Now In Color!

I haven't had any real problems with my Sony Bravia HDTV (model KDL-52W5100), which has two types of internet capabilities. First, it has native "apps", which are accessed through Sony's XMB interface (the same one they use on the Playstation 3). Most of these apps simply access feeds (RSS or something similar) from various audio/video serving sites and provide a simple folder-based browsing interface to drill down to specific content. These all generally work well (with the exception of the DLNA server support, which is still a fairly hit-or-miss affair for some reason).

Second, it has Yahoo Connected TV widgets. These are small apps that can be popped up over part or all of the screen, and can access various internet-served data, videos, pictures, games, and so on. As opposed to the native apps, these Yahoo widgets are uniformly bad. The startup time to bring up either the widget engine as a whole, or individual widgets, is unacceptably long. The functionality of the individual apps is generally limited (since you only have the TV remote as an input). I don't really do Facebook or Twitter, so I can't say if those apps work better than the others, but so far I haven't found any reason to bring up the Yahoo apps beyond the first couple of attempts.

But via Engadget HD, it appears that Sony is going to try and see if someone will pay for these apps going forward. It's an obvious move - any revenue stream in a storm - but these things aren't even worth the $1 purchase price I wouldn't think twice about clicking for on the iTunes App Store, for example. Unless Yahoo has some kind of major revamp in place (and the screenshots provided don't really indicate that), or unless the next generation of Sony HDTVs has substantially more CPU power under the hood (which is certainly possible), I personally would stay away.

Also unanswered is how much of these upgrades and improvements will be pushed back to older models. I'm not one of those people that insists on endless free upgrades on everything I buy forever and ever - just curious on how much of this is just a software push versus being dependent on new hardware.

Welcome To The Fold, Google

Work + World Of Warcraft + Sleep = no blogging.

In other news, I see that the new GoogleTV is suffering from the same case of streamus-interruptus that my Playstation 3 contracted last year. Hulu, CBS, NBC, ABC - all are detecting access from the Google/Sony set-top box, and blocking it. It's still the case that the content providers are paranoid about the screen you are using - if you view via a computer monitor, that's OK, but using a digital TV, not so good.

So, another target market that the networks could have snapped up and served ads to will instead now be served by the ad-free market that is the world of BitTorrents and their variants. Congrats, guys - heckuva job!

Well, Steve Jobs managed to break the music labels eventually - maybe he can do the same to the video morons.

How Not To Inspire Confidence

It's just a camera phone shot, so not very high-rez, but still...



This is a screenshot from Time Warner Cable's new DVR box, informing the customer that they aren't subscribed to a channel.

Or rather...that they "aren$t" subscribed.

I'm guessing the text message uses a "smart quote", but the font they used didn't have that character, or they used the wrong encoding, or something similarly dumb. So a garbage character appears on screen.

Come on, Time Warner Cable...believe me, I understand testing is hard, but how stupid do you have to be to not catch this during even the most basic functional test? Would this make you feel good about having Time Warner Cable handle your TV connection? Your internet connection? Your phone line?

The Doctor Was Almost In

Last weekend, BBC America had a marathon of Doctor Who episodes leading up the premiere of the new Eleventh Doctor. As I mentioned earlier, I'm pretty far behind in my viewing - not to mention my reviewing - and so I was hoping to DVR several episodes on my new UVerse setup (although, sadly, BBC America is not in HD).

However, when I sat down to watch my first episode, the sixty-minute special, "The Next Doctor", I found that I only had thirty minutes worth. Hmmm. Taking a look in my recordings list, I saw numerous other problems. The episode labelled "The Last Of The Time Lords" was actually part one of "The End Of Time". Another episode was only 15 minutes long - the minimum should have been an hour. And so on.

So I don't know who was responsible for messing up the programming schedule - it could have been AT&T, or Yahoo! (which runs the web app that can control the DVR), or Microsoft (which created the underlying software suite that runs the set-top box) or BBC America (which could have given the wrong schedule information to AT&T).

But regardless, my first major misstep from my new UVerse service. At least the actual first episode was recorded correctly, so while I'm not caught up, at least I'm not falling further behind.

House Call

I guess I need to finish up my Fourth Doctor review series, so that I can get caught up on my Tenth Doctor episodes. Because now I see I'm about to be two Doctors behind....

BBC America has announced that season 5 will debut on Saturday, April 17th, less than two weeks after it airs in Great Britain (on Easter, or April 4th).

I did watch the Eccleston-era episodes, but I only just got started on the David Tennant episodes before it dropped off my radar, for some reason. So I've got about two-and-a-half seasons worth of shows to watch if I want to get up to date before the premiere.

I've finished my rewatch of Tom Baker's Season 17 - I just need to write it up. And then I'll need to slog through Season 18; can you tell it's not one of my favorites? Oh, well.

