Eighth Doctor Review Update

So I never thought I would actually have to update the Eighth Doctor, as I figured his run was over in the movie.  But as you're well aware, Paul McGann's Doctor came back in Night of the Doctor with quite possibly the greatest intro line ever given the context: "I'm a Doctor, but probably not the one you were expecting."  Not gonna lie, I flipped out when he appeared, and the segment was really what the Eighth Doctor needed: some closure and establishment of character.  Like many people, I had a hard time imagining the mild-mannered Eighth Doctor going to war, so it was interesting to see that he did not, and the hatred for himself when forcing his regeneration into something that could is vividly apparent.  But what caught my attention the most was his final line.  "Physician, heal thyself" is an except from Luke 4:23, further driving home his connections with being the Second Coming that I pointed out years ago.  Looks like Steven Moffat also caught that link.

Hoping to actually continue these posts again sometime soon!  My comic, Spoofy Randomness, is drawing to a close soon, so that will open up more time.  If you haven't read it, you should.  Those of you stumbling onto this blog because of the Doctor Who connections, Matt Smith is a regular character in it.

Peri and the Technicolor Dreamcoat

Nope, the new outfit still ain't
helpin'.

Completely by coincidence, the first two Doctors I am reviewing are also probably the two most infamous.  As mentioned previously, I do blame the horrible scriptwriting of Fox and the simple lack of screentime for Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor (although he still remains at second-to-last on my list, manly due to such great competition).  The Sixth Doctor, as portrayed by Colin Baker (no relation to the fantastic Tom Baker, by the way), does suffer from the same scriptwriting flaw.  However, there are other reasons why he is at the bottom of my list, and we shall discuss those here.

Colin Baker's era as the Doctor was the shortest of any of the classic Doctors at slightly over two seasons, and arguably the second shortest of all if one counts McGann's time as between 1996 and 2005 (in which he did appear in many radio dramas and novels), only being longer than Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor.  With the start of Baker's era came some other changes to the Doctor Who seasons: they were shortened from the previous 20 episodes in season 21 to 13 episodes in season 22, which was an ominous sign that would hang over the series until it was finally placed in hiatus in 1989.  While Season 22 had longer 45 minute episodes, Season 23 returned to the 25 minute format with 14 episodes, reducing Baker's airtime even further.  There was also an 18-month production hiatus in between Baker's two seasons.

The Eighth Doctor: Worst Doctor Ever, or the Second Coming?

Another reason why Fox is not allowed to run TV showsThe Eighth Doctor, portrayed by Paul McGann, has been widely critisized, and with good reason.  He only makes one "real" appearance in TV canon (later appearing as a sketch in John Smith's diary and using old footage in The Next Doctor and The Eleventh Hour), and this appearance has many marked flaws.  Doctor Who: The Movie suffers from being a direct-to-TV movie made in 1996, and given the absence of Doctor Who at the time (it went onto hiatus in 1989 and did not return in TV episode format until 2005) much question was given as to the canonicity of this movie, which wasn't resolved untl John Smith's diary showed the Eighth Doctor.  As a result, McGann is only really known for this single appearance, a failed back-door pilot by Fox to bring Doctor Who to America, and what a flop it was.  Note: For two reasons, I'm going to ignore radio dramas, books, and comics for two reasons.  1) They are not generally considered to be canon, and 2) I know little about them anyway.

Ramblings About British Television, Blu-Ray, And Stuff

Look at me, all high-tech and whatnot with Smurf-colored DVDs.First of all, I haven't seen what the big deal is about Blu-Ray. My picture looks plenty fine and I didn't see the need to pay extra money to get Blu-Ray discs, as well as needing to buy a Blu-Ray player to play the expensive discs.  That being said, Laura's mother was kind enough to buy me a new DVD/Blu-Ray player for Christmas (I had been hooking my laptop up to the TV with an S-TV cord of dubious quality and irksome inconvenience).  When looking on Amazon today, I found that Season 1 of Sherlock (second greatest current show, in my opinion) was available on DVD and Blu-Ray for the same price, which also happened to be fairly cheap.  I figured now that I have a Blu-Ray player, I might as well take advantage of it and see if it's worth it, so I ordered the season.  In a few days, we'll see if Blu-Ray lives up to the hype.

D&D: Review of Fortune Cards

After trying out the new Fortune Cards at D&D: Encounters and mulling it over for a night, here is a review of what I think of them.

Overview:  The description of the Fortune cards is as follows: "Fortune takes many forms. The hand of fate, destiny, divine intervention, or even just plain luck—adventurers attribute their good (or bad) fortune to such agents. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Fortune Cards™ represent these forces acting on your character and his or her allies. Try using these cards in your DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® roleplaying game. May fortune favor you!" (taken from http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/FortuneCardRules.pdf)  Each player brings their own deck, and the deck needs to contain any multiple of 10 cards.  There are three types of cards: Attack, Defense, and Tactics.  There needs to be at least three of each type of card in a 10-card deck, 6 of each in a 20-card deck, and so on.

At the start of an encounter, each player shuffles their deck and draws one card.  You are only allowed one card in your hand.  At the start of the turn, the player can discard their card to draw a new one, draw a new card if there is not one in your hand, or hold on to the current card.  One card can be played per round, and the cards say when they can be played (i.e. while attacking, when hit, etc.).  The card requires no action to be played.

HGSS Pokemon Discussion

So here is just a random note to remark on HGSS stuff and post battle videos.

Game: Pokémon SoulSilver
Trainer ID: Jacob 15091
Pal Pad: 0603 8460 4500
Badges: 16