Fast Return – April 2010
[Just imagine we're a little closer to April and a little farther away from June... ahh, better!]
HE WON’T BE HAPPY UNTIL HE GETS IT!
With the Second Coming of the Norton having materialised last month we know, deep down in our hearts, that a third manifestation must not take place. Rather, like the prophetic envelopes given to Pope Pius by the child witnesses of Our Lady of Fatima in 1912 (I’ve overstretched this simile, haven’t I?), the final revelation is a horror that needs be resealed, lest the world itself end upon the unveiling alone. Or something. Or maybe not? Look, he’s done it twice now and since then has expressed a devout wish to be in the programme – has it occurred to anyone that the best way to head these horrors off right now and for all time is just to throw caution and reason to the elements and give the man what he wants?
WHO WON THE WAR ANYWAY?
Miniature modellers really are quite ingenious people, even for their size (ha haaa!). No, really. With Victory of the Daleks having dashed the collectibles market for old school styled Daleks, or at least while the tin-pot terrors have been reinvented, you’d think there’d be not a lot of use for the old, slightly more affordable and sadly out-of-production Micro-Universe Daleks. But no! Because the chaps over on Lead Adventure Forum have come up with a terrific and fitting conversion on the aforementioned plastic figures. Months before Character Options probably eventually think of it too, I’d say. Droool!
CGIDW
Speaking of games, isn’t it great that we’ve finally got The Adventure Game, a spin-off in-series and interactive computer game featuring a current Doctor and companion and even the Daleks? They really didn’t need to go all out and make it ‘canon’ – we fans are supposed to be the ones anxious about that stuff and besides, the last time the Beeb tried to call something ‘canon’ it had the name Dimensions in Time, but the design is great and the dedication and fidelity to a weaponless Doctor is admirable. How long before other Time Lords get thrown into the mix, we wonder?
IAN LEVINE VERSUS COMMON SENSE
Have you been over to the Galleybase ‘Frontios’ forum for present and future DVD releases? Scary. Oh yes, we’ve got a new Cyberman box-set coming out with Revenge and Silver Nemesis in but wait! It’s not the old VHS Special Edition Nemesis and doesn’t have the hokey US doco on it! The Restoration Team’s eventual (and pained) explanation tying in the issues of rights, budgets and (fittingly) the memory cheating over the actual quality of the cuts in the old VHS SE sound pretty reasonable by day. But not to a certain elder statesfan and apologists who’d also like all of Mind of Evil coloured now now NOW too please. It’s ugly. Forum threads opening, being closed again, then invading other threads like some young fan asking about animations. Action being threatened… it’s enough to make you take to your TV set with a hammer, surely?
MIND YOU
We’re still a bit peeved the TVMovie update isn’t all that either, what with those extra scenes and alternative opening being overlooked. Where’s that hammer?
AND FINALLY…
And also on the subject of revivals, reinventions, restorations and reimaginings, here’s the latest recolourisation from the really rather talented Babelcolour. It’s The Invasion as never filmed – in colour!
May 27th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
You can only complain about Fatima if you’ve read The Third Secret. I have and it wasn’t pretty.
Canonicity of the computer games? May I just point out that he was photographed with the blue sonic?
And why isn’t Babelcolour given huge buckets of money to do this professionally?
May 27th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Hammer, don’t hurt him – aren’t we elder Statesfans too? (or at least middle-aged Statesfans)
As for the Norton virus – wasn’t that him playing the Dream Lord (I’m not spoilering, we’ve all seen the ‘next time’ trailer by now)?
Lastly, I suppose I should indicate an elephant in the room. I know we’ve all noticed, but no-one seems to want to say. We’ve lost Tennant, Rusty, coral columns, the chunky, rivetty daleks and… the consistently gorgeous visual effects we’d all come to depend upon. There have been notable exceptions (spitfires in space!) and there are doubtless solid, budgetary reasons why – but in the final analysis does it really matter?
As a 3-D computer artist said to me: “it’s just like Doctor Who used to be, iffy effects but great characters and stories!”