BBC Space Odyssey: A Voyage To The Planets, Part 2

Here is part 2. Part 1 is back here.

In the US version of this show, the crew of Pegasus gave up at Saturn. This is the full version, where after Saturn the crew went on to visit Pluto and a comet before coming home.

This was broadcast two years before the IAU lost their marbles and voted Pluto out of the lineup of planets. This episode has the full Pluto segment, unaired in the States.

A transient glitch occurs between 38:47 and 38:56, where the footage skips back unexpectedly to a segment in the Saturn chapter.

BBC Space Odyssey: A Voyage To The Planets, Part 1

This is the show that I posted several links about in my sister blog, To Scape The Serpent's Tongue.

Here is part 1. Go here for Part 2.

Doctor Who For Non - Whovians

A lot of people watched Doctor Who on the BBC for the very first time on Saturday 2014 08 23. Some of them might wonder what in the ever-living they just saw.

Here's a brief-ish explanation.

Doctor Who is a British TV show created by Verity Lambert in the Sixties for the BBC. She wanted to come up with a show which was educational and yet entertaining and adventurous. The concept evolved into its present incarnation over more than fifty years, which in and of itself is a record for television programmes.

Doctor Who chronicles the adventures of The Doctor, an alien not born of this Earth, who nevertheless finds our world fascinating because he loves our species Homo sapiens for some unfathomable reason. The Doctor comes from a world called Gallifrey in a binary star system within the constellation of Kasterborous. The Doctor is what is known to the universe at large as a Time Lord.


Gallifrey, brought adjacent to Earth in the episode "The End of Time"

Arcadia, the capital of Gallifrey, and a Time Lord
The Doctor wanders throughout Time and Space, visiting different worlds in distant galaxies at various points in Time. His vessel is called the TARDIS, a time machine. TARDIS stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Time Lord technology, the most advanced technology in the universe, allows the TARDIS' true vast size to be placed in a transdimensional pocket; the part of the TARDIS that appears to the outside viewer looks like an old-fashioned blue British police telephone box.

The TARDIS was originally capable of changing into objects which matched the environment and era - large boulders, a freestanding pillar, a tree - but after landing in London in 1963, its chameleon circuit permanently fried leaving it stuck in the form which has become an iconic design, based on the design of the old-fashioned blue landline telephone booths set up on street corners in the Fifties and Sixties for people and police to report crimes.


TARDIS exterior
The interior of the TARDIS is vast, with corridors and rooms stretching outward in all directions - the vessel has often boasted a library, wardrobe and swimming pool at various times - but most of the time when the story takes place inside the TARDIS the only room you get to see is its bridge or Control Room, which always has a six-sided central table surrounding a Time Rotor, which oscillates up and down or rotates when the TARDIS is in motion.




The Doctor likes to change the interior of his TARDIS now and then like swapping out a desktop
Some other aspects of The Doctor's life which are established in the ongoing legend:-

Companions: The Doctor is usually accompanied by a succession of mostly human Companions. They come and they go. Occasionally, they die in his care, which leaves him devastated for prolonged periods. Without his Companions, The Doctor is practically helpless. With a Companion in tow, he is unstoppable.

Intellect: As a Time Lord, The Doctor's intellect is vast - beyond human genius. Despite that, he still makes mistakes. Sometimes, people and even whole species die as a result of these mistakes. He is also mildly telepathic, able to perform minor telepathic tricks on occasion. His strongest telepathic link is with the TARDIS, which also has a telepathic translation circuit - a convenient device to ensure that every alien encountered in the show speaks fluent English to the viewer.

Tools: The Doctor usually has with him a device called a sonic screwdriver. It is not a weapon. The worst he can do to someone with this device is assemble a flatpack cabinet at them.

Alien Physiology: The Doctor, as a Gallifreyan, has two hearts and is practically immortal. He can wear the same face for centuries, only gradually physically aging - he was still a child at the age of 98, was a teenager for about fifty years, and has gone through spans of linear time longer than entire human lifespans without getting visibly older. One Time Lord once commented how, barring accidents, a Time Lord could live for around ten thousand years. The Doctor himself commented that he could "live forever." The Doctor has been 500, 700, 900, 1200 and - in his current form - two thousand years old.

Regenerations: And when an accident does occur which could kill The Doctor, this Time Lord has one ultimate trick up his sleeve. He can regenerate.

Regeneration, for a Time Lord, does not mean that his wounds seal up as if he had some sort of healing factor. Regeneration means that the Time Lord undergoes a complete metamorphosis, shedding his old form in a blast of golden energy and adopting a brand new form with a wholly different body, face, features and personality. Regenerations tend to usher in a whole new era of adventures for The Doctor and his Companions, each with their own unique feel to them.

The only limit to this is the number of regenerations available to Time Lords: until 2014, no Time Lord could regenerate more than twelve times, his thirteenth regeneration being his last - the regeneration in which he really could die forever.

