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

This entry was posted on Friday, December 22nd, 2006 at 6:03 pm and is filed under PUB MEET REPORTS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.