(From BBC via Topless Robot)

HDTV Review: Sony KDL-52W5100

So, now that I've got my new UVerse installation up and running, it was time for the next step - the new HDTV. I've finally picked up a Sony KDL-52W5100. I was originally aiming for a 46- or 47-inch model at around $1000, and Costco has a Sony KDL-46VL150 on sale for $800 now. But at the last second, I decided I would go for the next bigger model, on the theory that you should always by as much capacity as you can afford. The next step up at Costco had the 52-inch W5100 on sale for $1200. Besides the larger size, this model also has an updated video processor (Bravia Engine 3 vs 2), and also network capabilities.

This last one was the final tipping point for me. I've posted a few times about streaming to my home theater from the media on my Mac through my Playstation 3. Well, this TV is also supposed to support the same DLNA client functionality, meaning I could have one less device in the loop. The W5100 also has various network apps provided by Sony, such as some rather useless Yahoo widgets and a variety of streaming audio and video channels.

So far, the streaming audio and video provided by Sony works great. No stuttering with my UVerse 12Mpbs service. The quality is what it is - most video channels look pretty good, except for the YouTube video, which is being blown up a little too much for its own good. The real find for me so far is the support for the Slacker radio service. I was familiar with Pandora, which is a similar service. But while Pandora provides streaming radio "stations" based on your preferences, the Slacker service seems to provide more control over what goes into your custom stations, and also provides a large collection of existing stations. The selection of Rock stations is great, and the audio quality is wonderful. There's also a Slacker app for the iPhone. I'm going to be using this a lot, especially since the URGE music channels provided by UVerse are rather meager in comparison.

However, the current downside is that the DLNA streaming so far is not working. The Bravia reports finding both Mac-based (MediaLink, Rivet) and PC-based (Windows Media Player sharing) servers, but then reports a problem connecting to either of them. I don't know if this is a router issue - maybe the UVerse router is somehow blocking access? Or maybe DLNA is not as "standard" as I think - maybe DLNA for the PS3 is somehow subtly different than DLNA on the Bravia. At any rate, it still needs work.

[Update: I've now gotten WMP to share with the W5100. In WMP, you have to approve each device individually for connection. I thought the TV was on the list, but they were all listed as "Unknown Device", and it turns out the two I had approved were my PS3 and the UVerse set-top box (which also has some media streaming support). Once I approved the Bravia TV, the sharing worked fine. Of course, this doesn't directly help me, since my main goal is to share from my Mac-based iTunes library, not my Windows-based WMP library. But at least it's a step forward.]

Video-wise, I'm mostly satisfied with the W5100. It's my first HDTV, so obviously anything is an improvement over what I had. Considering all of the horror stories out there, I found that this TV actually does a pretty good job with standard-def signals. Ordinary DVDs look great, too, although I don't know if the Playstation 3 upscaling or the Bravia TV processing is responsible. The High-Def looks great, as well - the only problem I've seen is a little bit of fuzz around some players while watching a basketball game, so I'm going to have to keep an eye on the high-speed processing. But TV shows, other sports like football, etc. all look great. No Blu-Ray disks yet, so I can't report on how wonderful they look compared to plain DVDs.

So, finally - I've scrambled up to 2008-level home theater technology! Now where's my hovercar?

UVerse First Impressions

So, I never thought I would say this, but - I'm now an all AT&T shop. My cell phone has been with AT&T since I got it (well, technically it was Cingular to start with, but still the same provider). But now I've switched over my phone, tv and internet to AT&T UVerse. It did take a while - the UVerse web-site didn't believe I was in a service area until I alerted them to the problem. But once that was resolved, the order and install went pretty smoothly. My install took about two hours, which included installing a new junction box (or whatever they call it) on the outside of my house and replacing a telephone port on one wall, but not running any new cables. We just reused the coaxial cable from my existing DirecTV installation to connect the set-top box in my living room to the main gateway box in the back office.

First impressions:

• The Total Home DVR service is nice. I can setup and view recordings on either of my two boxes, with up to four streams recording. My previous DirecTV setup only had one box capable of recording/viewing, with two streams maximum.
• The DVR itself is not quite as capable as the Tivo box from DirecTV. There is no thumbs-up/thumbs-down ranking available, no automatic recording suggestions, and while there are searches available, it doesn't look like I can setup a recording schedule based on that search. It terms of the basics, however, the UVerse DVR is certainly capable enough for most use cases.
• Basic TV viewing is fine. The channel surfing is faster than the DirecTV boxes, but I haven't found a way to only surf through my favorites. I don't really want to pass by the channels that I don't even receive - that's just a dumb interface. The Tivo box was much better in this regard.
• There are some rudimentary interactive capabilities. The Weather On Demand might get some use (I had this problem with DirecTV also - no local weather from The Weather Channel), but I tend to use the internet on my iPod touch for "instant" weather information. But at least they are there, and maybe they will get more robust over time.
• There is home media server support through Media Share on UVerse, but it is officially Windows-only. My media is on my iMac, so I'm going to poke around to see if there is any way to trick Media Share into seeing my iTunes-based library.
• On a related note, the UVerse router is blocking my existing UPnP-based media sharing (which I currently use to stream from my Mac to my PS3). I'm going to need to find out what firewall rules need to be relaxed for this to work - this is a major show stopper for me.
• Other than this UPnP issue, the router itself seems to work fine. None of my devices (computers, iPods, PS3) had any problem connecting, and the speeds and signal strength seem to be good enough for my house. According to SpeedTest, I'm getting close to the advertised 12 Mbps speed for downloads.
• The phone service also looks good. I was able to switch over my cell phone to use the same voicemail system as the UVerse land-line, so now both phones drop messages into the same box, and the messages can be retrieved on phone or over the web. Nice.
• UVerse comes with its own branded version of the Yahoo services. However, I already had my own Yahoo account (along with related accounts like Flickr). It isn't clear that I can merge the two in any way, so I have to decide if I want to migrate to the new AT&T Yahoo account, stick with the old one, or maintain both of them.