At various times, The Doctor has been portrayed by a number of actors, whose names and line of succession is as important to us Brits and Whovians as the names of the historical Kings and Queens of England:-

William Hartnell ("One") (1963 11 23 – 1966 10 29)

Patrick Troughton ("Two") (1966 10 29 – 1969 06 21)

Jon Pertwee ("Three") (1970 03 01 – 1974 06 08)

Tom Baker ("Four") (1974 06 08 – 1981 03 21)

Peter Davison ("Five") (1981 03 21 – 1984 03 16)

Colin Baker ("Six") (1984 03 16 – 1986 12 06)

Sylvester McCoy ("Seven") (1987 09 07 – 1989 12 06)

Paul McGann ("Eight") (1996 05 27 and 2013 11 14)

John Hurt ("War") (2013 05 18 and 2013 11 23)

Christopher Eccleston ("Nine") (2005 03 26 – 2005 06 18)

David Tennant ("Ten") (2005 06 18 – 2010 01 01 and 2013 11 23)

Matt Smith ("Eleven") (2010 01 01 – 2013 12 25)

Peter Capaldi ("Twelve") (2013 11 23 and 2013 12 25, then 2014 08 23 – the present)

Monsters: The Doctor regularly faces off against a vast array of often-terrifying alien species, most of which seem to be bent on dominating the universe, conquering various species or simply annihilating everything living that is not of their kind. These monsters include:-

Daleks - xenophobic mutated creatures, little more than blobs of jelly with tentacles, encased within terrifying mobile war machines. Their ultimate goal is to eliminate all sentient life that is not Dalek. Their characteristic war cry is an electronic scream - "EXTERMINATE!"


Cybermen - originally humans from a planet described as "Earth's twin planet" Mondas, Cybermen gradually came about as a result of cybernetics gone horribly out of control, resulting in the species turning into monstrous metallic armoured cyborgs with, again, a small amount of humanoid matter inside them. Cybermen are more machine than man, and they are twisted and evil because of their drive to assimilate ("upgrade") anything that moves to turn their victims into more Cybermen.


Sontarans - A short, spud-headed cloned species, Sontarans are hatched for one purpose only: war and conquest. In the Victorian London setting which Doctor Who occasionally visits, Madam Vashtra's butler Strax is a Sontaran, genetically modified for medic duties yet incapable of completely forgetting his warrior ethic.


Silurians - The original dominant sentient species on Earth, the Silurians were forced into space or into deep hibernation by the extinction level event on Earth during the late Cretaceous which brought about the end of the era of the dinosaurs. This race of sentient reptilians, living dinosaurs themselves, believe themselves to be the true rulers of the Earth, with humans being a bit of a vulgar Johnny-come-lately; after all, the only mammals on the Earth when they once rules were the ratlike egg thieves which occasionally infested their nurseries, and primates hadn't even evolved yet.

Madam Vashtra in the Victorian London setting is one such Silurian. She is happily married to a human, Jenny.


Weeping Angels: Cruel aliens from the dawn of the universe that look like statues, these terrifying assassins have a powerful defence mechanism - they are quantum-locked. For as long as they are observed, they turn into stone, but once they are not observed they move like lightning. And whatever they touch ends up stuck in the past, where they are forced to live out their lives and die while the Angel feasts off the lost life that would have been lived. In a cruel twist of fate, the victim only lives long enough to die at the exact moment he or she got sent back into the past. Don't blink. Blink, and you're dead.


But by far the most monstrous aliens The Doctor encounters in his travels are, in fact, the worst aliens of them all.

Human: Sometimes, the most alien creature in the universe, alien even to The Doctor, is a vain, greedy or ambitious human. They can be found everywhere in the Doctor Who universe; and they are often responsible for some of the worst and ugliest things to ever happen on the show.

So that is Doctor Who in a nutshell for non-Whovians. Please sit back and enjoy the show, and remember - the weirdness you see has been brewing for more than fifty years. So it is going to be a pretty heady rush.

Stargate Atlantis, "Enemy At The Gate" and The Passing of An Era

And with that - Dr McKay, Dr Keller, Teyla, that big guy from Game of Thrones who so desperately wanted to play a Klingon, Sheppard and Woolsey all standing on the balcony of Atlantis, overlooking San Francisco Bay in roughly the spot where, in the Marvelverse, Cyclops' Utopia is based - Pick TV have finally shown the 100th and final episode of Stargate Atlantis.

Final appearances and mentions in this episode - the Apollo and Colonel Ellis; the Phoenix, being renamed the George Hammond after the death of the General (reflecting the real life death of Don S Davis); the final fate of Area 51 and the Ancients' Chair; the Odyssey's mission - which took it to the Ori Galaxy (Stargate Ark of Truth); the final activations of the Stargate (as an intergalactic device to send John Sheppard home, then later to access the Hive ship and the Alpha Site); Cheyenne Mountain; the final appearances of Dr Carson Beckett and Dr Zelenka; the last appearance of the photogenic young officers Banks and Major Lorne; the last of the Ancient drones and Puddle Jumpers; the last of the F302s; and of course, the final flight of Atlantis base, before the end of the show.

