POSTED IN MEDIA...

May 14, 2007

Radio Free Skaro #34 - Fanwank Ahoy!

With no episode to comment on, we've decided to devote this episode to random blather, mumblesuch and fanwankery. Our first couple of takes were felled by the Internet gods, but we managed to squeak out a half hour of conjecture and mockery. Next week, 42! (web, direct download)

7 comment(s) so far (Post your own)

1

On May 15, 2007 1:27 AM, Chris Burgess said:

Wow... a Cyberdalek. I laughed my head off at the mention of this and the surrounding chatter about it, but I honestly don't remember that. Warren's memory is definitely far better than mine, but then mine does tend to be rather poor. Thanks to the poor memory I don't recall and asinine things Warren did back in the day, so I'll have to offer a temporary reprieve here, barring something sparking in the back of my mind. =)

I do remember doing silly things as a kid when I'd "play" Doctor Who, like using a ratchet as a sonic screwdriver. There was this one time when a few friends and I, under the guise of being a Doctor Who fan club (this would quite probably be before I joined 10-0, and I did that when I was just shy of 13, so we're talking WAY back for this) of going to the Southgate branch of the public library, when there was still actually a branch there, and checking out all 100+ Target novelisations in one fell swoop. We trundled them back to one person's place (and thankfully this person now lives in Geneva and I doubt he'd come across this!) and diligently put them all on a shelf, nicely sorted chronologically, and there they sat (save the ones we'd plunk off the shelf and read) until they had to be taken back to the library 3 weeks later.

And that's some good off-topicness with the whole Star Wars rant. =)

The Doctor and the Enterprise.. yeah, there was a proper book done if memory serves. I recall seeing it at Warp One as well, plus someone had it at a 10-0 meeting back in the day. I never read it, I know that much... and free or not now, I don't know that I want to read it. I avoided fan fiction to a great degree, despite writing my own having it published in the 10-0 and LOST fanzines, so I'm not about to start now.

And the Macra reference... I've watched 3 of the 4 episodes of The Macra Terror, and as I've said in the past, if I remembered the plot of The Macra Terror when I first saw Gridlock I would certainly have not been surprised to see them show up 40 years after their initial appearance. They fit so incredibly well in that story (or more properly, the story was tailored quite well to feature them). I don't doubt the fact the original story is missing played a role in them coming back, because, really, who'd expect them to resurrect such an obscure monster? I seem to recall Steven making a comment about just how little of the original episodes exist, and he's not exaggerating... of the first three episodes there's maybe 30 seconds of actual footage existing.

Monsters from the past that would be interesting to see... wow. We've had what, 4 repeat monsters now? Macra, Cybermen, Daleks and Autons/Nestenes. Wow, hmm. Well, first off I want to see another Time Lord. There's all the talk of is he or isn't he about Mr. Saxon, and we'll know soon enough if he is nor not, but I don't even care if it's an iconic Time Lord. Now, I'm not saying bring back Drax, but neither does it have to be The Master or Borusa or The Meddling Monk. A nice heartfelt story about The Doctor running across this other Time Lord who feels they're the last one, only to be proven wrong. As long as they don't go overboard and get retarded like they did with the Daleks (there was one, there were many, there were millions, there were 4, there was one... do you hear me, RTD?!?). Make it a one-off and be done with it, with the fans comforted by the knowledge The Doctor really isn't alone. Oh, and none of this Cartmel Masterplan BS either with Ace becoming a Time Lord... with the hard-on RTD has for the Rose character (interesting mental image there given his sexual orientation) you had to wonder if he had some plan like that in mind for her.

Beyond that... the Ogrons would be a good choice. They're a mercenary race, they don't need to be reintroduced alongside the Daleks. I wouldn't mind seeing the Silurians or Sea Devils again (despite what happened in Warriors of the Deep). Really though, aside from the Slitheen and the odd other creature, the new series is doing quite well with coming up with its own baddies and monsters... I don't think we need to revisit the past too much.

As to your TV quandary, you're out of luck. Garbage in, garbage out basically. Your only choice is to get an HD box and subscribe to HD service... and even then not all HD looks fantastic (as Steven noted). Basically what I do with my wonderful TV (man, I love my TV) is use it for DVDs and XviDs. XviD stuff looks passable, but DVDs make the thing sing. The set is 4 years old now so it's not 720p (it's 540p/1080i max) or 1080p so I can't do upscaling and watching HD-DVD/Blu-Ray is pointless, but 480p content looks spiffy. Also, thanks to my wonderful sources, the MPG2 copies of Doctor Who I get each and every week look most fantastic. I'm sure Steven didn't get a good impression of just how nice the copies Jean-Paul and I go out of our way to get are, given we watched them on a curved-screen 27" TV, but he can imagine since he knows a thing or two about video.

