How we spent our "vacation" from the Holidays

Hi everyone, since there aren't many holidays between July 4 and Halloween, it's been three months since we've posted any reviews.  But we've been keeping busy...

Back in early August, we attended the Richmond Wizard Con, held just a few miles from our house.  We had the opportunity to attend several panel discussions that featured various film and television actors.

The highlight for us was a Q & A with legendary actor William Shatner.  Most of the actors that appeared had moderators that helped them answer questions from the audience.  But Shatner needed no handler!

The Wizard Con also gave us the opportunity to (briefly)  meet actor Billy Boyd, best known as Pippin Took in the Lord Of The Rings movies.  He was very nice and we got a picture with him too.

Billie Piper, best known in the U.S. for her role as Doctor Who companion Rose Tyler also appeared at the con.

More recently, we attended the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Con (MANC) in Hunt Valley, MD.  The main event of this con was the Bionic Reunion.  Lee Majors, best known as The Six Million Dollar Man and Lindsay Wagner of Bionic Woman-fame appeared on a panel with Richard Anderson, who played their boss Oscar Goldman.  They set a record for the largest audience in MANC history and answered fan questions for an hour.

Majors was also available for photo-ops, so we indulged!

Also appearing at MANC was animation historian Jerry Beck.  He spoke about the history of Popeye cartoons.  We're big fans of classic cartoons and we've seen Beck on lots of documentaries about animation, so it was cool to see him person.  More information about Beck and his work can be found at cartoonresearch.com.

Cartoon historian Jerry Beck.

So even in our "off season,"  we're busy soaking up the pop culture goodness!

We're getting ready to blog about Halloween programming and we're excited to participate in this year's Halloween Countdown.

Check back soon for some Halloween fun!

Doctor Who: "The Unquiet Dead"

"On and on I go, same old show.  I'm like a ghost, condemned to repeat myself through all eternity."  - Charles Dickens (as played by Simon Callow)

Premiered April 9, 2005

For those interested in the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey aspects of such things, this is the third episode of the 2005 re-boot of Doctor Who. 

The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion, Rose (Billie Piper) take their first journey back in time together, traveling to Cardiff, Wales on Christmas Eve 1869.  Charles Dickens (Simon Callow) is in town to perform a dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol before a packed house of spectators.

One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong ... 

Dickens is in a melancholy mood, feeling estranged from his family and as if his joy in living is wearing thin.

Strange happenings are afoot at a local funeral parlor, where corpses seem to be coming to life and are wandering around Cardiff, creating more corpses in their wake.  The undertaker, Gabriel Sneed (Alan David), wants to cover up the fact that the reanimated dead seem to be emanating from his establishment on the grounds that people knowing about it would be bad for business.

Sneed's maidservant Gwyneth (Eve Myles) wants to get help for their zombiefied corpse problem, but Sneed insists on taking care of it himself.   Gwyneth has clairvoyant abilities, about which she feels somewhat ambivalent, and Sneed has been using her skills to track down the wandering corpses.   The wandering corpse in question at this juncture belongs to an elderly woman who has just strangled her grandson as he leaned over her coffin to pay his last respects.

Gwyneth focuses on the old woman's last desire, which was to see Mr. Dickens' reading, so she and Sneed wind up at the reading around the same time as the Doctor and Rose.

All heck breaks loose as something ghostlike, gaseous and loud hisses forth from the reanimated old woman, who is seated in the middle of the audience at the reading.

The Doctor is (naturally) fascinated.  The audience is scared out of its wits.  Mr. Dickens is perplexed and thinks this must be some kind of a trick.   Rose is in the wrong place at the wrong time.  She gets chloroformed by Mr. Sneed and dragged back to the funeral parlor.

The Doctor enlists Charles Dickens' aid (and carriage) to go rescue Rose.

Solving the mystery of the "Unquiet Dead" will require a seance and considerable courage.

Will everyone survive the experience?   Will Charles Dickens locate his Christmas spirit and zest for living?


