Freyburg

Against all logic and reason, Entertainment Weekly tracked down someone who hasn’t seen any of the Star Wars films, old or new, and subjected him to them in narrative order. The results? Wacky!

We had some technical weirdness with this one, and then we sorta ran out of steam near the end, due to tiredness and a lack of hard Dr. Who news. Plus we had to start it twice over thanks to flaky interweb connections. But by later tonight, RDS #12 will be released for your listening pleasure. And for the upcoming #13, let us know how you plan to celebrate the 43rd anniversary of Classic Who. We’ll be sure to include your input on the next show.

For all the caterwauling about citizen journalism and vlogging, it looks like one old media saw continues to be true: If you’re a cute female and you can talk into a camera reasonably well, you’re pretty much set (provided you’re young.) Amanda Cogdon, ex of Rocketboom, is going to be reporting for ABC News, and Amber MacArthur (who hosts Command N and is a TWIT regular) has already become CityTV’s resident net.expert.

Now, I’m not saying these two don’t deserve their success. Both of them seem to be pretty intelligent, and they had the guts to strike out and do video work on the Internet before the rest of us lazy sods. Plus Amber Macarthur is quite good on the various TWIT shows she appears on, so more power to her.

But to me, the move to TV says less about old media catching onto a new talent pool then it does about the same rules about old media (hair, teeth and ambition make for success) applying to the new medium, as well as putting the brakes on the “death to TV!” caterwauling usually heard from the less visually appealing (and predominantly male, btw) podcasters and vloggers out there. I include myself in that category…I’ve got a podcast about Dr. Who, for f**k’s sakes! It’s pretty cool that I can do a radio show every week about my favorite television program and distribute it for next to nothing to a global audience….but it’s not going to take over from “Friends” any time soon, nor are most of the podcasts out there. Is that all bad? Dunno. But it’s a good idea to keep this stuff in perspective.

After a long hard slog, Arabic news powerhouse Al Jazeera is launching an English network, going head to head with CNN and Fox News. The article in the Media section of the Guardian is a good read, though I had to do a bit of screwing around to see it. I linked to the print version, so hopefully you all won’t have to screw around with registration or other such nonsense.

The NYT magazine profiles several funny folk who are using YouTube to do an end-run around Hollywood and reach an audience on their own terms. More power to ‘em, I sez.

The Democrats are already talking about a “phased withdrawl” of troops from Iraq, but that won’t stop the carnage unfolding in the country. Particularly in Baghdad, where the morgues are working overtime to deal with all the dead bodies.

Valve, I love you and I want to have your babies, but you’re taking this whole “episodic gaming” concept into once-a-year territory, and it ain’t right to play with a brotha like that.

Reason magazine has an article detailing why poor countries not only stay poor, but get worse off as the rest of the world gets better. Their conclusion? Governments robbing their own citizens blind are the cause of many an African nation’s woes.

That’s the feeling of editorial cartoonist and columnist Ted Rall, who opines in a column for Yahoo titled “Our Long National Nightmare has just Begun” that the Bush administration might go off the rails and turn America into a police state. He does point out some fairly frightening legislation that would allow them to legally get away with some pretty shifty and authoritarian moves, such as ceding control of the National Guard from the states to the federal government, to be used “in time of emergency.”

Still, it could be alarmist speculation on Rall’s part. But added up, Bush’s security measures could handily be abused, leading to a fascist America with delusions of righteousness. Eep.

Our 11th episode, a review of “Cyber-Woman,” the unimaginatively named but nonetheless quite decent episode of Torchwood featuring a sexy cyberlady smashing things and generally causing strife and havoc. We also once again veer wildly off course, discussing my night job taking pictures of celebrities, the weather, Monty Python, and a plethora of other trivia, some of it even Who-related. Steven also relays how he’ll be spending his Novermber 23rd, the 43rd anniversary of Classic Who. (Hint: it will be somewhat nerdy.) (feed, web, direct download)