Ping-Pong with Mr Song

One of my Chinese students is a top table-tennis player – 56th in New Zealand at any rate. Today I went over his house and knocked a ball back and forth with him. He gave me a few tips, and we were able to keep a rally going for 204 continuous hits!

Doctor Who: Army Of Ghosts / Doomsday

Part 1: Army Of Ghosts

We kick-off with a monologue from Rose about how much her life has changed since leaving Earth 24 episodes ago. Unfortunately, in 24 full-length episodes, only 2 have been away from Earth. A little self-consciously, we’re treated to 3 new shots of her on an alien planet to justify this statement.




So, the Doctor and Rose (cough) ‘return’ to Earth, to find it overrun with zombies.

This time, instead of dead zombies, gasmasked zombies, blood-controlled zombies, ill zombies, young zombies, Cyber-zombies, faceless zombies, or alien zombies, we have ghost zombies.


The ghosts are seriously weird. They look a bit scary, but the scariest thing is the way everyone treats them as normal, as they have been on Earth for a while. Shaun Of The Dead creeps in as a good influence here, with the Doctor flipping through TONS of TV stations, finding everything from a “ghost-report” (like a weather report) to a woman in love with one on Trisha.



The EastEnders clip, whilst laboured (one sentence would have been funnier than four) was entirely justified. It was ridiculously silly, but for an entirely good, logical reason. In fact, that's the moment that has stuck with me since watching the episode - real life dictating fiction. As for how this affects the canonicity of Dimensions In Time, it may be a while before my head is clear enough. ;)


Heading out to investigate, the Doctor gets to be quite Doctorish in this episode. Striding around in his Cid Sleuth coat and 3D glasses, he was once again the eccentric individual who just didn’t care what anyone else thought of him.


And then he finally encounters Torchwood – the top secret organisation whose name has been forcefully shoved into the background of nearly every episode for the past year. Common policemen in the 1950s – they were talking about Torchwood. Thousands of years in the future in the one story set on another planet – those people were talking about Torchwood too. Even a TV game-show host in the year 200,100 AD asked a question about Torchwood. Not very ‘top secret’ by anyone's measure.

After such a long build-up (with more up-front valid references in The Christmas Invasion, Tooth And Claw and Love & Monsters), Torchwood eventually turns out to be merely a group of airheads. No danger there then.


Even their computer system has one colour and apparently runs in DOS. I assume that's for the same reason why they're still using those clumsy massive 5-foot levers. Also, although their job is to stay on top of alien invasions, they’re blissfully unaware that the Diet-Cybermen have a secret hide-out in one of their offices.

(sigh) What a waste of taxpayers' money.


One of this season’s strengths would be the regular and guest-cast playing off each other for laughs, and this episode is no exception.

Doctor: "Her ankles are going."
Jackie: "You'll find out where my ankle's going."

The Doctor fails to convince Torchwood (a genius name by the way) to stop their dangerous “ghost-shifts”, so he gives up with the word “okay” and asks for a cup of tea instead. The unspoken bluff-match that is in fact taking place is brilliant.

Finally the worldwide ghosts blur and turn into more Diet-Cybermen, enabling them to invade pretty well every home in the world simultaneously.


The Doctor gets one of the most chilling lines ever:

"This is beyond an invasion - it's a victory."


And then it’s cheers all round as the Daleks also unexpectedly show up at the end of episode 1.

I could pick apart lots of little things about this episode, (eg. that woman feeling scared of the "building area" solely because that's how the viewer is perceived as feeling) but the bottom line is that I actually really enjoyed it.

Afterwards Flatmate Dave asked me if I felt suitably invaded, and I did, and I still do. It was the most victorious invasion of Earth I've ever seen on the show.

And, like it or not, there’s just no way of ignoring that it was coincidentally directed by Graeme Harper, an old hand from the original series.

Part 2: Doomsday

Another non-specific title that could refer to almost any episode of Doctor Who ever, but really, what else could you call an all-out war between the Daleks and the (Diet) Cybermen all over present-day Earth?

Glossing over minor holes, (like why anyone would name a prison ship “The Genesis Ark”) and an awkwardly misconceived, although funny, romantic scene between Jackie and Pete while thousands of people are dying every second, this episode really delivered too.