RigbyMel says:

Full disclosure,  Charles Dickens is one of my favorite authors and Doctor Who is one of my favorite tv series, the combination of the two is somewhat hard to resist where I am concerned.

I quite like the characterization of Charles Dickens by Simon Callow in this episode.

Dickens doesn't often appear as a character in tv or film, but it is worth noting that he has been played by Simon Callow on several different occasions other than this episode.  (Callow has also written extensively about Dickens and performed a one man show as Dickens, so one thinks he might have a pretty good handle on how to play him.)

Dickens was a clever chap and although he is definitely confused by and skeptical about the bizarre situation in which he finds himself (who wouldn't be?)  He manages to deal with it fairly well and actually helps to save the day when the Doctor and Rose get trapped.

The Doctor:  "I saw the Fall of Troy!  World War Five! I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party!  Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon ... in Cardiff!" 

This episode early in the re-boot of the series harks back to the educational aspects of Doctor Who that have always been present on the show.  Meeting historical figures is a favorite trope and Dickens' state of mind at the beginning of the episode tallies well with his actual biography.

There are bits of Ebenezer Scrooge evident in the world-weary Dickens we encounter at the beginning of the episode and also some fun parallels with Dickens' idealism as a writer and the Doctor's desire to save the world (literally) again and again.

After Mr. Dickens' encounter with some Christmas "spirits" and the Doctor, he is ready to reconcile with his family and "keep Christmas in his heart."  We even get a "God bless us, every one!" by the end of the episode.  

Speaking as a history geek, I also really love the interplay between the Victorian characters, the Doctor and Rose.  Gwyneth and Rose have a nice moment together in the scullery talking about boys and being a bit weirded out by their different approaches to proper deportment.   The Doctor manages to completely confuse Dickens when he says he is Dickens' "number one fan."  Dickens asks how the Doctor is like a device used for cooling oneself.    Shades of Christmas Past meeting Christmas Yet To Come, perhaps?

I would also like to point out that Gwyneth is a classic Dickensian orphan character in a heroic vein!

I do have a minor complaint about the ending seeming overly rushed, but don't want to go into detail as it might spoil the episode for those who have not seen it.

That being said, this is a wonderfully creepy and fun episode of Doctor Who and one of many great episodes of the series with Christmas themes and settings.

RigbyMel's rating:

3 and a half Candy Canes.

J.A. Morris says:

Like my co-blogger,I'm a huge Dickens fan, and Christopher Eccleston is my favorite Doctor.  Since this was the third episode of the Doctor Who revival, it played a big role in making me a devoted fan of the series.  With annual Christmas specials, the Doctor has become as much a part of Christmas as Rudolph and Charlie Brown.  But this was the first of his holiday-themed adventures and it first aired as a regular episode (in April).

In addition to the main plot, "The Unquiet Dead" marks an important evolution for Rose. She confronts the Doctor at one point when he wants to allow the Gelth to inhabit dead bodies.  Rose thinks it's indecent, the Doctor points out that they are dealing in a different morality with different values. She must get used to it if she wants to be his travelling companion.  However, Rose's concerns are justified in this instance.

One note about the cast:
Gwyneth is portrayed by Eve Myles, who later played Gwen Cooper on the series Torchwood, a spinoff of Doctor Who.  The series' creative team has said that Gwyneth and Gwen are "related" due to "Spacial Genetic Multiplicity."

"The Unquiet Dead" is one of my favorite episodes of the series and I enjoy watching it every Christmas season.  I highly recommend it to fans of Dickens and any Whovians who may not have discovered the series prior to the David Tennant or Matt Smith eras.

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 Candy Canes!

In which we pay a visit to the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention

This past Friday, we attended the Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention - an annual event which takes place just outside of Baltimore, Maryland.   It features a mix of celebrity appearances, scholarly talks and many vendors offering all sorts of memorabilia and lovingly created fan art. 

We had a great time and took part in many of the activities that the convention had to offer. 

J.A. Morris auditioned for an old-time radio drama (A lost episode of Gang Busters.) produced & performed by the Gotham Radio Players.  Sadly,  he was not chosen, but we enjoyed listening to the final performance -  they only got 1/2 an hour of rehearsal! 

