alpha charlie bravo is on the clock...

Father's Day

Original BBC Webpage: Episode 8

"Be careful what you wish for."

Hey! Remember the eighties?
The Doctor takes Rose to 1987 to see her father, "the most wonderful man in the world," before he dies. But Pete Tyler isn't quite the man Rose imagined him to be. But, then again who is. Sometimes the people we love don't live up to our expectations or even their own. Sometimes they let us down. But we love them anyway. Because of this, it is not impossible for an ordinary man of little consequence to summon, for the sake of that love, the personal courage required to save the world.

The Long Game

Original BBC Webpage: Episode 7

"Trouble?"
"Oh, yeah."

The Doctor, Rose and Adam travel to the year 200,000 to visit the "Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire." But, something is wrong. Someone behind the scenes is using the media to control mankind.

This is one of my personal favorites. I particularly enjoy character of The Editor. This episode turns out to be directly related to the season finale. If you think you know who controls Satelite 5, you're wrong.
Bad Wolf, bitches.

I want Dick Cheney's tax refund.

Happy Easter!

"...and bite my wrinkly ball sack!"

Dalek

"Exterminate."

When the BBC launched this new Doctor Who series, it was uncertain until production began whether the estate of Terry Nation would consent to the use of the Daleks in the new series. That coupled with Britain's previous infatuation with the creatures made this the most anticipated episode of the new series. It also happens to be one of the best.

Britain during the 60s and 70s experienced something called "Dalek mania." These classic Doctor Who villains created by Terry Nation were so popular that two Doctor Who movies were made to showcase them. So what's the big deal? One might imagine that forty years ago a dalek may have looked like a sophisticated futuristic robot. But, today it just looks like a giant salt shaker with a plunger sticking out of it. I think what made the Daleks compelling for me was their indefatigable single-mindedness. A Dalek wants to kill you. It's that simple. It's smarter than you and it wants to kill you.

There are two major accomplishments in this episode. One is reintroducing the Dalek creature and making it menacing. It is an unstoppable killing machine that mocks the humans who try to stop it. The other is the performance of Christopher Eccleston. We see the Doctor at various points laid bare. Fear, rage, despair revealed and unfettered in a manner that is uncommon for this character. The events of this episode create a personal crisis for the Doctor and ultimately alter him in meaningful ways.

Crash

It's funny how the mind works. 80 percent of the time, I go right through yellow lights. For various reasons, on Monday on my way to work, I stopped. As I looked in my rear view mirror, even before the impact, I thought of a Dane Cook comedy routine.

He does a bit on car accidents in which he says even if the accident isn't your fault, the other driver gets out of his car and looks at you as if it were your fault: "Why did you stop at a red light and let me hit you! Why?"

***

This post has a lot of tangetial subjects, so I'm just going to abandon the car accident story and follow the stream of my consciousness.

When I "blog" I actually do a fair amount of research. It probably doesn't show. But anyway, I was looking at Dane Cook's myspace page a few minutes ago and that man has over 1 million myspace stalkers. In fact, according to wikipedia it was his myspace page that gave him a much needed career boost.
I just find that interesting/frightening/sleazy.

Additionally yet completely unrelated, do you suppose that the success of the 2005 Academy Award nominated film "Crash" will accidentally lead people to discover the very different 1997 David Cronenberg movie of the same name? A movie that contains what is in my opinion the creepiest performance ever recorded on film?

***

Well, the door of my trunk is smashed in which is the only damage that was sustained in the accident.

World War Three

Original BBC Webpage: Episode 5

Some people like the cliffhanger endings. I personally, could do without them.
This is one of the better episodes. In fact, I'd consider it a solid "good" episode. There's a wacky alien chase through Downing Street and a not too subtle parody of contemporary politics.

I thought I'd have more to say about this one, but I don't. If you want to know more go here. At this point, I'm just biding my time until Episode 6. It's all about Episode 6.

And now...
It's time for another alpha charlie bravo random political diatribe:

Thaksin Shinawatra:
Dude, resign already! It's over. It's over.


This has been an alpha charlie bravo random political diatribe.

Thunderstruck

Baseball is a game of history. The importance of the historical context of individual and team acheivements is what sets baseball apart from other sports. So let's look at some history:
In 1961, Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in a single season.
From 1962 to 1994, only three times did a player hit 50 or more home runs in a season: Willie Mays in 1965, George Foster in 1977 and Cecil Fielder in 1990.
From 1995 to 2002, at least one major league player hit 50 home runs or more in each season during that period. Four times during that those eight seasons a player hit 60 or more and twice a player hit 70 or more. Hmmm... isn't that odd?

Aliens of London

Original BBC Website: Episode 4

"900 years in time and space and I've never been slapped by someone's mother!"

The kids: They love the scatalogical humor.
Well, it turns out that when you leave your family, friends, life and planet behind to go adventuring in time and space, things change at home while you're away. Family and friends are affected, sometimes profoundly.

The next episode, World War Three, is, in my judgement, slightly superior to this one. But these two episodes together with episode 6 constitute a key character development.

You can't miss the "Bad Wolf" reference in this episode. A neighborhood kid graffitis the words on the side of the Tardis.