So, really, the only big sticking point for now is the UPnP blocking. It also remains to be seen how the HDTV signal looks, once I get my new TV (which may be happening this weekend). And of course, it's nice that the bundle is going to be cheaper than my existing SBC/DirecTV/Earthlink combo, while also providing me with better features. Ah, technology.

TV Review: Doctor Who, Season 16

Following from seasons 12, 13, 14 and 15, Tom Baker reaches the Key To Time season. All stories here concern the Doctor's quest for the six segments of the titular key, along with new Time Lady companion Romana. And how are the episodes? Well...

The Ribos Operation - This is a nice little episode. Although the overall "save the entire universe" arc is introduced, the specific story here isn't saving the universe, or a planet, or even a city. It's just the Doctor and Romana trying to extract a segment while a pair of con men attempt to fleece a warlord out of some money. It helps a lot that the supporting characters - the con men, the soldiers, even the local "soothsayer" - are all well-written, engaging characters. A few dodgy moments with a man-in-suit-type monster aside, this is otherwise a good start to the season. Four stars.

The Pirate Planet - The first contribution to Doctor Who from "Hitchhiker's" author Douglas Adams, this one is perhaps predictably over-the-top. The pirate affectations are amusing at first, but quickly wear out their welcome. Beyond that, there's not much left to recommend. Two stars.

The Stones Of Blood - This one starts out as yet another of those evil cult stories that pop up at least once a season, and it's not much of an improvement (except for the great character of Professor Amelia Rumford). However, half way through it switches over to a parody trial held in hyperspace. I found it an interesting change that helped out the overall story. Again, the monster effects don't work out (how would they show walking stones, anyway?). Three stars.

The Androids Of Tara - A step backwards here, as the Doctor and Romana get involved in a medieval-type power struggle which really doesn't have anything to do with the overall Key to Time arc. It's a lot of mistaken identity and body doubles, and while Tom Baker seems to be having a good time, and there's a fairly charismatic villain, the whole thing seems to be a bit lightweight compared to the larger storyline. Nothing actively wrong, just not what the series needed right here. Three stars.

The Power Of Kroll - This one really didn't appeal to me much. Not too many of these characters are particularly bright; there's a group of evil corporate types led by a clear maniac battling a separate group of primitive natives following a vaguely-defined religion based on the creature Kroll who seems to be as likely to kill off its followers as its enemies. Meantime, we get the Doctor and Romana slogging back-and-forth across swamplands (which also results in K-9 sitting this one out), getting captured by one side or the other. At least the blue-screening in of the titular creature is done better than the Loch Ness Monster from a couple of seasons back. Two stars.

The Armageddon Factor - This one starts out almost as cartoonishly as The Pirate Planet, but once the Black Guardian's minion, the Shadow, is introduced, things look up. Here's a villain that seems to be up to the Doctor's level, recognizing his enemy's faults and capitalizing on them. There's a lot of balls in the air during the middle section here, what with a collapsing time loop, hostages, brainwashed allies, and a bumbling Time Lord assistant, but somehow everything manages to hang together. A good ending to an overall successful season. Three stars.

So the overall season-long arc turns out to be a pretty good idea here, even if the writers did forget about it at times. It's not the best Tom Baker season, but it's pretty solid. Next season: a new Romana, and a season with some great highs and deep lows.

TV Review: Doctor Who, Season 15

Continuing through the Tom Baker years; also see season 12, 13 and 14 review posts.

The Horror Of Fang Rock: A nice, atmospheric story. The foggy lighthouse is a great claustrophobic setting for a monster story, and the writers give us more than just anonymous monster fodder with the supporting characters. Sadly, things run out of steam by the end, when the so-far invisible monster is revealed to be a florescent jello mold that is dispatched with a small mortar, and a scout ship that is blown up with a lighthouse light filtered through a diamond. I'm guessing the Sontarans didn't have much problem with them in their off-screen war. So, three parts good to one part bad - call it three stars.

The Invisible Enemy: Unfortunately, the enemy didn't stay invisible. It's a pretty weak story - yet another alien mental takeover, which we've seen many times before during the Baker years, but without any of the depth of earlier efforts like Masque of Mandragora or Pyramids of Mars. And we also hit up against the limits of the production staff. This was a pretty ambitious story, with two space bases, a spaceship, an asteroid field and the interior of the Doctor's brain to be realized, and there are more misses than hits. And the Swarm Nucleus that acts as the main baddy here - oof. Starts out as a trash bag with a claw, ends up as a midget dressed up as a giant prawn. And even the characterizations don't work - Leela in particular takes a giant step backwards, written here as a savage idiot. Only the introduction of K-9 is worth mentioning, and he's better seen in later stories anyway. One star.

