Freyburg

The Three Who Rule were all back on terra firma (ie. North America) this week, and the usual Who-ish banter of course centred around the imminent showing of “The Next Doctor”, due December 25th on UK TVs and computers worldwide. But that didn’t stop the jaunty (and in the case of Chris, jet-lagged) japemeisters from venturing forth on the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (conclusion: crap), along with an altogether too long talk about the merits of various Star Trek series, before sauntering back to the matter at hand. Next week, Chris and Steven are left to their own devices, as Warren wanders to Egypt to battle Sutekh and save 1980 from armageddon, seen through the TARDIS doors as terrible model photography and CSO.

 

 Radio Free Skaro #114 - Jet-Lagged Yet Jaunty: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (25)

So it appears that indie filmmaking in 2008 is in dire straits. The technology to make a film has spread far and wide and the cost of making a film has plummeted, but according to Mike Curtis of HD for Indies, distribution is still next to impossible and the math doesn’t work in favor of people being able to make a living off of making movies. But…where’s the surprise here? Hasn’t that always been the way indie films have been? Kent Nichols, of Ask a Ninja fame, certainly thinks so, and states in his blog that the next generation of creators and stars will emerge from Youtube and other online venues. The Observer also has an interesting article about how web series have come of age since the early days of LonelyGirl15.

Personally, as someone who creates content for a living I don’t even think it’s worth it to create an independent feature film for anything other than as a calling card to showcase your skills. Sure, there’s lots of street cred, but that doesn’t pay the bills. Web series are an ideal platform in which to not only hone your craft but also pre-build an audience, should you ever decided to damn the torpedoes and go the feature route. And unlike the frankly byzantine procedures needed to make content with a studio or (here in Canada) a government agency, all a web series requires is a hosting service and the ability to click “upload.”

And so it’s come to this. At long last the RFS crew reaches “Journey’s End,” the final episode of Series Four, and a story that nicely sums up Who scribe Gareth Roberts term of “anticipointment.” So much potential, frittered away in a fruitless wasting of the Rose story arc and Benny Hill-esque dispatchment of the Daleks. Still, Julian Bleach’s Davros and the sad fate of Donna Noble rescued the episode from the Trash-Bin of Utter Contempt (next door neighbour to the Gun of Spite) and gave our three heroes much gristle to chew over, spit out, and look at askance.

 

 Radio Free Skaro #112 - Anticipointment: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (38)

More thrilling commentary, this time for the “Stolen Earth,” clearly the best roller coaster ride of Series 4, if not of the entire run of the new series. It’s all downhill from here though, as “Journey’s End” is coming up next, and we all know how that turned out. Still, witticisms and nerdy banter ahead!

 

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Our commentary on “Silence in the Library” was upstaged somewhat by one David Tennant’s decision to quit the role of The Doctor after the four 2009 specials. Fandom was agog, aflame and otherwise a-twitter with speculation on who the next Doctor will be, and we were no different, making this one of our longer prognostications. And we sort of stayed on topic every once in a while….occasionally. Also, as of next week we promise there’ll be no more political appeals to our American listeners, for better or for ill.

 

 Radio Free Skaro #107 - Absentee Tennant: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (53)

It was inevitable that the expanding world of online video would hit the wall that every other industry in America (and elsewhere) has run into, and with that decline has come rounds of layoffs. Revision3 has turfed three of their employees, including some TechTV alumni, and discontinued its distribution deal with Smashface Productions, the creators of Epic-Fu. Not to mention Seesmic, the video commenting service, though I’d contend video commenting is a dumb idea to begin with. Heavy.com, 60Frames…the list goes on.

But the difference between this round of cost-cutting and the tech bubble is that these companies weren’t throwing around masses of worthless stock and spending beyond their means, and the fact that the economic malaise isn’t isolated to the tech sector this time around. And online video is, at least for now, much cheaper to produce than regular broadcast television. Standout shows like Epic-Fu get their start through people screwing around with a camcorder, not a big production deal…so one way or the other, there’ll always be a place for online video. It just might not have venture capital attched to it.

Chris returned to the fold and lost no time flinging acerbic barbs in the direction of “The Unicorn and the Wasp,” quite possibly the low point of Season 4, and certainly a story we mostly ignored in our commentary. One can hardly blame the Three Who Rule for their disinterest, but at least there’s goings on in the Library (silent ones) to indulge in next week.

 

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With Chris still wandering around London without anything more than a 3G iPhone, it was up to Warren and Steven to again take the helm and offer the latest morsels of news about all things Who and bloviate on the Poison Sky, the second part of the Sontaran’s return to form. Though precious little was actually aid about the episode at hand, Warren did manage to transfigure the Sontaran war cry into OBAM-HA! surely a new rallying cry for these final days of the American election campaign.

 

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So I’ve been busy for the past couple of months with my day job, working as a writer and editor for EP Daily, the new, daily version of the long-beloved Electric Playground.Basically, I get to make stories about video games, sci-fi movies and TV, and comics, all of which makes me extremely happy. Here’s a taste of the show, which you can see on G4TechTV…

The BBC, in their infinite wisdom, decided sometimes in the late Sixties or early Seventies that they needed space for new shows in their tape library, and destroyed many of the original tapes containing Hartnell, Troughton, and even a few Pertwee stories. Despite the odd find each decade of a lost story molding away in some backwater, many of these classic Who tales are lost in the mists of time…until now.

It turns out many a fan recorded the audio from the shows as they were broadcast, so almost all the soundtracks have been preserved. But a cadre of fans spread across the globe are taking things a step further and animating the classic lost Doctor Who adventures to recreate the Doctor’s first adventures. The BBC did this officially with “The Invasion,” but as stated in the Guardian story, animating is a tremendous amount of work. Fans don’t care, though, they want their Who and they’re willing to put noses to the grindstone to get it.