No review of A Christmas Carol here I'm afraid as I'm reviewing it for TTZ10 (Double digits! It looks so odd!)
Those of you who know me in real life will know that alas I was one of those poor unfortunates you saw on the news sleeping on the floor of Heathrow airport because I'd been stranded there by the snow storm and hadn't managed to catch my flight to Florida.
As a result my planned holiday was cut in half but my sister and I did eventually get out there, arriving just before midnight on Christmas Eve so the good news is we did spend Christmas itself with family.
If you've been following my Twitter (Ahem, TTZ's Twitter feed that is) you'll know I kept making jokes about how I was gonna be able to watch the Xmas special as I didn't know if my uncle had cable. On Christmas morn and after we'd had breakfast my 15 year old cousin Adriana switched on the TV. "How many channels you got?" I asked, subtly I thought. My sister however saw straight through it and got straight to the point: "He wants to know if you've got BBC America".
She didn't think she did but carried out a channel search and actually yes they did. She went to it and up popped Nine and Charles Dickens in The Unquiet Dead. My sister signed at the inevitability of this turning in to another Doctor Who Christmas.
Adriana has never seen Doctor Who before but has heard me talk about it often so she left it on for a few minutes to see what it was about. I voiced the opinion that it was great she'd found the channel but I didn't want to interupt what she was doing but she shushed me because she was already intruiged by the seance. Although it was not my plan at all and surprising though it may seem I wasn't actually up for watching old Doctor Who as my brain was still mushed from jet lag, we ended up taking in The Girl in the Fireplace and The Shakespeare Code. Quite unintentioanlly I've converted my cousin and she asked a million questions afterwards - "Have they even gone back to see the dinosaurs?", "Are there any World War 2 episodes?", "How come he changed his face?"
That evening I sat down to watch A Christmas Carol LIVE! (I mean "as broadcast" of course) on BBC America. I think it's pretty amazing that it was shown a mere few hours after the UK and is a resounding testament to the success of Doctor Who in the States. My sister and Adriana both watched it with me. Unfortunately jet lag was really taking its toll and both Liz and I found it hard to concentrate and whilst I did enjoy the story I did not enjoy the fact that the commercial breaks made it even longer. It was weird full stop having commercials and they are one of my many bugbears and one of the reasons I don't really watch ITV. Although of course the bigger reason for not watching ITV is they've got absolutely bloody nothing on. When was the last time they ever did a decent drama? (Primeval doesn't count). I'm a life long fan of The Bill but I had to stop watching c. 2004 once it turned in to an unrecognisable and ridiculously overblown soap.
I don't know if it was cuz of the holidays or because I was in a different time zone but I was getting way more replies to my #DoctorWho tweets over the week I spent in Florida and really got some interesting conversations going with people.
I love chatting about this show!
The one regret was not having the time to meet Lillibet from Professor Dave's Ark in Space Podcast but maybe this summer if she comes over as planned. Actually I'm really looking forward to the next Flashing Blade get together. At the Winter Warmer one of the guys I met called Marcus did tell me about the regular Tavern meets and I'm tempted to go along. Probably won't be able to get to one till March at the earliest though.
So yeah that was my Doctor Who Christmas. I've not rewatched the episode yet but it does deserve it. I'll need to anyway to review it! Nope, I'm waiting till my Dad comes over from Colombia next week to watch it with him.
I didn't make one "jump the shark" joke either in this entry. Go me!
Friday 7 January 2011
Thursday 6 January 2011
This Room's The Greatest Arsenal We Could Have
So apologies once again for the utter infrequency of updates in this blog. Were I the type of person to make new year resolutions I'd aim to do better for 2011. I'm not but nonetheless I will so not only do I have a backlog of reviews I've got other cool stuff to write about such as experiencing watching A Christmas Carol on BBC America and the general day to dayness of being a Who fan.
In the meantime below is the list of Doctor Who books I read in 2010, in the vaguely chronological order in which I read them.
1: The Happiness Patrol
2: The Ambassadors of Death
3: Search for the Doctor
4: Shooty Dog Thing
5: Doctor Who and the Deamons
6: The Pirate Loop (See our interview with Archie the Space Badger in TTZ9, written exclusively for us by Simon Guerrier)
7: Doctor Who and the Giant Robot
8: Full Circle
9: Endgame [The 8th Doctor Graphic Novel not the EDA]
10: Decalog 5: Wonders
11: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Dead Man Diaries
12: Remembrance of the Daleks
13: Time Unincorporated vol 1
14: I, Who
15: A History of the Universe
16: Doctor Who Annual 2006
17: Placebo Effect
18: Players
19: Look Who's Talking
20: The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who (Which features an essay written by Leslie!!)