Image Of The Fendahl: Another Gothic story, with the first two episodes in particular upping the "creepy" factor quite satisfactorily. Things drop off a bit in the back half, as the enemy changes from being a spooky skull to some only moderately effective snake creatures (the special effects again are a mixed bag at best), and the menace posed by the snakes isn't really demonstrated very well - what exactly are they going to do again? And in the end, the Doctor just blows them up - not his most subtle solution. But still, there's a lot of relatively shocking stuff here - the Doctor helping a character to commit suicide (!) high on the list - and the overall mood of the story makes up for a lot of shortcomings. But what's up with Leela's changed hair and costume (which immediately change back at the end)? Hmmm. Three middling stars.

The Sun Makers: Starts off as a broad satire on the English tax system (in the form of an alien corporation that has "taken over" humanity). Tom Baker had, of course, frequently brought a breezy, jokey quality to his take on The Doctor. The first two episodes of this serial are no different, but combined with the overall satirical tone, it for the first time really served as a large detriment to the show in my opinion. He just wasn't taking things seriously enough, and too much finally became too much. Things settle down a bit in the back half, where the storyline turns into the standard "capture-escape-capture-escape" pattern, but the damage was done by that point. And I wonder if the Doctor would find anybody left alive if he went back after say, five years; after overthrowing the corporate leaders, the workers apparently decided to hang out up on the roof and work on their tans! I'm not sure this lot is capable of running their own planet. Oh well. Not much to recommend here; one star.

Underworld: The story of the Argonauts recast as a scifi adventure. Things get off to a pretty good start, and for a change the effects work is actually pretty good (both with the ship being "buried" in the nebula and most of the bluescreen shots in the underground caves). Sadly, the scripting again lets us down, as it devolves into another "destroy the evil computer" storyline. Lots of things end up poorly explained at best. It's not a horrible story, but nothing special either. Three stars.

The Invasion Of Time: Well, another chance for an epic storyline that falls quite short. The decision to join the story "in the middle" (or at least, leaving the Doctor's motivations somewhat mysterious until later on in the story) is a good one, even though we know the Doctor hasn't really switched over to "the dark side". And trips to Gallifrey are usually interesting. But there's lots of other problems here - Leela being essentially shut off to the side for a good chunk of time, the seemingly omnipotent technology of K-9 solving all problems remotely, the relatively easy defeat of the Sontarans once they make their appearance, Leela's sudden and inexplicable decision to stay behind, and worst of all, the endless tramping through the TARDIS hallways in the last two episodes. Really a wasted opportunity here - two stars.

Wow, looking back - I didn't really get much from this set of stories, did I? I don't know if the scripts really took a downturn here, or if I'm just getting burned out running through all of these seasons in a row. Well, now that the fall TV shows and football season are starting up, I'll probably take these at a slower pace for a while anyway. Next season - the Doctor gets a new companion, and a new season-long mission....

TV Review: Doctor Who, Season 14

And now on to season 14 of Doctor Who...

The Masque Of Mandragora: This one is a bit hit-and-miss. On the positive, it's another one of those historical settings that the BBC usually does well (both for the studio shots and the exteriors). The main players here were suitably over-the-top, with the astrologer Hieronymous and the evil Count taking top marks here. On the negative, the plot here is a bit coincidental, with the TARDIS just happening to capture the Helix energy, which just happens to find a suitable religious sect to take over, and so on. The script writer also seems to have run out of things for Sarah Jane to do - she spends the first half of the story captured and hypnotized and much of the last episode dancing or literally standing around in the background waiting for the Doctor to save the day. Still, the Doctor and the bad guys are generally good enough here to carry things along. Three stars.

The Hand Of Fear: Sarah Jane's final story is a definite improvement. Sarah is taken over and hypnotized for the second episode in a row, but at least she gets some things to do this time around while under control. Tom Baker is in good form, as well - for example, his casual attitude in watching the nuclear bombing run that he knows will fail. I also like the mysterious cold opening in the first episode (although I wonder if viewers at the time remembered that four weeks later - it's not like Lost today where we have wiki sites to remind us of everything). The defeat of Eldrad by his race was well-done, but not so much his defeat by the Doctor - tripping him into a chasm with his long scarf (a device also used two episodes in a row). And Sarah's send-off is still suitably sad and amusing. Four stars.

The Deadly Assassin: Yes, I know, I know - what other kind of assassin is there? Still, this is justifiably considered one of the classics, both because it is a creepy and interesting story and because of the job it does in filling in some of the back-story of the Doctor's home world. The whole surreal scene when the Doctor is trapped in the Matrix is very well-done, even if the ultimate plan of the Master is overly complex (why bring the Doctor into play at all? why does he need to actually get his man into the presidency to capture the relics he needed? and why does no one else around know about the relics' true uses?). Don't overthink it - just go with the style and enjoy. Five stars.

