Farewell, Elizabeth. Goodbye Sarah Jane.

Shocked to hear of her death....

For so many , she was "Our" Doctor Who Girl. This Mitch Benn song has a little extra poignancy now:



And I don't think pain and loss do define us as much as happiness and love:

The End Of Time

Thank you Doctor, a great final episode.

A Timely Trek

Not bad at all.

Hat-tip: http://padawanpooh.livejournal.com/453720.html (which has some other stuff too...)

How To Save Donna

Millennium Elephant's review of Doctor Who's "Journey's End" has imspired me to write this....

Because I really really like Donna. She's my favourite companion of all the ones I've seen - and I can just about remember Zoe as a new companion. Have a look back at Donna in say,Pompeii, and see how much enjoyed and appreciated all that she was experiencing.

I thought the "Time Boy" moment when the new improved DonnaDoctor save the cosmos was just delicious.

But it's not too late to save her... If there's one place that could use her talents, it's the Shadow Proclamation. (Incidentally, why didn't they appear in "Journey's End"? ) They clearly heve some understanding of her condition (they even predicted it somehow ) and if their water can help people maybe they could stabilise her.... and employ her.

Wilf could visit her once in a while. He deserves that. And even her Mum might be impressed.

And having Donna appearing as guest star, talking to her bunch of Judoon sidekicks in Judoon would be simply marvellous. Wouldn't it?

...........

Turn Left... "I'm nothing"....




Super Temp (The Lady is Mine)...




Emotional Donna...



How To Save A Life....



DonnaDoctor....



Don't make me go back...

My Doctor Who Guesses

Everybody's entitled to speculate on tonight's Doctor Who. Why not me?

1) David Tennant will continue playing the Doctor - as the Time Lord will regenerate into the 11th Doctor tonight but keep his existing appearance.

2) Donna the Temp is actually Romana, the Doctor's Time Lord companion from a long time ago. She will regenerate tonight as well ...

Note that Richard Dawkins had a cameo last week , he is the real-life husband of Lalla Ward (pictured below), who played Romana. If so, perhaps Lalla will return to the series to play Romana again in her new regenerated form. In that case , both Tennant and Ward will be playing a new version of the character they have played before. (Does that make sense?)



3. The First Doctor will make an appearance - after all he is the only previous version who has been to the Medusa Cascade.

If I'm wrong on this, and Tennant is leading the series, (shame on him) then maybe the 11th Doctor will be played by Russell T Davis himself... Clues? I'ts obvious that he loves the character, he's just given up the producing role, and he's the best person who could hang around the set and not arouse suspicion :)

Alternate Reality TV

I'm trying hard not to turn this into a Doctor Who fansite, but last night's episode - "Turn Left" - make me think hard.

I think it's the first programme I've seen on the BBC since "Threads" that includes a nuclear explosion in Britain. And without the obvious horror of Threads, it still illustrated how our country's civilisation could barely survive one nuclear bomb. I wonder if we are forgetting just how dreadful these weapons are - after all they were created in the time of farthings and 78s and Vera Lynn.

So much for classing Doctor Who as escapist.

For those who enjoyed the episode, here's a really good podcast that I've found about it.

DON'T Watch This

Unless you've already watched the whole of the two episodes already. This is the ending of what is probably my favourite Doctor Who story:



But you can watch this, which is the very beginning....



"Dying gives us size!" .

Maybe.

Border Skirmishes Between Religion and Science

Here's three American websites I've been looking at lately.

The first is CONSERVAPEDIA - the "Trustworthy Encyclopedia". For me it's an example of religion trying to trample all over science. I know that other Lib Bloggers have mentioned it before, but it's worth a second look. - or second warning. Don't think of it being a Conservative website in just political terms, they are sixteenth century or worse in what they think of science. Not only are they trying to dump evolution, they are trying to dump modern astronomy.

Here's an extract from their article on the moon:

Atheistic theories of the origin of the Moon, widely taught for decades despite lacking the falsifiability requirement of science (see Philosophy of science), have been proven false.[8] Lacking any other atheistic alternatives, some scientists assert that the Moon originated from a collision early in Earth's history which created an orbiting ring of debris from the iron-poor surface of the planet which eventually coalesced into the moon.[9] This theory, however, is contrary to key observations of the Moon, such as the relatively low levels of iron in the Moon's crust. Additional tests fail to support the atheistic theory.[10]
Biblical history records the Moon being created on the fourth day of creation week, along with the Sun.....

.....Humphreys determined that the basalt had been laid down about 370 years after creation, and the brecchia had been laid down 1840 years after creation, or about 190 years after the Flood.[19] These findings clearly suggest that the Moon, and presumably all other bodies in the solar system, have been subject to two separate system-wide bombardments, one occurring in the second or third generation after the fall of man and the other occurring well after the Flood.

Note the equivalences here:

modern accepted science = atheistic science
atheistic science = bad

A while back the Onion website did a nice piece of satire on creation science:

KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

Trouble is, the satire isn't that different to what's on Conservapedia:

Everything in the universe that has mass attracts every other thing that has mass. The mechanism which transports this force has never been observed, scientists have created the graviton, a hypothetical particle, in order to uphold the naturalistic explanation absent of a supernatural force.

They haven't found a supernatural force, but they are still hoping for one.

Turning away from Wikipedia, there's STARDESTROYER.NET a forum which invotes you to "Get your fill of sci-fi, science, and mockery of stupid people" - I think by 'stupid people' they mean the type that trust Conservapedia.