It was a fun little episode guys, but no tributes to Ian Levine, the ultimate uberfan? =)

2

On May 15, 2007 10:30 AM, Warren Frey said:

I'm also racking my brain for embarrassing moments...I've been such a complete nerd for so long that I'm sure there must be many, but my selective memory is helping me bury them deep, deep down in my pysche. :)

I played the Doctor Who role playing game, which surely is fanwanky by its very nature. And with Dave Yadallee no less, which makes it doubly so. I also had the Dr Who technical manual, though I never actually tried to build any of the props contained therein.

As for old monsters, I'd love to see updated Silurians. And it'd be nice to have an underwater base or some such setting done right, though of course you wouldn't want to ape Warriors of the Deep. Plus, water is the enemy of filmmaking. :)

I figured I was SOL on the SD channels. I don't particularly want to pony up the $400 for an HD cable box (and I'd probably also get a receiver/surround setup to make it worth my while and allow me to switch sources), but eventually I will. The TV does a bang up job with the Xbox 360, and an ok job with DVDs, though I'm probably going to pick up a $100 upscaling DVD player today that also does XVIDs, and has HDMI. My current dvd player looks like hell, but that's probably because it's spitting out 480i through the composite, and I suspect the decoding chip isn't really up to snuff either. Xvids (or dvds) played through the VGA port off my computer look decent enough, which means I'm looking forward to enjoying 42 in 32 glorious inches of widescreen this Saturday.

3

On May 15, 2007 2:37 PM, Chris Burgess said:

I played both the original Doctor Who RPG, albeit poorly, as well... with you at one point, even. There was also a second RPG released later on (early 90s?) which I played with some of the folks (again, quite poorly) from the DW club that we started after the demise of 10-0, like Blaine Manyluk and Michael Allen and others. I never really enjoyed either but I still gave each a whirl.

Water isn't necessarily the enemy of filmmaking.... Mike Valentine, who did the underwater filming for The Impossible Planet (Scooti's death scene) does feature film underwater photography as well (http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0884273/) so they've already had someone with experience. They could whip something up between in-camera trickery, CGI and practical effects I'm sure. So, one could probably have a decent Sea Devils story. Just no Murkur.

As to the video rig, you're going to get lesser images via component, there's no just way around that. S-Video won't even do so well... and neither will give you anamorphic output (you need component or better for that). Upscaling XviD-capable players are cheap and plentiful these days, but you're probably fine with just component for now (I'm not convinced the upscaling is really worth it, but definitely do your own research to draw your own conclusion). If you go component, don't buy new cables, just use your composite ones (well, the thickest, best-shielded ones you have)... and if you go HDMI, do NOT buy cables from Future Shop or such places, they're all ripoff artists. Order some from monoprice.com or some other mass market cable place (I've used monoprice a few times and they rock... cheap, fast and cheapish shipping, and they mark the boxes 'returned goods' to avoid customs fees) and fill your need that way.

Also, do yourself a favour and check some DVD sites (digitalbits.com, dvdfile.com, etc) and see what review places list as reference discs. If you own any on their list try them out to know just how good an image you can expect. If you don't own any on the lists, spend a few bucks and rent a couple or three of the titles.

4

On May 15, 2007 3:07 PM, Warren Frey said:

My other issue with video is that eventually I'll need to get a receiver or switcher or something. The Xbox is component, and the dvd player I'm looking at is HDMI, but there's only one component input on the TV, so I'll have to figure out that part of it once I've broken down and gotten a HD receiver. Still, that's months away, so I guess I can stop worrying about it for now.

5

On May 15, 2007 11:40 PM, Warren Frey said:

Yeah, I'd be interested in the "video" look as well. That film effect works great...it really does look convincing.

Which leads me to the other topic.....the new hdmi upscaling DVD player. Naturally I threw in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, and it looked amazing. Ditto Revenge of the Sith, ROTK, and various xvids. That was $150 well spent, I wager.

6

On May 16, 2007 5:21 AM, Chris Burgess said:

Good to hear you're satisfied with the upscaling player. The cream of the crop is probably still the Oppo, but there are some passable ones at mass market consumer type places (Best Buy, etc.). I know the LG one was rated well...

Still, check some DVD sites for references discs so you can really blow your mind. =)

I agree with Steven about the intent of the Silurians/Sea Devils, but really they've been in three of over 180 stories, and while the Bender-style "kill all humans" slant is heavily used by more monsters than just them, it's still something they can get away with over and over. My biggest fear with bringing them back is that they might try to use CG... or rather, too much CG. I may well be alone in this thought, but I always preferred the look of the practical Slitheen costumes to the CG variants used; Neill Gorton did a wonderful job on the costumes and it sucked to see the CG ones look, well, inferior.

As for the look of the show before 'filmising' I imagine you mean the new series. Yeah, that'd be something to see.

7

On May 16, 2007 5:05 PM, I am Steven said:

How about a shot-for-shot remake of The Ark in Space, or some other classic story? I could almost see Tennant pulling off the "Homo Sapiens" speech....

Fanwank!

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