The Face Of Evil: After some pretty well-realized stories, it was past time for the show's production limitations to reappear. While the devolved Sevateem outfits are amusing enough ("Oh, I like the hat" the Doctor quips as the high priest dons a giant spacesuit glove on his head), the fact that there are only about three visible on screen at a time (and only one woman) makes the tribe look a bit thin on personnel. The cheap spaceship sets and horrible laser gun effects later in the story aren't any better. The overall idea (the Doctor's previous meddling causes disaster later on) could have been a very devastating storyline, but it really wasn't addressed as fully as it could have been. Considering the Doctor was responsible for everything that had happened, the other characters sure didn't seem too unhappy with him at the end. This really was a missed opportunity for something special. As it is, two stars.

The Robots Of Death: Ahh, this is one of my favorites. The hit-and-miss design work switches back to big hit - yeah, the spaceship corridors are the usually bare-bones, but I love the robot designs, the ship's common areas show some differentiation and thought, and even the goofy hats and makeup for the crew do a good job of showing a civilization that has become decadent and overly-dependent on its robotic underclass. The plot is really just a locked-room mystery, where pretty much the last man standing is the villian. One problem, though: why did he choose to start his robotic revolution on a mining ship in the middle of nowhere? Shouldn't he have started somewhere with, well, with a civilization to overthrow? And it's even a good start for Leela in her first shot as companion. This one's a definite five stars for me.

The Talons Of Weng-Chiang: And it's followed up with an even better five-star effort. Another historical story, which means good production design from the BBC. And even better supporting characters, with the duo of Professor Lightfoot and impresario Henry Gordon Jago being so good they were briefly considered for a spin-off show. Even the theater performances within the show were good - I love Chang's un-PC "one of us is yellow" as the Doctor slips off-stage rather than be skewered by swords during a magic act. Really the only mark against this one is the horrible giant rat - just a lousy special effect. Why did they keep trying it, giant animals never work out on a show of this budget! Five stars, and the best of a great season of shows.

So there you have it - maybe the best overall season of Doctor Who! Next season is inevitably a step down, but we do get to meet a certain robotic canine....

TV Review: Doctor Who, Season 13

Following on from Season 12, we cruise on through Doctor Who's Season 13, Tom Baker's second at the helm:

"Terror of the Zygons" - Not a favorite of mine. Starts off with a good mystery to investigate, the destruction of off-shore oil platforms, but then quickly deteriorates. The bad guys here, the Zygons, are planning to take over the planet (of course), and have the ability to duplicate anyone (a theme we will see later on this season as well). So what are their plans? Well, they attack the platforms (for no apparent reason), use the Loch Ness Monster (?!) to attach a few people, and then send one person to blow up an environmental conference.

Not the best planning - if you have the ability to copy anyone, there are much better ways to utilize it.

Sadly, the issues don't end with the scripting. The puppet used as Nessie here is clearly no more than a puppet, and not a particularly good one. I'm sure the idea of having the Loch Ness Monster attacking London looked good on paper, but on screen, it looks like a puppet poorly blue-screened against a London backdrop. Just terrible. Fortunately, it's mostly uphill from here. Two middling stars.

"Planet of Evil" - We go from Nessie to a werewolf-type story, crossbred with Forbidden Planet. The Doctor and Sarah Jane end up at the end of the universe, where the boundary with the next universe over has just been breached. This one's a fairly standard adventure story - capture, escape, capture, escape - with a pretty well-done jungle setting (sadly, the show really veers between good set design and cheapo trash once we get to the spaceship). We also start to get a bit of Doctor as a somehow "greater" being here, with his proclamation that he might possibly mediate between the two universes. But really, this one's just a basic adventure. So, a basic rating. Three stars.

"Pyramids of Mars" - Now, this is more like it! This is really one of my favorites. Here, the designers get an A+ from me, with the Egyptian motif everywhere. The best example: there a bit where the Doctor disables a force field generator located in an ancient urn. He opens it up and pulls out a metallic cylinder that presumably is its power source. But - along the bottom of the cylinder are small hieroglyphics! They didn't need to be there, and are barely noticeable, but it shows some attention to detail that isn't always present on this show.

The characters and scripts are well-done, also. The Doctor really sells the menace of Sutekh (although we don't actually see him do much), and his capture by Sutekh as the cliffhanger of part three is suitably exciting. The choice to have Sutekh use a calm, almost melodious voice instead of a typical villian's cackle was outstanding. It's clear almost from the start that Laurence Scarman will die at the hands of his possessed brother, but it's still chilling to watch. And the poacher's little adventure is a nice, humorous sidestory, and a good way to show the takeover of the property without lengthy exposition.

The one really is right up there with "Genesis of the Daleks" in terms of early Tom Baker episodes, and doesn't have the padding issues that plagued "Genesis". An easy five-star story.

"The Android Invasion" - Another good one. Like the earlier "Zygons", it's a case of human duplication by aliens. The main problem here is that it takes the Doctor and Sarah quite a while to see what's going on - of course, we're helped by the fact that the title has "android" in it. I did like seeing some of the UNIT cast again (but why was the Brigadier not present this time around, nor in the next UNIT appearance?), especially since we got to see them in both "good" and "evil" modes. Really, it's just the slow start and a couple of manufactured escapes that act as marks against this story. Four stars.