The Gotham Radio Players perform an episode of Gang Busters.

Julie Newmar, the definitive Catwoman and Elizabeth Shepherd, the original Emma Peel were part of a great panel discussion about their careers.  

We also attended award-winning author Garyn G. Roberts' lecture about the life and work of the late, great Ray Bradbury. 

Ray Bradbury and friend

We've been fans of Bradbury's work for some time and found much to enjoy in Roberts' talk.  For the record, we blogged about an adaptation of Bradbury's "The Halloween Tree" last year.  

RigbyMel with K-9 -- but ready to run if that Dalek behind me noticed I was there!

We even got to visit the TARDIS and some Doctor Who prop replicas thanks to the TARDIS Photo Booth. 

J.A. Morris exiting the TARDIS

We got to meet Robert Loggia.  Best remembered from his roles in the movie Big and the series T.H.E. Cat, he's one of the best character actors of all time.    

J.A. Morris and Robert Loggia

And Ed Asner,  who was every bit as salty, and funny and awesome as one would hope he'd be.  Asner has appeared in quite a few Christmas-themed productions (Elf, The X-Files, various holiday episodes of Mary Tyler Moore), we plan to review some of them this season.  

Asner says we're off the naughty list!

But our favorite celebrity that we got to hang out with was our friend Joanna Wilson of Christmas TV History.com.   She gave a lecture entitled "Entertaining Spirits: The Many TV Adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol".

Joanna and RigbyMel 

Her presentation was very informative, even for Christmas junkies like ourselves.  We both met her in 2010, we've done guest reviews on our respective blogs, it was great to see her in person again.

The Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention was a fun experience.  Future MANC events are well worth checking out if you get the chance.

-- RigbyMel and J.A. Morris

Doctor Who: "The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe" (2011)

This post originally appeared as a guest post as part of a Sci-Fi Christmas in July series on the lovely & talented Joanna Wilson's  Christmas TV History blog.  It's one of our favorite holiday-related blogs and you should most definitely go check it out! (Thanks for letting us re-post this, Joanna!) 

Aired  25 December 2011 in the UK and US

 

It's Christmas, 1938. 
Above the  Earth, The Doctor (Matt Smith) narrowly escapes incineration on an exploding spaceship.   He falls to Earth wearing a spacesuit that he donned as both he and it fell from the ship.  In his
(understandable) haste, the suit's helmet gets put on backwards.

He meets Madge Arwell (Clare Skinner), who not only doesn't bat an eye at an impact crater containing a “spaceman, possibly an angel,” she helps him find his way to the TARDIS (the Doctor's ship, for the uninitiated).  Since the Doctor's space helmet was back-to-front, Madge never actually sees his face.  The Doctor thanks Madge, and tells her if she ever needs his help, all she needs to do is make a wish.

Now we cut to three years later during Christmas 1941, World War II is raging.

Madge's husband Reg (Alexander Armstrong) is in air battle and is lost at sea.  She receives a telegram
telling of Reg's death, but doesn't tell her children, Lily (Holly Earl) and Cyril (Maurice Cole).  She will tell them after Christmas, so that they won't think of Christmas as the time their father died.

Madge arrives with Cyril and Lily at a mansion in Dorset, presumably to escape the Blitz.   They meet the Caretaker…who turns out to be the Doctor!  (Marge doesn't yet realize this though.)  He gives them a tour of the house… it looks like it is going to be a rather brilliant holiday for Cyril and Lily with special enhancements courtesy of the Doctor including a very elaborate Christmas tree,  a nursery with the Magna Carta, a model of the house they're in (“not to scale, sorry”) and hammocks to sleep in and even a tap in the kitchen that dispenses lemonade. Madge is a bit concerned that he may be overindulging the children.

The Doctor has also brought them a Christmas present in a giant box.  Cyril cannot wait until Christmas morning, so he sneaks downstairs and opens it that night.

