Friday 23 May 2008

Red daleks in Doctor Who Season 4 finale

There's been a lot of speculation about whether Davros was going to crop up in the season 4 finale of Doctor Who, but the possibility of that being the case was made all the closer for us when we were told by a reliable source that the Mill FX house that does the effects work for Doctor Who has been playing around with daleks that are to appear in the finale of the current season, daleks that might (for some reason) be red.

The details are up for question, but the fact that the daleks are to appear in the finale now seems to us to be a fact.

Mind you, it wouldn't be the first time we've been wrong.

Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf

Today we went to a one man stand up show by a bloke called Toby Hadoke which was entitled 'MOTHS ATE MY DR WHO SCARF' at the Playhouse Theatre in Oxford. It was brilliant - a comedy romp through one man's obsession with the premier science fiction show the UK has ever produced.

If you are a Doctor Who fan, and especially a Doctor Who fan who can remember back as far the early years of Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, then you absolutely have to see this show. Hadoke's routine is funny enough for all, but for those who went through the same experiences that he did (and I personally can relate to just about every one) then it is downright hilarious.

An intimate knowledge of Doctor Who is advisable to get the absolute best out of the show, but if you know nothing about the show at all it is still money well spent as anyone who has ever had an abiding interest in anything will be able to understand what he's talking about.

But it's not just Doctor Who. Hadoke's journey takes in boarding school, bullying, university, sex, marriage, fatherhood, the British National Party, Casualty, Margaret Thatcher, terrrorism and a whole host of other current day concerns.

Rarely has a man been able to take utter geekdom and make it not only so accessible, but downright bloody cool.

For that alone, he deserves you as an audience. There's not one person who walked out of the show that we attended that didn't walk out without a smile on their face.

Tuesday 13 May 2008

Rant - post credits scenes

What is it with film makers putting small scenes right at the end of the their movies after the credits have finally finished rolling?

Yes, I'm talking about you Jon Favreau, director of IRON MAN. If you haven't seen the film yet then wait until the end of the credits for a very short scene that has a lot of people getting excited. For those that missed it, there are bootleg copies of the scene on the internet and, for once, I fully support anyone who downloads them. Youtube has taken it down because the studio has screamed copyright infringement, but come on fellas. It's like a couple of minutes that half of your audience never saw.

Once upon a time films ended with the words 'The End' and the lights came up and everyone went home. Then someone somewhere decided that every single person who worked on a film ought to have their name on the screen no matter what they did. Do we really need to know the name of the receptionist of the firm of accountants that looked after the insurance bond? Really? The credits on some of the big blockbusters can run for ten or fifteen minutes after the action that we came to see is all over.

Putting a scene after the credits might be a legitimate way of getting the audience to sit through the endless list of meaningless names and might even give some people a thrill (the fanboys love the Iron Man scene), but what use is it having the scene there if you're not going to tell anybody beforehand? I liked IRON MAN, but I am already predisposed to not liking the sequel because I was annoyed as hell at missing the scene. If you must put these scenes in then bloody well tell the audience.

Better still, when the film ends, let it end.

The New Sci Fi channel website is up and running

The Sci Fi Channel's UK website abandoned its forum and pretty much everything else for a few months whilst it sorted out a complete revamp. Whilst have a wander through my bookmarks the other night, I found that the new look is up and running and the forum seems to be taking posts (not that there are any).

Get yourselves over to www.scifi.co.uk and get on the forum and start posting.

BIG BANG THEORY -not sci fi but we love it

We love Big Bang Theory. It's not science fiction, but it's an ace comedy show about super-intelligent geeks with limited social interaction skills. Sound like anyone you know? There's no end of science fiction related debates (one episode started with the line 'You know what the problem is with teleportation?') and howl can you not like a show that has a bunch of guys show up at a Planet of the Apes movie marathon to find the whole audience wearing monkey masks?

Most importantly, it's really funny.

It's on Channel 4 and E4 and well worth searching out.

Hot girl as Princess Leia alert

Princess Leia in a gold bikini was a sight that was burned into the imagination of many an impressionable mind when RETURN OF THE JEDI came out and it's clearly an image that has been retained by those kids now that they're grown up and making shows themselves.

Yvonne Strahovski is the latest one to grace our screens in the CHUCK episode CHUCK VS THE SANDWORM and she looks great.

Our other favourite was Jennifer Aniston when she dressed up in FRIENDS.

Certainly better than some of the examples you see walking around Collectormania.

Neil Marshall's DOOMSDAY

Went to see this on Saturday night and the full review is available by clicking on the link above, but it was interesting how few people go to midnight showings at our local cinema. Sure, it's late, but you don't get screaming kids and thrown popcorn and all that. We kind of like being with people who are willing to commit to the film in this way.

DOOMSDAY is worth committing to as well, being BRITISH. Normally that means some sort of petticoat-filled costume drama or quirky middle-class rom com, but this is a full on futuristic action flick with cannibals, car crashes, beheadings, nasty viruses, tanks running over people and all the nonsense that you might expect from a US no-brainer. It's also a perfect weekend switch your brain off sort of movie.

Well done to director Neil Marshall for making such an anti-british film industry cliche movie.

All British sci fi fans get out there and support this movie. You won't regret it.

You should also catch up with Mark Kermode's review podcast on the Five Live section of the BBC website.

The Sci Fi Freak Blog comes to the internet

It's taken a while to clear the schedules of the team to get around to setting up the Sci Fi Freak Blog, but it's finally here.

The reason for this is because there has been just so much great (and, let's face it, not so great) science fiction on TV and cinema screens in the UK. We've all been beavering away watching the new shows and films and trying to catch up with old ones to review on our parent site The Sci Fi Freak Site, but things have slackened off momentarily (US writers' strike and pause before the summer blockbuster season be blamed) and so we've set up the blog at last.

This is to take a less formal look at the science fiction scene in the UK (on TV and cinema) than our parent site, talk about things that we haven't see yet and generally shoot the breeze about all things sci fi that come across our radar.

Hell, we might even throw in a few personal posts along the way, if you're unlucky.

We do this for fun, make no money out of it, and really just want to be liked so comment on anything that you see here, subscribe to the blog and let us know of anything that we ought to be looking at.

Anyway here we go. 'Live long and prosper' as a non-human once said.