"The Brain of Morbius" - This one, not so much. It's now Frankenstein's turn for a re-do, as we get the story of a mad scientist trying to revive an evil Time Lord - into a mismatched body with one human arm and one giant lobster claw? Conveniently, here comes the Doctor with a Time Lord-compatible head! And so we get a lot of scenes of the Doctor captured and knocked out, passed around from group to group, with no one quite able to start the operation. Oh, and we get Sarah stumbling around with temporary blindness, and the titular brain - speaking from inside a tank, with synchronized flashing lights. Sheesh. It gets worse, though - Morbius eventually turns into something out of Robot Monster.

We also get a second set of characters, the Sisterhood, with their god-awful annoying chanting. "Sacred Fire! Sacred Flame!" Get used to that - it may be the most annoying thing in Doctor Who since the "Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon". Really, this is just a dreary, boring story. Not much to recommend at all. One star.

"The Seeds of Doom" - Back to a fairly standard adventure story. Again, we veer back and forth between good design and bad. The snowy scenes in the Antarctic are actually pretty well done, as is the giant Krynoid model seen at the end (very Lovecraftian). But the more human-sized Krynoid has a little too much of The Creeping Terror about it for my taste.

This one goes for more of a James Bond feel for its bad guys. The leader, Harrison Chase, is full-bore cliche - he has the Doctor in his control on multiple occasions, but rather than kill him, he gives him a guided tour, reveals his plans, and then puts him into several escapable death traps rather than just shooting him. As Dr. Evil might say, "Chase...you just don't get it, do ya?"

The main problem here is just padding. This is a six-episode storyline, and much of the last two are just waiting for the giant Krynoid to finish knocking down the mansion. I think as a four-part story, this really could have been something quite exciting. As it is, though, it does lose steam as it goes. In the end, I'll give it three stars, instead of the four it might have reached.

That does it for Season 13 - on the whole, a pretty solid season. Next up: Sarah Jane says goodbye, Leela says hello, and we get a few really classic stories in Season 14.

TV Review: Doctor Who, Season 12

With the summer comes the end of most of my regular shows (until January! urrrrrgh). And so it's time to pull out some of the stuff I've had laying around for a while - such as the old Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes! Having just finished his first season's worth of shows, here's a quicky review....

"Robot" - Fun for the introduction of the new Fourth Doctor, not so good otherwise. As is often the case for this bare-budget show, the vision of the writers exceeds the ability to execute well on screen. The titular opponent here is a rather clunky collection of bits initially, and sadly the script decides to have it inexplicably grow to huge proportions, resulting in the usual bad blue-screening effect. The plotline is a fairly generic "superior scientists decide to become munificent dictators" story, with a dash of "robot develops human feelings" thrown in. Nothing particularly special.

This one's mainly good for seeing Tom Baker immediately jump into the role of the Doctor, hitting the ground running. Sladen's Sarah Jane meshes well with the new lead, and of course almost any time with the Brigadier is going to be good. But otherwise, not much of a story. Two stars.

"The Ark In Space" - I kind of like this one. It's got a lot of typical elements - Sarah stumbling her way into rescue situations, the suspicious commander, alien mental takeovers, noble sacrifices. There's not really much new here, but it's just a pretty basic, competent story. So it gets a basic rating of three stars.

"The Sontaran Experiment" - Filler. Just a two-parter, this one is mostly interesting for being set completely on location - and a location that isn't that same quarry they used for everything back then (like in the very next storyline, for example). However, the storyline mostly consists of people falling into rocky pits and climbing back out, and scenes of prisoners being tortured as scientific experiments. Unfortunately, the script has an entire galactic invasion waiting on the Sontaran to finish running an experiment to see how much weight a pair of humans can hold up - and then when the experiment is halted, the invasion is called off! Uh, what?

Despite a few good moments (like the fear experiment on Sarah Jane), and the different setting, this one really doesn't have much going for it. It is what it is - filler. Two stars.

"Genesis Of The Daleks" - Ah, but this one on the other hand....yeah, it's good. A definite grim atmosphere, from the battlefield scenes at the very start to the Nazi-invoking Kaled uniforms to the destruction of the Thal dome to the mutants - this one isn't particularly jolly, despite Baker's already perfected mugging. Yeah, there's a few strange moments, such as the giant clam attack (?), and some of the cliffhangers don't make much sense (in particular, Sarah falls off a scaffolding at the end of one episode, only to land on a platform just below at the start of the next one).

There's a great introduction to Davros, the Dalek creator here - sometimes a coldly calculating villian, others a shrieking personification of his Dalek creations. The weak point here, as usually was with the early stories, is the Daleks themselves - I never found them overly scary in their early clunky form. This was fixed in later stories, where they get the ability to hover around and move with some speed. And to be fair, the Daleks don't actually do a lot of the work here - it's mostly Davros and his thugs that do the damage.

I really can't give this one less than five stars - there's a bit of padding here and there, but this is about as good as Doctor Who got at this point in its life.