There's a lot of SF stuff here, some interesting science news, some copies of correspondence with creationists and some interesting writing. Probably the one item that would upset the Conservapedia people most is this ongoing work of fiction entitled Armageddon???? in which Satan tries to claim Earth as his own, but meets unexpected resistance from the combined armed forces of the USA, Russia, Britain, Singapore, Al Qaeda.... It also makes Gordon Brown , George Bush and especially Bill Clinton into heroes. You might say it's a case of science trying to trample over religion.

In this early extract, the Royal Navy take on a demonic sea-monster:

“Hit it again. Full power to the forward sonar transducers.” The contact had been settling down when the second pulse hit it. If anything the threshing was even worse than with the first pulse. “That’s a Baldrick, no doubt. Weapons, fire tubes one and two. Target that thing.”

Taking four tons off the extreme end of the moment arm caused Astute’s bow to dip. It didn’t matter to the torpedoes, they were already out and climbing to the shallower water near the surface. Once there, they kicked up to 81 knots and ran out to the estimated position of the target. At that point they dropped their guidance wires and dived vertically on the contact below them.

A shaped charge can penetrate six times its diameter; that gave the pair of Spearfish torpedoes a theoretical penetration of 126 inches. In fact, they did a bit better than that, blasting deep cavities in Ralaraspanathsis’s back, severing his spinal column and burning deep into his vital organs. His body tissues, vaporized by the blast, sprayed out and down, searing and cooking his internal organs and bursting open the swim bladder that kept him afloat. Crippled and dying, he felt himself floating upwards towards the surface. Confusion filled his mind, he was a herald. How could they have done this?

“Well, there’s no doubt about, we just scored a Baldrick.” A cheer went up around the control room. Ever since Prime Minister Gordon Brown had quoted ‘Blackadder’ in his initial announcement, the British had taken to calling the denizens of hell, ‘Baldricks’. It had a nice, contemptuous air about it, one that was beginning to catch on. “Number One, take the boat to the surface, we need to collect samples.”

Finally, I found the LIBERTE EGALITE TRIVIALITE BLOG described as "Random screeds about... you know... stuff, from a heathen atheist bleeding-heart liberal ex-mormon rationalist in the heart of the reddest state." It's just a.... blog, but there's some nice stuff there on Dr Who and an interesting account from the author of the blog on how science. pornography, cinnamon oil and the Mormon faith clashed in his teenage years. It's worth a look, even if only to say hi to a liberal Dr Who fan in Utah.

The Doctor's Daughter

Well, if this wasn't going to get me blogging again, nothing would....

A very cool trailer, a shame that the episode didn't really live up to its potential. But then again, Dr Who is always more than the sum of it's parts, and this episode has certainly added a new part.

I half-guessed the age of the war - the technology for creating troops certainly made such a time-span possible. But I can't quite work out how the General got to look so old... nor how he picked up his accent.

Someone's Trying To Do Me Out Of A Job!

So where was the SHIPS AGENT in Voyage of the Damned?

Is someone trying to do me out of a job?

Help - I Lead The Cult Of Skaro

With a slightly giddy feeling I've just realised what Daleks In Manhattan is really all about. The clue is that there are only four of them - four forlorn individuals. Their leader says "If we are SUPERIOR, Why are we not VICTORIOUS"

It's obviously a metaphor for the Lib Dem councillors on Rochford DC. There are only 4 of us. The crowded skyline of New York represents the overdevelopment of Rayleigh. The art deco elevators in the Empire State building symbolise the new lifts in the Rayleigh Civic Suite..... and the blackness of Dalek Sec is obviously because I'm the group leader and my name is Black...

The only way I can break out of this metaphor is to increase our numbers in the council chamber....

The Doctor Triumphs

For me it's been an exhausting, stressful month, with no time for blogging.
But what a wonderful way to end it - with the new Dr Who series.

And an excellent start too - the doctor himself in fine form, a great plot, great villain, some nasty neutrals, a sparkling new companion and a hint of long-term theme (Mr Saxon).

Things are looking up....

Out by the Thames

Aaaargh, set the alarm for 04:05 this morning so it's back to work. But it's been a "good" Christmas - good turkey, good conversation and thoughtful presents. (For regular readers of this blog, I didn't get anything by Katie Melua but I got two copies of the Best of ELO CD !)

As for the TV, we only watched "Some Like It Hot" and Doctor Who. I thought the latter was probably better overall than the previous Christmas special, with sterling performances by the two main characters and some inventive use of the sonic screwdriver. I particularly enjoyed Lance's pent-up feelings being released in a rant against Posh Spice and "Text me, text me, text me". The taxi chase sequence was memorable too and nicely paced. However there wasn't the ethical / political twist in the last 5 minutes that we had last year...

And by the way, I've just checked with London Port Control -nobody warned them that the Thames was going to be drained dry in order to save the planet from aliens...

Margaret Thatcher (1975), Harriet Jones (in Dr Who) and .... ?

I was struck by a comment on Political Betting tonight by Zebidee:

"26. Estelle Morris seems to have Blair over a barrel over the education issue. if he doesn’t cave in he will end up trying to get his silly bill through with the support of Cameron and more Tories than labour MPs than Labour and Lib Dem ones.

Brings me to the Labour (Blair) succession. Former education Secretary, come out of nowhere, no hope of winning at all. . . .
Well didn’t it happen once before?"

Could this guy be right?