Oh, and although we never got to see it activate, we saw Dr Zelenka's Crowning Moment of Awesome as, out of his hat, he invents a wormhole drive which could, had the series continued, have allowed Atlantis itself to come back and forth between the Milky Way and Pegasus Galaxies, or even the Ori Galaxy if they'd wanted a change of pace.

So many unresolved plotlines. The new Pegasus Galaxy coalition of human worlds, now ripe for takeover by the Genii in the absence of Atlantis, for one. The possibility of discovering more of Michael's laboratories scattered across the Pegasus Galaxy, just waiting forever for his return - which he would never do, unless he'd cloned himself like Baal; the Travellers, and their little colonies, and the possibility that they would join this Coalition; and lastly, the Wraith and the Alliance led by Todd, who was left a prisoner on Atlantis Base at the end of the show.

I can see the viewers' frustration at the abrupt cancellation of this show. SyFy execs really need taking out round the back and shooting in the head, for replacing all three of these series with, what? Warehouse 13 and Terra Nova? That dire reboot of BSG with its siege mentality sci fi?

It is said that, when this franchise went off the air, it brought an end to an era of grand space-based science fiction series on TV. Nothing like Stargate or the even more venerable Star Trek is showing right now, with one major exception - that being, of course, Doctor Who. This is incredibly painful. A whole generation of kids is going to grow up with nothing new to cosplay.

Personally, I only got to see season 1 of this show on Channel 5, years ago, before C5 dropped it after the finale. Not even Mum got to see all the episodes. I think she only got to see as far as the cliffhanger at the end of Season 2, with the Wraith Hive ship heading for Earth; so in a way, by letting the audience see these final episodes - of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe - Pick TV (which is a kind of digital dumping ground for unwanted shows Sky no longer shows on its pay channels) have given both me and Mum a chance to see the ending of these well-loved series. A chance, really, to say goodbye to them and to MGM, the studio that brought them to us.

We need to see a return of space-based science fiction shows to television screens. And we need it now.

What's With All The Murder Porn?

Okay, I get that you like bad guys.

So you've got Dexter (a serial killer), The Sopranos (organised crime), Hannibal (another serial killer) and Breaking Bad (a dying chemistry teacher becomes a meth cook and criminal kingpin just to raise funds for medical treatment) to enjoy on reruns and boxsets. Arguably, you could say the same about The Mentalist (a con artist and murderer working as a police consultant).

But to me, it's like redneck porn - the topic of another conversation I'll be having down the line.

Murder porn shows like these are lazy television.

They are easy to make, with little outlay on sets and props. They can use scripts dredged out of any old cop shows, living or dead, with an episodic format and maybe a long-running plot arc to spice things up.. Just add the murder scene du jour where it's the protagonist doing the killing (and the cooking) for a change.

But it's cheap - and worst of all, it is nasty.

The stories are about evil people, committing acts which you could not get away with in real life - and getting away with it, over and over. It's wish fulfillment and pandering to the lowest common denominator.

And it's making murder look sexy and glamourous; a career option to the desperate and the weak.

Okay, let's try this little Gedankenexperiment.

Let's say you pitch a story about a sexy, hot, glamourous man who has a really successful life as a TV stage hypnotist. He has his own show, where he entertains the masses and the audience, and his subjects.

Only problem is ... he's a slaver and a rapist.

Yes, the bad guy is a glamourous rapist, who seduces, hypnotises, rapes and makes his victims forget that they'd been raped. When he picks his subjects for the show, he implants a suggestion in the prettiest one to come back to his dressing room after the show, so he can have his wicked way with her.

And every week, he gets away with it because he roofies up his victims with scopolamine so they can't remember a damned thing. And as he's a consulting psychologist for the Los Angeles Police Department, he's always on hand to perform "regression therapy" on the victims, if the cops need someone to try and dredge up the memories of the rapes.

Yeah. There's the elevator pitch done. Now let's throw this tawdry, vulgar, cruel premise to the TV execs and see which of those unevolved Hollywood primates actually picks up the option, shall we? And meantime, he's also into human trafficking - mostly sexy women and young girls from Mexico, Japan, Korea, Russia and Eastern Europe. Including underage slaves.

Don't like it? Stomach churning? Good. If you are sickened at the thought of that, now you know how I feel from thinking of all of the shows above.

Bear in mind that they have yet to go that far as to set up a series like that - but, seeing as they've already lionised the Mob, serial killers and cannibals, it is only a matter of time before they decide that it's okay to glamourise amoral rapists and sexual deviants. And by making such shows popular, it's you, the viewer, who has opened the door.

Or maybe you could do what I do, when deviant porn is foisted upon you - the originals, and the inevitable copycats that follow.

Turn that bloody television off, until they start putting on good shows again.