"Revenge Of The Cybermen" - Back to the set of "The Ark In Space", but this time dealing with an approaching asteroid of gold - a threat to the gold-fearing Cybermen. Only - well, I don't remember anyone actually successfully using gold as a weapon here. The Doctor and Harry try, but they don't end up having any success. This story tries a bit too much with traitors on the various sides - I'm not really that much into watching the political situation on an underground asteroid. Suffice it to say that no one's master plan here was really thought through very well.

I do like the Doctor's response to learning that Harry had caused a cave-in and almost detonated a bomb, though - "Harry Sullivan is an idiot!" Cybermats - not so much. This one gets three stars also for a few good moments.

TV Review - 24: Redemption

Well, it's good to have Jack back, even in this form.

I haven't had too much of a problem filling my TV time, with The Shield having one of the best season-long runs I can remember and Sons Of Anarchy having a good showing in its first season. But both of those shows will be disappearing after this week (with Sons to return sometime next year), and so it's time for the second-half of the "fall" season to start. That means welcome returns for both 24 and Lost.

While Lost also managed to turn in a great season last year, 24 has definitely been headed the other direction. After a great fifth season, season six turned into kind of a lackluster disaster, and the off-season hints of things to come (Jeanene Garofalo? urk..) left me dreading the return of a neutered Jack Bauer.

So it was with some trepidation that I approached this two-hour 24 movie, subtitled (although not on-screen) "Redemption". First off, I thought the producers chose a good backdrop, a fictional example of one of the all-too-real African genocides currently going on. Rather than drag out another nebulous terrorist group, we get an alternate scenario that provides real danger for Bauer, and a way for him to try to find some personal redemption, and shines a spotlight on an under-reported real problem that exists in the world today. Much better than, say, Jack helping a group of eco-warriors fight an evil, global-warming corporation or something.

And the fact that we get to see some very well-deserved shots taken on the feckless United Nations and the U.S. State Department is just icing on the cake. "Go hide in the shelter with the other children" - and then he does! Just outstanding.

But just so we know it's still 24, there is a tieback to a nameless "old white guy" (played this time around by Jon Voight) and to moles in the five-minute old administration of whatever the new president's name is. Those are just setups for the next season, though, and they didn't distract too much from the main plot back in Africa.

For a "two-hour event", we didn't get a big set piece on the order of the fighter strafing-run from....back in season two, I think? But we did get a lot of standard 24 beats - Jack as pistol sharpshooter, Jack being tortured (that just makes him angry), Jack killing a man with his bare hands, err, feet, a confederate taking the kill so Jack can continue, and so on. Nothing out of the ordinary for 24, but just seeing it back in action and done well after the disaster of the last season makes me happy.

At least until the new season starts.

Resolution Increasing

Finally getting closer to my target - a 46- or 47-inch 1080p HDTV for about $1000.

Last week I saw Westinghouse model at Costco for that price, and today I see posted a generally well-received Olevia model for the same (although not at a brick-and-mortar - I'm still a little dubious of buying something like that sight unseen).

Now neither of these are "top-of-the-line" brands (Samsung, Sony, etc.), which is the part that makes me leery of pulling the trigger. Should I wait to see if the "big boys" drop in price?

Arrrrrrgh, I hate waiting. But I'm too cheap.

Live-blogging the Lost Finale

I'm hoping for great things here, after a pretty great season.

• Jeremy Benthem? =thumbs through mental Lost encyclopedia= Not ringing any bells here. Although the quick arrival of one of The Answers is refreshing.
• I know it's iconic at this point, but I keep waiting for them to hide something in the opening title swoop somewhere - like The X-Files used to do.
• Hmmm...so that device wasn't a remote detonator, after all? Maybe it was a Smokey Repellent? And what triggers the bomb?
• On a news promo: "The cost of solving the recycling problem here in Austin - tonight at 10." Huh? Austin has a recycling problem? What does that even mean?
• When is Locke going to tell someone about his walking (or lack thereof)? Oh, and Locke sure sounds confident - that usually means he's about to fall on his face.
• Uhhhh - how is freezing the battery different than removing the battery? =thumbs through mental MacGyver encyclopedia=
• You know, Miles should be an annoying character - but I like him for some reason.
• I know I'd want that helicopter door closed if I was sitting on the side, seat belt or no seat belt.
• Well, well - Lost comes through with a real surprise here. Keamy (is that his name?) comes for round two. That device was a detonator; so why did he only tell Ben about it now? Wouldn't it have been better to do it earlier?
• Wow - did we just see Ben lose control? That's only the second time I think we've seen that. And Ben's response - "So" - exactly right. Why would Keamy think Ben would care about the boat blowing up?
• Why exactly was Charlotte on this trip again? Is she the Rousseau replacement?
• I wonder - could they have dumped the explosives overboard? (Not that I'm expecting them to do that - that bomb's going off one way or another.)
• "I'm telling you I don't see the boat!" "Well then keep looking!" That Jack - a font of useful advice.
• Oh no - uh, oh. Bye Sawyer. Whew - he's still alive (for the moment).
• Benthem's an alias? Sigh - still no straight answers.
• Somewhere, a geek is now analyzing Hurley's chess board setup.
• Why don't they strap the heart monitor to someone else? You know, someone who's not dying?
• Why is Jin staying behind? To stare intelligently at the battery? I didn't know he was in management.
• So who've we got on the chopper? All of the Oceanic 6, plus Desmond and the pilot? And that's it?
• I'm getting flashbacks to one of the season finales of Farscape - the one where Cricton is left stranded in space when Moya disappears.
• Surely they all saw the boat blow from the island, rignt? Yep, I guess so.
• Looks like ABC has not one (Wipeout) but two (I Survived A Japanese Game Show) knockoffs of MXC in the works for the summer. I was wondering when that would start happening.
• Well, shit. He did it. By turning a wheel. This show is all kinds of fucked up.
• Jack should've said "See, I got you off the island. Happy now?"
• I'm kind of surprised about how they decided to use Claire as some kind of "special" character here, considering how little she seems to have been used in general (except as mother of Aaron). It's kind of like choosing Rose to be important out of the blue.
• Oh yeah - I forgot about Penny. Too many balls to keep track of here.
• So wow - season four will be without Jin, Michael, Desmond, Ben, Frank, ...
• Uh oh...Octogon Global Recruiting? Here goes another "Expanded Experience" full of clues that 99% of the fans won't find out about. Oh well, I'll just read the summary at the end of the game to see what I missed.
• Just a few minutes left - they still need to tell us who's in the coffin....and well, that was the most likely choice, really, if it wasn't Ben.

