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Personal SciFi

What's your earliest Doctor Who memory?

Snakedance video coverI’ve been a big fan of Doctor Who for as long as i can remember. It’s part of my DNA as a British sci-fi fan. I was watchiung the Doctor Who Confidential episode after the most recent episode (a barnstormer by the way, where the Doctor barely appears) and they were talking to people involved with the show about who their first Doctor was.

For those of you not in the know the Doctor, kind of like James Bond, has been played by a series of actors since his debut in the 60s. Unlike James Bond, they do make reference to it in the series. As a timelord, the Doctor doesn’t die, instead he regenerates into a new body and, to some extent, a new persona.

David Tennant is the tenth Doctor and i think he’s amazing, but i was trying to remember who my first Doctor was. I always thought that it was Tom Baker, but apparently not. The first story i remember (although almost certainly not the first i saw) is Snakedance, broadcast when i was 6 years old. I remember being really creeped out by it (which is only right.)

I got most of my Doctor Who knowledge from books though. I had lots of books of the stories, as well as an A-Z and a Technical manual. Unfortunately the next Doctor couldn’t compete with the A-Team, but i Did have a fondness for Sylvester McCoy.

I’m so glad the series has come back and is, in my opinion, better than ever. I may be a big wuss but there have been several episodes recently which have almost moved me to tears.

Anyhoo – what’s the first episode you remember?

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SciFi Video

The (Intergalactic) Apprentice

now THIS I would have liked to see last night!

Categories
Internet Movies SciFi

Missing Pages

Image from Missing Pages

I was reading on JC Hutchins site about a downloadable film called Missing Pages. It really is amazing. It’s in 3 episodes (quite hefty downloads) and tells the story of a man who invents a time machine and the consequences of his invention.

It is quite frightening in parts – some of the characters from the future are quite spooky – but it has real emotion and some genuinely interesting twists.

The interesting thing is that the film is not shot in live action, but created from thousands of stills, animated together. THese pictures are layered, zoomed and rotated to amazing effect.
It’s a fascinating story and really interesting to watch. Well worth checking out.

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Blogging Internet Podcast SciFi Video

Podcast TV: Stranger Things

ChurchI was getting my weekly escapepod fix and Steve mentioned a new project, Stranger Things, a sort of podcast twilight zone series. I downloaded their premiere episode, which was adapted from a short story by Scott Sigler, and was really impressed. It was a good story, well acted and the special effects were really impressive. They had decided to postpone the launch of the podcast to make this the premiere episode and I’m glad they did. They recently released the second episode (actually two in one) and, while I’d have stuck with them, i wasn’t nearly so impressed with these episodes.

That said, what they’re doing is incredibly brave and must be a huge amount of work, and they deserve credit for that. I’m excited to see what comes out next month.