Doctor Who, the Massive Multiplayer Oh wow where did my life go?
There's a free to play Doctor Who MMO coming out. Okay, now that I've just typed what could potentially be "this is where your life will end" to a lot of us out there, I read about it right after I got to thinking about what could 'top' what we've seen in recent episodes of Doctor Who. I mean, the Doctor has used the love of a planet to rejuvenate himself, defeated the Time Lords, and even re-created the universe, pretty much. So what kind of scenarios could the Doc hope to take on in the future/past? I had a few thoughts:
1. A threat from outside of time and space. Or at least, outside of our time and space. This could just be upping the ante in the same way Stargate introduced the Ori after the Goa'uld were pretty much defeated, but if handled properly, a race of beings that have conquered other space/time continuums (continuua?) or are on the order of power like the White and Black Guadians could make for an interesting foe. And since these guys would probably be of a cosmic level of power, them messing with our universe could have adverse effects on the existence of the guy who's shot through just about every part of it: The Doctor.
2. An area where the TARDIS can't and won't work. Take a planet, or a quadrant of space, where a major event is going to take place. It could be anything, but let's say it's where a key moment will plunge humanity into a thousand years of darkness and help some specific baddie. To keep the Doctor from totally wrecking it, the villain sets up what I'd call a "continuity bubble." If the TARDIS enters it, it stalls, unable to fly. It can't dematerialize in or out, it has to be physically 'pushed' out of the boundary to work again, and the bubble "lasts" a century. Whatever happens in it happens forever, no tagbacks. The results of this 'beginning' could be played out over several episodes, where the Doctor tries to mitigate the damage but remains unable to stop the underlying cause. Heck, it could be a "rebirth of the Daleks" event, which would allow them to keep existing in the Whoniverse without having to come up with yet another way the whole Dalek race reconstitutes itself from out of nowhere.
3. The Zygons return, but not as lame as before. Okay, hear me out on this one. While the Zygons were one of the goofier Tom Baker era bad guys, I don't think a lot of it was technically their fault. A fungus-based life form could be given some nice HP Lovecraft horrific powers (transmutational spores, for example) or forms. Giant fungus are a staple of darker fairy tales, classic D&D modules, and do some pretty nasty stuff in real life. This is also an era when special effects could make their pet monsters (like the one they originally used, the Loch Ness Monster) look less like a hand puppet. Also, David Tennant says the Zygons are his favorite monster, so they have to do something with them eventually, right?
Or the Doctor could get that next season of "Torchwood" made. I mean, his sonic screwdriver can do just about everything else. :)
Some other Doctor Who quick bits: A Dalek water bottle cover and pyjama case has been produced, though I wasn't aware that those two functions were compatible in one item. Then there's the Doctor Who 'Hot or Not' 2011 calendar in PDF form (scroll down until you see the Dalek in a bikini). A nice tribute to the Brigadier in collectible card game form. Then there was this photo of some Who inflatables (no, not that kind), but from what little I can find they may be discontinued... until we invent our real time machines, anyway. I wonder if the invention of the time machine would utterly destroy the collectibles market?
We've got an actual trailer for the Thundercats reboot. It's got some interesting stuff to ponder. Maybe the mutants were a slave race to the Thunderans? Lion-O takes on his dad? Cheetara doesn't run around in the buff? I'm guessing this footage is mostly from the pilot, or they aren't showing parts of Third Earth that look like the ruins of our own world. BleedingCool has some screencaps of the trailer's 'blink and you'll miss it' segments.
At first, I was afraid that "Supernatural" was going to overdo the 'breaking the 4th wall' thing by having the principal actors thrust into a world where they play themselves and the whole TV show is really... a TV show, but many of the lines made up for it. Jokes about their ratings, Dean seeing multiple copies of his beloved car, and one about show creator Kripke selling a pilot called "Octocobra" made it work (he pays for this transgression later, I assure you). I'm not sure what it means for the war in heaven, but they managed to pull off another hour-long wink at the camera that didn't derail the show too much. And "Fringe" gave us another episode featuring the nostalgic credits opener, and we saw a toy store with several copies of the old "Battlestar Galactica" board game. We also saw how pretty much this whole mess got rolling, what prompted Walternate to start incursions into our universe, and how he even learned our world was where his son was taken. So now we've got the beginning taken care of (for now), so I suppose we'll be back to more doomsday machines?
And a quick book review: "The Reapers are the Angels" by Anton Bell. Calling it a zombie book is a bit like calling a Terry Pratchett novel a book about magic. There are zombies, to be sure, but that's not the real point of the story. In fact, to the main characters, the zombies are just part of the world, even a natural part. The protagonist, a girl named Temple, has grown up since "The Return" when the dead started to walk, so the story starts well after the initial 'night of the living dead,' as it were. She knows how to deal with "the meatskins," is illiterate, and has this lyrical southern way of speaking and thinking that makes her almost a survivalist poet. She reminds me of some of Stephen King's characters in "The Dark Tower" with her speech patterns, a mix of modern and antiquarian that paints a compelling picture of Temple's life among the zombies and the survivors. For the zombie-philes, there's plenty to like as well. We get hints of their biology and even a community that's found a way to get something 'special' out of the zombie chemical makeup. But in the end, it's a story about vengeance, beauty, religion, and a world that's become a lonely place. I wouldn't mind more visits to this place Bell has dreamed up to see what becomes of it.
My cold returned to invade my sinuses over the weekend, which was most un-groovy. I've beat it back into submission for the most part, so I know that I'm not hallucinating that as of Sunday evening, my locale is experiencing thunder-sleet outside. I suppose lightning makes even heavy mini-hail seem more ominous. And seeing "Flash Gordon" at an impressionable age. Speaking of which, how did Ming happen to have a button labeled 'Earth Quake' when he didn't know what the name of the planet was? Here's a few more probable imponderables:
- Electronica guru Pogo has turned to a non-Pixar/Disney movie for his current project: Murmurs of Middle-Earth. He also notes this is a work in progress, so more to come?
- While we're on the arts, I think I've found a man who beautifully exemplifies the bumper sticker phrase, dance like nobody is watching. He's awesome.
- Here's something sort of political (I know, I know, hang on): It's the world's ideologies as explained by using cows. As a recovering poly-sci major, I know a lot of these are oversimpified, innacurate, whatever. Just scroll to the last one. :)
- Inception Corgi doing a belly-flop is probably the most epic Corgi you'll see this week.
- Destroy the Castle isn't a particularly new concept, but I do love smashing stone fortresses with a catapult.
- From the "know your meme" files comes Hipster Disney characters. Of course, now that I've said something, it's mainstream...
- It's only a concept piece rendered in a 3D program, but I think the world needs Lego Settlers of Catan.
- Some art from the comic "North 40" (warning, TV Tropes link) is the illustration for a TV Trope! Cool!
- Alert reader Dale brings us a CNN video (with a commercial beforehand, but hey) about a 22-year-old guy who built scenes from this year's Oscar nominees out of Lego.
- So the guy who directed the recent Justin Beiber movie has been tapped to direct the second GI Joe film. Okay, then.
- From last night's Academy Awards, a musical mashup of Harry Potter, Twilight, and a few others via autotune.
- A more relaxing diversion to finish with: Sugar, Sugar is a puzzle game where you have to divert, channel, and color falling sugar crystals to properly fill all the cups on each level.