So, all in all, a season finale that really didn't have too many shocks in it, at least for people that have paid attention this year. Basically all of the moving parts had been announced - time travel, the Oceanic six identities, the moving island, the bomb on the boat, Jin's death - and so things unfolded mostly as expected. Really the only surprises were Keamy's reappearance (but not his ultimate death), and the identity of Jeremy Benthem, and even those weren't huge surprises.

But man, the show made it all work, all through this season. I just can't believe how much better things went this season compared to last season - remember back when the writers just decided to get weird and obscure (Fish Biscuits, anyone)? Not too much of that this season - we kept the plotline moving along, kept the threats and pressure up, and got plenty of reveals (but not everything) of the future. And several good setups for next season as well. I'd sure like to think 24 will turn things around like this after its lackluster last season, but the signs don't point to yes.

Extra Big-Mouth Bass

Second strangest news I've heard today: there is a World Fishing Network TV channel.

First strangest news I've heard today: it is now available in High-Def.

(Oh, and third-strangest news: I made it to 300 posts.)

TV Review: Futurama - "Bender's Big Score"

Wow. I'm a fan of Futurama, and this movie, the first new episodes in a couple of years, had gotten a lot of good reviews.

Which is why I'm amazed at how bad it was.

The time-travel plot had its moments, but a lot of the rest was just awful. And not funny.

Oh well...there's always the old DVDs and the reruns. Maybe the followup movies will pick things back up.

Back To The Trash

From Slashdot comes word of the revival of BattleBots, this time around on ESPN. I never really got much into the whole BattleBots/Robot Wars thing. We even had a chance to see it live at the JavaOne conference one year, which made you appreciate editors more than anything - it was 15-20 minutes of setup for about 2-3 minutes of "fighting", often with little to no action.

If they want to get me interested, get together a revival of Scrapheap Challenge (aka Junkyard Wars). And make it the British version with Robert Llewellyn, not the American version with (shudder) Tyler Whatshisname.

I Was Just Kidding

Last October, I reacted to the announcement of a new celebrity talk show moderated by professional angry liberal Lewis Black with this:

They'd have a hard time finding a show I'd be less interested in watching then yet another revival of Politically Incorrect with an angrier, trollier version of Bill Maher. Maybe if Rosie O'Donnell was a regular panel member, but that's about it.

Now comes word of an even worse upcoming crime against humanity:

Funny ladies Rosie O'Donnell (Nip/Tuck) and Fran Drescher (The Nanny) are working together on creating a new "fun, happy, family comedy" for TV. On Rosie's website, Fran and Rosie teamed up on camera to talk -- primarily about Fran's "cancer schmancer" campaign for public awareness -- but at the end, Rosie and Fran revealed a sitcom they are planning in which they'll star together.

Good lord. I just purchased a new subwoofer for my stereo system, and my HDTV purchase is still awaiting just the right deal to come down the road. I'd hate to think what even my modest setup would endure dealing with a Rosie/Fran team-up....

I'm sorry - I can't even continue this post. I'm going to be sick just thinking about it.

So Much For That Idea

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote:

The thought that one of my favorite shows is now in the hands of a guy that thinks the War on Carbon Emissions is somehow more real than the War on Terror doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. There's still a lot of time until next January; maybe Joel Surnow can reassert himself and get this show back on track - the right way.

Now I find that not only is Joel not coming to save the day, he's heading in the other direction. That takes my 24-o-meter from worried down to oh-well-it-was-nice-while-it-lasted. Wonder what I'll watch on Mondays after football next year?