It was funny, it was exciting, it was what everyone had told me to expect last season.

And it actually appears to have been proof-read! I was taken completely by surprise when Mickey returned, not because he did, but because afterwards the Doctor didn’t know he was back. Finally the writers realised the big difference between what the viewers know, and what the characters do.

(And then Rose went and remembered the events of The Parting Of The Ways. Oh well…)

Even the Doctor’s final goodbye to Rose at the end, implied that this was the end of a much better-written series than much of it has actually turned out to be.

Note must be made however of this final story’s legion similarities to the end of the last series. Same guest-characters, same swarms of Daleks ravaging the Earth, same Rose getting sent away for safety but getting back anyway, same confrontation between two great powers, and same surprise newcomer appearing in the TARDIS as the final cliffhanger.

Still, a fine conclusion to a season that has definitely been an improvement on the last one. Still a way to go yet mind, but here’s hoping that this closing two-parter signifies a graduation of the writing-quality for next year.


(screencaps from http://doctorwho.time-and-space.co.uk/coppermine/index.php?cat=3)

Churchio!

Attending a church service in another language can be a bit like watching something on Channel 9.

One moment you think you’ve got everything sussed. The minister is addressing everyone in Korean – yes, that’s the sermon, got it. Then everyone closes their eyes and nods their head forward in unison, and like a soldier you bow forward too, to pray. Then the pianist starts, ahh – this’ll be a hymn. Then suddenly everyone except you is producing flowers, forming a line, and crooning synchronised gibberish with mime-actions that cannot possibly represent anything on Earth.

And you’re the foolish white man trying to join in.

In fact, stuff the analogy - just watch this clip off Channel 9 before reading any further, and you'll go through a similar experience to what I did:



There – that’s what it was like today.

In a nutshell - just what in the universe were they all doing?????

Before we get there, this post does not end with my finding out. We’ll never know, I’m afraid. I can only tell you that whatever bizarre untranslatable ritual that I was willingly flapping my arms about and saying ‘Amen’ to, I enjoyed it two weeks running.

This is what I like about attending a church whose principle language I don’t speak – one deals in concepts that don’t need words to translate – friendship, fun, helping, food, acceptance. The English lessons I’m conducting for them will probably ruin all that. :)

Anyway, today I was the Salvation Army Korean Corp’s official photographer for a big certificate-giving ceremony during the service. Captain Kang wanted the event captured on real 35mm film (!) rather than pixelly digital, so being a dinosaur about such matters, I was only too happy to expose 100 shots of everyone. Here, chronologically, are the five that I like the best:


I like this one because everyone looks different. It reflects the church’s involvement in the diverse community – these are all clearly different people from different walks of life.

On the other hand, these members are uniformed to look the same. To me it implies devotion and commitment to a common belief.

My favourite shot from the day. There’s a bit of both the above pictures here – the identical uniforms, all containing such different people. They all look so animated, yet each in a different way.

Final blessing.

I like the way they all instinctively knew how to form a group pose! That's my top five.

I can’t recall who took this, but I’m a member here too!

Afterwards I gave the Captain the three spent rolls of film, and headed out to my favourite bus stop in the whole world:

I mean it must be my favourite – I spend so much of my life here!

Now that my English-speaking church – cession - has moved to The Depot in Howick, I can get a bus back from the city on Sunday no problem.

The first service at our new location was last Sunday, and for some bizarre reason I was asked to host the first two services there. I kicked-off the first one by stealing one of old friend Jamie’s gags – “I love this church – it’s the sort of place where people come up to you and say things like ‘Hey – you’re new here. Would you like to MC our first meeting at our new venue?’” Fortunately Jamie’s material got the desired opening laugh, indeed Brett’s gag at Scott's expense went down pretty well too.

Last week and this have been a two-week series entitled Trading Spaces. Based around Nehemiah’s rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls, it looked at the building of a church, and how this is really about building community, something very central to what cession is about. Brett had written me a script, and told me to play myself as a reality TV presenter to deliver it.

I was grateful that he wanted it in English this time.


