Down In The Park Part 4: Killed By Numbers.

I gotta admit, I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Jurassic Park 3. Partly I suppose because this is the film that introduced the Spinosaurus into the popular conciousness. Or, in my case, the unpopular conciousness. Then were the awesome happy meal toys that I managed to amass nearly a full collection of.

These things were SO COOL. I wish I still had them.

Mostly of course the main thing that's great about Jurassic Park 3 is simply that it ISN'T Jurassic Park 2.

Down In The Park Part 3:Where The Yes Men Meet.

There are several natural reactions that one may experience after being forced to sit through the entirety of Jurassic Park 2. Obviously there's a certain amount of relief, now that it's over. There's the natural disgust at having experienced such an inept bit of film making. There'll be a certain amount of rage at the squandering of an otherwise promising concept, and bafflement at how anyone ever thought this could be a good idea.

But mostly there will be disbelief. Because as the credits roll we see this:

When in what we were really expecting was:

Look him up if you don't get the reference. I can't be expected to do all  your homework for you.

Probably followed by:

Yeah, I know the font isn't an exact match. Sue me. Or the guy who made the font. Either's good.

Down In The Park Part 2: I Was In A Car Crash Or Was It A Tree?

So, as previously discussed we're having a Jurassic Park marathon. For reasons that can only be described, if we're being honest, as self destructive masochism. Only with dinosaurs.

To be fair, it wouldn't be the first time.

However, for all the pain that is to come we do have to start out with one simple fact: Jurassic Park 1 is actually really good.

Down In The Park Part 1: A Different Face.

Just this week there was released a new trailer for Jurassic World, but also a teaser for a Lego Jurassic Park game. And the strange thing is, I find myself looking forward to these quite a bit. The problem here of course is WHY this is so strange. I mean, Lego games are generally considered to be fun times, right? And in the new movie all the dinosaurs will have an extra 300 attack points.

Unless the puny human protagonists have a Mystical Space Typhoon handy, anyway.

Card Games On Motorcycles

I was recently given the somewhat dubious privilege of arranging for a sealed deck style Yu-Gi-Oh tournament for a friends birthday. And, as is often the case when I end up being in charge of these things I like to come up with some special rules and features to make things a little more interesting for everybody. And this time around my major inspiration came from the fact that I'd been playing a LOT of Stardust Accelerator. For those of you who are unaware, that's a 5D's era game. So you know what that means, right?

Quite Possibly the 2014th Years End Review You've Read This Week

Urg, it's that time again. For some reason I feel it customary to write some manner of year end summary / review thing. But I have to admit I've been putting it off somewhat. It's not that I haven't really had the time, it's just that, for me personally, this past year has been absolutely fucking AWFUL. So it's kinda hard to maintain the whole cheery "look at all this cool stuff" vibe when being confronted with the start of a new year only makes you wonder if, having barely scraped through the last one, THIS will be the year when you finally kill yourself.

This is why I'm no fun at parties. New years are like birthdays: only celebrated by those who actually have a future.

Still, despite having a full on breakdown I suppose the year wasn't entirely bereft of tawdry consumption, so let's have a look at some of that and just pretend that I didn't bring up the whole inevitable self-termination thing, shall we?

How To Ruin Childhoods & Influence People

So, I guess it turns out that Santa isn't real.

Obviously this doesn't come as much of shock a bitter, cynical old man such as myself. But even I will freely admit that the audience for Doctor Who is a little broader than continuity obsessed middle aged hermits. So one of the many concerns that I immediately started having after Santa randomly stepped through the TARDIS doors at the end of the last series was how exactly they'd get away with having him in it and maintaining some semblance of coherent science fiction without telling the children of the world that there was no such thing as Father Christmas ON CHRISTMAS DAY.

As it turns out, they decided to go one better.

So.... yeah. INTERESTING sort of episode....

Send More

Once again I find myself extraordinarily late in posting a review. This is, you may have noticed, becoming a bit of a trend lately. The reasons for this are fairly straightforward. I've always had something of a struggle with depression, and lately it's one that I'm losing. I was all set to get this review done in a timely fashion. I was actually hoping to do it last Sunday. And then my head went a bit wrong and here we are a week later and I've only just managed to pull myself together enough to actually watch the episode again.

I mention this not in a desperate plea for sympathy and attention so much as because it's actually thematically relevant to the subject at hand. Because at long last we've gotten a REALLY good Cyberman episode, finally dealing with some of themes that I've long felt they should be tackling. I'm not sure if I actually managed to discuss this during last episodes review, what with all the excitement of the Master coming back, so let's get down to it now.

I've said it before, and I can't help but think I'll say it again, but I really do love it when stuff I've been thinking about as good for a Doctor Who episode for ages suddenly turns up in some form in the actual show.

Death / Becomes Her

Overall I think I've probably taken a fairly critical tone when evaluating this current series of Doctor Who. Not that I haven't been enjoying it overall, but there have also been quite a few issues that have niggled me and thus I've felt compelled to address.

After all, blogging is basically the single player version of conversation.

But after a rough start and the odd dip, the series has seemed to be getting better over time. And now all of a sudden we've reached the climax. What's interesting here is that whilst, like much of the preceding episodes, the plot is very much founded on things that have gone before, they've finally worked out how to take all that nostalgia and remix it into something that not only feels fresh and exciting, but that actually seems to be making some sort of logical sense.

Which, I have to admit, is not something I was actually anticipating.