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Diary of a B+ Grade Polymath ([personal profile] tcpip) wrote2013-11-25 09:45 pm
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Fifty Years in Time and Space

There was much ado in the past week of a remarkable collection of 50 anniversary events, most notably the assassination of JFK, and the first screening of Doctor Who (with a resultant Day of the Doctor broadcast simultaneously in 94 countries. For my own part, I decided to put a funny conspiracy hat on and claim that the two events are related. Subsequent discussions have suggested that the deaths of C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley - the former clearly implying that the wardrobe in Narnia is indeed a TARDIS of sorts (it's much bigger on the inside) and the energy for time-travel and Time Lord regeneration comes LSD. I haven't quite worked out how to include the fiftieth anniversary of the Where The Wild Things Are, The Financial Review, or The Milgram Experiments.

Being of a certain age, my favourite doctor of memory is early stories of Tom Baker, The Fourth Doctor, although my favourite story of that period is the third doctor's final show Planet of the Spiders along with the Fourth's Pyramids of Mars (it was the Edwardian setting - I was a sucker for it even as a youngster). Obviously, if I was to pick a favoured companion it is hard to go past the tin dog (mind you, Orac from Blake's Seven - now there's a science fiction series worthy of accolades - is a superb character as well). In many ways of course the series has reached a significant maturity. Newer seasons treat time paradoxes are taken with at least a modicum of seriousness and the intensity of the Ninth Doctor is superb (The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it).

[identity profile] mrteufel.livejournal.com 2013-11-25 12:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I loved it. Great use of 3d.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2013-11-25 10:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Ahh, something for me to look forward to at a later date. Just saw the plain-ol' 2D version.

[identity profile] mrteufel.livejournal.com 2013-11-25 10:08 pm (UTC)(link)
Did you notice the Fez of Infinite Recursion?

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2013-11-25 10:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, the fez was pretty prominent, but I don't know about infinite recursion.

[identity profile] mrteufel.livejournal.com 2013-11-25 10:17 pm (UTC)(link)
He finds it in the Black Archive, and leaves it with E the First - who created the Black Archive. :)

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2013-11-25 10:21 pm (UTC)(link)
Ahh, it's a 12th Monkey fez!

[identity profile] mrteufel.livejournal.com 2013-11-25 10:22 pm (UTC)(link)
:D

[identity profile] bar-barra.livejournal.com 2013-11-25 02:01 pm (UTC)(link)
'They say Freedom City is wide open.....'

That's my favourite B7. The chess game with The Klute was devised by either Nigel Short or Raymond Keene from the London Chess Club. Who answered the phone when they rang, because being the BBC they wanted a proper chess game, played in the style of Adolf Andersson. And they got it.

And yay also for the tin dog. Good old K9!

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2013-11-25 10:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I have been wondering how much better Star Wars could have been if they merged the characters from Blake's Seven

Yeah, the tin dog. It's a bit of a worry that K9 had more personality than most of the other companions.

[identity profile] jesusandrew.livejournal.com 2013-12-05 11:12 am (UTC)(link)
The Doctor Who novel line did its own bit for the Who/Kennedy link - the out-of-print novel is available online courtesy of the author at http://doctorwho.org.nz/archive/wkk/

If you'd like some interesting analysis of Blake's 7, I can recommend this book - http://www.kaldorcity.com/features/liberation.html

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2013-12-05 07:34 pm (UTC)(link)
Ooh! Thank you for those! I can't believe I didn't know about the Who/Kennedy book.

I'm going to make a guess that the title has something to do with the subject matter, like all good books :)