Boutros Boutros-Ghali!

mummy? Are you my mummy?

Doctor Who: Fear Her

After the pre-credits scene I accurately predicted the main points of this week's story, right down to the plot-mistakes that would be made, simply because this show has become so generic.

England. People disappear. No-one suspects aliens despite all the invasions of recent times. The authorities are invisible. Broken family. Doctor/Rose discovers the captives’ pleading disembodied faces in a room. Hidden villain obeying alien. Rose/Doctor captured for second half, so the other has to manage on their own. Alien wants to capture the whole Earth. Race against time, as the thickie alien never realises that it could have captured the entire Earth before the episode had even begun. Because the alien only knows what its own plan is once the TV audience has been told it. Everyone returns to normal. The memories / experience / ramifications of so many people being captured are never even acknowledged. The Idiot's Lantern anyone?




Even using a live TV broadcast of a procession down a street as a timeframe device is repeated here again.




On the plus side, the Doctor and Rose actually display some sort of ongoing working relationship here - their dialogue and banter sparkles the way I think it's always been meant to. Then just before the end, they suddenly seize-up again and clunkily change the subject to their relationship, and by implication what might happen to it in next week’s episode. That, unfortunately, is called script-editing.


Overall, this could have been great had it not been preempted by so many similar episodes before it. In retreading so much, it contained little to call its own. Even the title Fear Her doesn't really narrow down which episode we're talking about. Something old-fashioned like The Artist Of Death would have done it.

How sad that the most flexible format in TV series history, a show that has always been able to be about anyone, anything, anywhere at anytime, has been "revived" in such a formulaic cage.


7 out of 10. A nice little tale, rather bruised by the episodes surrounding it.

(screencaps from http://doctorwho.time-and-space.co.uk/coppermine/thumbnails.php?album=12&page=1)

It's a Mark Hamill Weekend

These days, Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker in Star Wars) can generally be found performing voice-overs for cartoons. Occassionally he even gets to play himself.

Yesterday I sat down to watch The Simpsons and was pleasantly surprised to find they were showing the episode Mayored To The Mob. I’d heard about this, but never actually seen it. Initially (I mean for the first act) it’s all about Springfield’s bi-monthly science-fiction convention. (yes, Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con)


As with all the best Simpsons, the one-liners and sight-gags come thick and fast…


Homer: “Are you sure this is a sci-fi convention – it’s full of nerds!”

It even manages to become one of those rare SF beasts - an American show containing a joke about Doctor Who.


By the time Mark Hamill shows up, it just keeps on getting better and better.


Mayor Quimby: “We’re screwed! Use your light-sabre!”

Mark Hamill: “And break it??? George Lucas makes me pay for these!”

I shan’t tell you what happens, but I was sniggering at both the programme and myself like an MTV character. Alas, the eighth minute loomed, and with it, as is the way with The Simpsons, the story went off in another direction entirely, in this case to chronicle Homer beginning his new career as Mayor Quimby’s bodyguard.



Mayor Quimby moans in pain as his two bodyguards approach.

Bodyguard #1: “Ey boss! We were just talkin' about ya.”

Quimby: (furious) “You call yourselves bodyguards?!? You’re fired!”

Bodyguard #1: (cooly) “Fired, eh? Who else are ya gonna find to take a bullet for ya?”

Quimby: “I’ll tell you who! HIM!” (points at Homer)

Homer: “Woo-hoo!”

Marge: (disapprovingly) “Homer! I don’t think you were listening to what he just –“

Homer: (folding his arms decisively) “I said… ‘Woo. Hoo.’”

Marge: (worried)”Hrrrrrrrrm.”

Still, I kept on laughing.

Then tonight I got home from church and came across Hamill's episode of The Muppet Show.


And it’s even more of a joy today than it was in the early 80s. When the infamous Pigs In Space sketch gets going, for a while it’s just 3 characters from Star Wars in a spaceship, with nohing to tell you you’re actually watching The Muppet Show. It might just as well be a forgotten TV sitcom spin-off from the movie, complete with laugh-track. When muppets do show up of course, this is hardly out of keeping with Star Wars anyway – I’m looking at you Yoda.