The box turns out to be a portal to a Narnia-like snow-covered forest, where Christmas ornaments grow on trees.  Cyril sets out to explore, following a mysterious creature that emerges when one of the
“ornaments” breaks.  Before too long, the Doctor discovers Cyril's absence and follows him into the portal with Lily.

Lily : Where are we?
The Doctor: In a forest. In a box. In a sitting room. Pay attention!

Madge realizes that her children are missing and follows them into the box where she meets a team of
space-suited miners from an alien world (Bill Bailey, Paul Bazely and Arabella Weir)  who are preparing to harvest the trees using acid rain, killing everything in the forest!

Maybe, just maybe, the Doctor, Madge and the children can escape from this predicament unscathed. 
And maybe, just maybe, they'll find that wishes can come true -  you'll have to watch the episode to see
what happens!

RigbyMel says:

There is a heck of a lot going on in this episode, but it hangs together remarkably well considering how
involved the plot is.  I particularly enjoyed all the Narnia-ish references and thought that Madge was a wonderful character to play against the Doctor.   Madge is imaginative enough to go along with whatever the situation throws at her and even discovers courage she probably didn't know she had – yay for strong female characters!

The atmosphere is magical and a bit scary, just as it should be in a Doctor Who episode and the
Christmas-y themes tie in perfectly (there's even an ecological message tucked neatly into the episode).
There are also a few moments that are quite touching without being the least bit maudlin.  As an
example here's one of my favorite bits (an exchange between Madge and the Doctor while the children
are elsewhere):


Madge: Lily and Cyril's father—my husband—is dead and they don't know yet because if I tell them now then Christmas will always be what took their father away from them, and no one should have to live like that. Of course when the Christmas period is over I shall... I don't know why I keep shouting at them.
The Doctor: Because every time you see them happy you remember how sad they're going to be. And it breaks your heart. Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later?
The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later. 

This does bring me to one complaint about the episode though –  the Doctor talks about “happy crying” as being “humany wumany”, I found to be a cloying and weak reference to a fun line from a previous episode that the current writers seem determined to beat into the ground.   “Wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff” was fun in “Blink”, it gets less fun every time Steven Moffat overuses it.  

Overall, a fun addition to the Doctor Who Christmas special tradition.

RigbyMel's rating:
3 candy canes (it might have gotten 4 but for the “humany wumany”)

J.A. Morris says: 

I agree with RigbyMel about the "humany" line, but I liked this special just slightly more than she did. 
I'll say up front: I'm not a huge fan of Matt Smith as the Doctor.  He's okay, just a far cry from the two
previous Doctors.  But I think he works best in specials and episodes where he isn't teamed up with
regular companions.  I think he had great chemistry with all the members of the Arwell family here.
I'm not familiar with Claire Skinner, but she's great as Madge.  Early in the special, Madge almost comes across as almost scatterbrained, but in the end, Skinner is convincing as a mother who will fight an army to save her family.

Comedian Bill Bailey, always a welcome presence, is good as Droxil, leader of the forest mining crew.  He also looks very funny in his spacesuit.  But for me, the biggest surprise comes from Paul Bazely, who plays a miner named Ven-Garr.   Bazely (another actor who is new to me) gets the funniest lines of the "forest" scenes, but Bailey's reactions to them are just as funny.

"The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe" is a Christmas generally a fun ride and something you should be able to watch with relatives around the Holidays even if they're not hardcore fans of Doctor Who.
My rating:
3 and a half candy canes.

 

l to r:  RigbyMel, actor/comedian Bill Bailey, J.A. Morris

Post script:

We mentioned earlier that Bill Bailey plays Droxil in this special.  We were fortunate enough to see Bailey perform his stand-up act in New York in September 2011, shortly before filming began for this special.  He's one of the best comedians working today, integrating lots of music & songs into his comedy.  He gave a great performance that night, if you ever have the chance to see him live, please do so.  Bailey was also extremely kind to us (and the dozen or so other hardcore fans who waited to meet him post-performance). We took the train from Richmond,VA, he said that's a further distance than anyone ever traveled to see him perform in England!