21: Rift War
22: The Glorious Dead
23: The Completely Useless Doctor Who Encylopedia
24: The World Shapers
25: Chicks Dig Time Lords
26: The Highest Science (See my review of it in TTZ8)
27: Licence Denied
28: Doctor Who - The Making of a Television Series
29: The Quantum Archangel
30: The Caves of Androzani
31: Crisis in Space
32: Counundrum (See my review of it in TTZ8)
33: The Kings Dragon (Reviewed in this blog here. See also our exclusive interview with Una McCormack in TTZ9)
34: Managra (Reviewed in this blog here)
35: Made of Steel (Reviewed in this blog here)
36: I, Who 2
37: Ace!: The Inside Story of the End of an Era (Reviewed in this blog here)
38: Head Games (Reviewed in this blog here)
39: The Only Good Dalek
40: The Infinity Doctors
Meanwhile I often start a book but am unable to finish it. There are various reasons for this and isn't necessarily a reflection on the book. For Doctor Who I attempted but didn't manage to finish the following:
1: The Myth Makers
2: Decalog 4: Re:Generations
3: Peter Davison's Book of Alien Monsters
4: Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation
5: Doctor Who and the Zarbi
6: The Room With No Doors
7: Atom Bomb Blues
8: Short Trips: How The Doctor Changed My Life
9: Cybermen
10: The Diary of a Doctor Who Addict
11: Time Unincorporated vol 2
12: The Night of the Humans
13: The Dominators
Don't worry I do have a life outside Doctor Who and in 2010 I also read (if you're interested!):
The Lovely Bones, Polk, Major, Chamberlain, I Saw You..., Kick-Ass, The Bristol Board Jungle, The Groovy Greeks, An Utterly Impartial History of Britain (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots In Charge), The Lodger - Shakespeare on Silver Street, Vote for Who?, The Book of General Ignorance, Epileptic, Blaze of Glory, Doomsday World, Harlequin Valentine, The Completely Useless Star Trek Encylopedia, The 34th Rule, Hitler - My Part in His Downfall, Rommell? Gunner Who?, Monty - His Part in My Victory, Perverting the Course of Justice, The Blair Years, Hotel Babylon and World War Z
Last but by no means least I did recieve Doctor Who books for Christmas and so already on the to read pile in the next few days are:
1: Script Doctor
2: The Dark Path
3: Burning Hearts
4: The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who!
5: Single White Who Fan
Tell me about your fave Doctor Who books and I'll add them to the never ending to read pile!.
In the meantime below is the list of Doctor Who books I read in 2010, in the vaguely chronological order in which I read them.
1: The Happiness Patrol
2: The Ambassadors of Death
3: Search for the Doctor
4: Shooty Dog Thing
5: Doctor Who and the Deamons
6: The Pirate Loop (See our interview with Archie the Space Badger in TTZ9, written exclusively for us by Simon Guerrier)
7: Doctor Who and the Giant Robot
8: Full Circle
9: Endgame [The 8th Doctor Graphic Novel not the EDA]
10: Decalog 5: Wonders
11: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Dead Man Diaries
12: Remembrance of the Daleks
13: Time Unincorporated vol 1
14: I, Who
15: A History of the Universe
16: Doctor Who Annual 2006
17: Placebo Effect
18: Players
19: Look Who's Talking
20: The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who (Which features an essay written by Leslie!!)
21: Rift War
22: The Glorious Dead
23: The Completely Useless Doctor Who Encylopedia
24: The World Shapers
25: Chicks Dig Time Lords
26: The Highest Science (See my review of it in TTZ8)
27: Licence Denied
28: Doctor Who - The Making of a Television Series
29: The Quantum Archangel
30: The Caves of Androzani
31: Crisis in Space
32: Counundrum (See my review of it in TTZ8)
33: The Kings Dragon (Reviewed in this blog here. See also our exclusive interview with Una McCormack in TTZ9)
34: Managra (Reviewed in this blog here)
35: Made of Steel (Reviewed in this blog here)
36: I, Who 2
37: Ace!: The Inside Story of the End of an Era (Reviewed in this blog here)
38: Head Games (Reviewed in this blog here)
39: The Only Good Dalek
40: The Infinity Doctors
Meanwhile I often start a book but am unable to finish it. There are various reasons for this and isn't necessarily a reflection on the book. For Doctor Who I attempted but didn't manage to finish the following:
1: The Myth Makers
2: Decalog 4: Re:Generations
3: Peter Davison's Book of Alien Monsters
4: Doctor Who and the Ribos Operation
5: Doctor Who and the Zarbi
6: The Room With No Doors
7: Atom Bomb Blues
8: Short Trips: How The Doctor Changed My Life
9: Cybermen
10: The Diary of a Doctor Who Addict
11: Time Unincorporated vol 2
12: The Night of the Humans
13: The Dominators
Don't worry I do have a life outside Doctor Who and in 2010 I also read (if you're interested!):
The Lovely Bones, Polk, Major, Chamberlain, I Saw You..., Kick-Ass, The Bristol Board Jungle, The Groovy Greeks, An Utterly Impartial History of Britain (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots In Charge), The Lodger - Shakespeare on Silver Street, Vote for Who?, The Book of General Ignorance, Epileptic, Blaze of Glory, Doomsday World, Harlequin Valentine, The Completely Useless Star Trek Encylopedia, The 34th Rule, Hitler - My Part in His Downfall, Rommell? Gunner Who?, Monty - His Part in My Victory, Perverting the Course of Justice, The Blair Years, Hotel Babylon and World War Z
Last but by no means least I did recieve Doctor Who books for Christmas and so already on the to read pile in the next few days are:
1: Script Doctor
2: The Dark Path
3: Burning Hearts
4: The Brilliant Book of Doctor Who!
5: Single White Who Fan
Tell me about your fave Doctor Who books and I'll add them to the never ending to read pile!.
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