Anyway, beyond this adventure, The Star Wars Holiday Special, The Making Of Star Wars, Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game and C-3PO's appearance on Swap Shop, I have to wonder just how much live-action TV Star Wars there is out there, and whether there’s some way of fitting it all together into one cohesive storyline.

Oh I know, they break the fourth wall and everything, but somehow muppets just take you with them on that one. Even in this show, Luke Skywalker turns out to be related to Mark Hamill, who upon hearing the laugh track, actually waves at the audience off-camera. And he’s backstage at the time! By the time we get the stage curtains peeling back to reveal Scooter playing in his room with a superimposed see-through band (the “monophonic symphony six-string orchestra”), followed by jumpcuts to him in another place and another costume, we’ve well and truly abandoned any pretence that this is all happening live on stage at a theatre.


After that, the station fast-forwarded 15 years to show an episode of Muppets Tonight (the same format but set in a TV station) guest-starring Martin Short.

I remember this series – the BBC started showing this primetime to much fanfare in 1996, but quickly moved it to mornings before it vanished completely. There were complaints that the humour was too American, parodying as it did shows (and I assume adverts) that we’d never got in the UK. Whilst it didn’t quite have the same charm as The Muppet Show, Muppets Tonight was still mad and silly, and I took a rebellious delight in enjoying all the old running jokes once more, despite the BBC’s decision that I really wasn’t that interested.


Sal Minella: "Johnny Fiama, coming through!"
Johnny: "Hey Sal, what'd you drop-kick him for? He's just a kid selling chocolates."
Sal: "Yeah, right Johnny, and I'm a monkey."
They stare at each other for a couple of seconds. Johnny raises an eyebrow.
Sal: (carrying on) "Okay, Johnny Fiama, coming through!"

No Mark Hamill this time though. One of these days I might actually have to watch those darn films.


"I only had two problems wrong with that blog entry."
"Only two? What were they?"
"The words... and the pictures!"
"Ahhhhh..huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh!!!"

X-Men: The Last Stan

From: Krusty [mailto:hershel.krustofski@klownkollege.ac.uk]
To: Goble
Date: 06-Jun-2006 00:10
Subject: X-Men 3
Mailed-by: klownkollege.ac.uk

Is X-Men 3 out in New Zealand yet? Go see it! The opening scene gives us some background on that crazy hot dog vendor from the first film, we even see his house! And he lives next door to Chris Claremont!!!

From: Steve Goble
Sent: 25 July 2006 15:35
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: Re: X-Men 3

Saw X-Men 3 tonight - really enjoyed it. Thought it was the best of the trilogy. Absolutely brilliant final shot of the chessboard - won't be there on the DVD. (bit of a Josie-esque moment) Juggernaut should have been played by Michael Caine. It was impossible to take the beast seriously, but at least he was more believable than Nightcrawler.

It was the final screening in the whole of Auckland (bit of a Josie-esque event), so flatmate Dave and I trekked over to St Luke's (shopping centre/indoor town) for it, where we discovered that it was a special screening for the hearing impaired.

On 26/07/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:

Special screening for the hearing impaired? Were they all shouting very slowly and over-enunciating every line of dialogue? (and not just the ex-Star Trek actors!)
"I... AMMMMM... MMMMMAG-NEAT-OH. No, MAG... MAG... MMMM - M, FOR MOTHER. YES, M. MAG... LIKE MAGPIE. MAGPIE. M-A-G-P-I-E. NO, I'M NOT CALLED MAGPIE. IT'S MAG-NEAT-OH. MMM-AAAA-GGGG.. Oh... for crying out loud. YES, YES, IT'S MAGPIE. JUST CALL ME MAGPIE. MAGPIE-MAN."
Dr Frasier Beast: "Go ahead, I'm listening."

From: Steve Goble
Sent: 25 July 2006 15:44
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: Re: X-Men 3

Yes, it was a very slow-moving film, and entirely about an old man watering his garden, apparently.

On 26/07/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:

Did you spot Claremont as well?

From: Steve Goble
Sent: 25 July 2006 15:48
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: Re: X-Men 3

No. Who he?

