displayed Who‘s NZ premiers for the last three years in a row.So, having beaten off more senior designers for the privilege, he awaited the inevitable Dave and Kylie pic with eager anticipation.

But when the file arrived it was revealed instead to be a shot from local ‘comedy drama’ Burying Brian starring Shane Cortese! So rather than creating the best TV Week Who cover ever, he’s now jinxed the programme’s perfect cover rate.”

TRAILERPARK
The Doctor! Donna! Her from Call-Girl! Captain Jack! Harriet Jones! Martha Jones! Gwento Jones! Dempsey! Those kids and the Briscoes Lady! More drum beats than a Cadbury’s dairy milk ad! Trailers, eh? Back in the days of paper fandom it was said that whole comic routines from Red Dwarf could be constructed out of the dozens of slogan t-shitrs that were merchandised off the programme. We’re not there yet, but what Who fandom does have made for them, as well as by them is… trailers! Everywhere! Well, obiously not so ‘everywhere’ if you happento live outside the UK and can’t access those parts of the official site, but you can find them easily enough, and more, on the Tube of You. Official trailers, spoof trailers, fan-trailers (some with the unmistakable features of the late Michael Wisher wheeling menacingly through Dalek corridors, bless ‘em). At this rate, and if you can take a little Emo soundtrack-adding, play your cards right and you might never need to watch a complete episode off the telly again.

3-D RHUMBA
But fandom isn’t always a happy little town as some- say, a fan animator, will tell you. Fresh from the Guardian‘s well-intended and quite interesting look-in on the world of lost episode restoration post-Invasion there’s… well, a lot of bitching really. Put to footage of some of the said attempts at resurrecting Power and Evil of the Daleks with dayglo TARDIS crewmembers seemingly bumping and grinding their way through classic Who dialogue. The fact that the Guardian obviously haven’t been able to use the original broadcast audio and have instead opted for a musical soundtrack doesn’t help. Oh, but well done guys. Keep it up!

OBLIGATORY VIDEO
So he saw the Housemartins before they split up, did he? Does that mean that- gasp – the Doctor created Fatboy Slim?!

AND FINALLY – THE MEDALS TABLE UPDATED FOR THE FINALE:
Bloody newcomers! Don’t ask us to explain it, it’s complicated.