On 26/07/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:



Living next door to Stan Lee in the opening scene. Lee is mowing his lawn while Claremont is watering his garden with a hose, I think (could be the other way around, I saw it three months ago!). He's in his 50s, chubby and has a greying beard. Chris Claremont wrote X-Men for 19 years, I'm sure you know. And the original Captain Britain Weekly (yay!).

From: Steve Goble
Sent: 25 July 2006 15:55
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: Re: X-Men 3

Actually Smilin' Uncle Stan was the guy with the hair-raising hosepipe.


Since 6 years ago he also appeared as a horrifying hot dog vendor in X-Men 1, while this latest appearance was set “20 years ago”, this time he was obviously playing the hot dog vendor's father.

On 26/07/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:

I thought the doppelgänger with the hosepipe was actually the younger hot dog seller. On the basis that it was only 14 years before X-Men 1.

From: Steve Goble
Sent: 25 July 2006 16:05
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: Re: X-Men 3

So would that scene have been before he almost died from crossing the road while reading a newspaper in Daredevil?


I thought about this too, mentally debating whether "20 years ago" meant 20 years ago from today - 1986 - or 20 years ago from "the not-very-remote future" claimed in the opening caption of X-Men 1.


The characters' ages in the future stuff seemed to imply that it was the latter, which would mean that one of the two captions should have read differently. Of course, X-Men 1 was released in 2000, when the caption “the not-very-remote-future” could have actually meant 2006…

On 26/07/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:

I presumed it meant "twenty years ago from when this film is set." (i.e. if the film is set in 2016 then this was 1996) I didn't really think about it further. I've always been uncomfortable with that "Not very distant future" caption that started the first X-Men film. It felt like it had been tagged on at the last minute after a focus group had got confused by all this superpower stuff. It didn't surprise me that they made no reference to it on the second film.

The guy crossing the road who almost gets run over...


...he becomes a night watchman*...


...and a mailman by day** (Newman!).


And he still saves that kid from the falling masonry.*** The real question is why wasn't Stan Lee in Elektra? Or Blade? (And I'll bet he's not in The Punisher either) Maybe he only does Marvel movies starring characters he created?

* in Hulk – Smilin’ Steve.
** in The Fantastic Four – Still smilin’ Steve.
*** in Spider-Man – Still sweet smilin’ Steve.

From: Steve Goble
Sent: 25 July 2006 16:17
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: Re: X-Men 3


Don't forget he served on a jury too. ("The Third Telemoviesequel Of The Incredible Hulk")

Heck, he's done so much, the real question is surely why there isn't a Mighty Marvel Movie about The Man™ himself.

On 26/07/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:

He was one of the major stars in a recent Mark Hamill-directed movie. I kid you not. I don't know if Stan is related to Darth Vader.

On 27/07/06, Steve Goble wrote:


Stan has played himself many times, most notably in cartoons like The Simpsons and The Incredible Hulk.

From: Steve Goble
Sent: 27 July 2006 03:42
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: Re: X-Men 3

And he also played himself in his daughter's wedding too.

On 29/07/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:


He appears as the minister in the wedding of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones in New Avengers Annual #1. It's a bit cutesy, in my opinion. And, though it is the wedding of Luke Cage, it does not occur during any recognised Christian holiday.

On 29/07/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:

And Spider-Man (1994?), where he appeared in the final episode as himself.

On 29/07/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:

He was also in:

Mallrats as himself.


Princess Diaries 2 as a foreign ambassador.
I guess the latter is a giveaway here. He's just an actor, playing multiple roles.

From: Steve Goble
Sent: 32 July 2006 03:42
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: Re: X-Men 3

Are you seriously telling me that The X-Men, Juggernaut, Magneto, Captain Britain, Daredevil, the incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Elektra, Blade, the Punisher, Darth Vader, the Simpsons and the New Avengers are all real, but Stan “The Man™” Lee isn’t???

On 32/07/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:

I tried to break it to you as gently as I could, kid.

Website: http://www.klownkrusty.blogspot.com

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X-Men: The Last Stand is available here.

(X-Men:The Last Stand screencaps from screencap-paradise.com)