Don't Mention The War

On reflection, if I had to find a metaphor for my feelings on watching The Day Of The doctor for the first time, I can only equate the experience to watching gay porn. I mean, the 3 guys on screen are clearly enjoying themselves, and there's plenty of fun and action to be had. But somehow, despite all this it doesn't quite work for me. And also much like the question of sexuality I can't help but feel that it's not really a question of what's happening on the screen being particularly wrong in any way, more that it doesn't quite fit with my own particular preferences somehow.

I know what I'm thinking about when somebody says 3 Doctors at the same time.

It's funny, but despite all the reservations I felt after watching the episode, I can't help but feel that the whole package was, in some ways, fairly inevitable. That things were always going to move in this direction eventually.  But I'm not going to be able to get into this in any detail without the obvious spoilers. So if you haven't actually managed to watch it yet, I suggest you sort your priorities out.

The Foe From The Future

Okay, so last time I was banging on about the whole Ultimate Villain poll thing and how utterly ridiculous half the entries were. And I was left wondering why it was that outside of the 2 Steven Moffat created entries there was such a lack of anything from the new era of Dr Who that could be considered even slightly appropriate, let alone a reasonable contender for second place after the Daleks.

Unless we're talking about these Daleks of course, which are different and thus must be feared and hated.

And thus it is I feel compelled to embark on an in depth analysis of original monsters from the 9th, 10th and 11th Doctors run and see if we can come up with anything a bit more iconic. So strap yourselves in, this might take a while....

The Ultimate Foe

Recently the BBC Doctor Who site ran a poll to determine the Series Ultimate Villain™. As a man who has spent an excessive amount of time and a whole series of posts thinking about Dr Who monsters this was obviously of some interest to me. Not that there's ever really any doubt about the outcome of such an exercise.

Spoiler Alert?

But it can be a bit of fun anyway. After all, the Daleks Winner is to be announced as part of some special programme (even if it is on BBC 3), so at least we'll get a cool rundown of classic nasties to watch out of it if nothing else.

Then the list of nominees started getting filled out. And I found myself faced with a question: Is this some kind of joke?

No, REALLY. Is it?

When I Said It Was Time For A Dino Riders Reboot I Didn't Mean Like This

Okay.... So, this happened:

And I have to say, in all honesty, it could have been a lot worse. I mean, it should give you some idea of just how awful supernatural romance in general actually gets that this is probably the least headache inducing thing that I've actually read.

And it's about a HORNY PSYCHIC T-REX.

Seriously, I barely made this face at all.

Ham And Pineapple

The history of progress is, in many ways, a history of utterly implausible combinations. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the example of the ham and pineapple pizza.

What is this I don't even...

Doctor Death

If you're anything like me then you spend far too much time sitting around thinking about Doctor Who. If you're not anything like me then I guess you're too busy having some sort of real life with all your going out and personal relationships and such like. No need to be so smug about it, you're not impressing anyone with that sort of behavior

Anyway, at this particular time if there's one subject on the mind of Doctor Who fans, it's that of death & regeneration. Matt Smith will be dying for our entertainment at christmas, to be replaced by Peter Capaldi. And before we even get that far we have the mystery of the extra Doctor in the anniversary special. Currently the hints and rumours indicate that he's some sort of previous version. Which if true makes the whole Season 6b theory and UNIT dating problems look pretty tame by comparison.

Still that is all to come. As it is I've been thinking about the various deaths of the Doctor over the years, and thought it might be fun to go through them and see what we can learn about both the Doctor, and who his deadliest enemies really are.

And I'll tell you right now, it's not who you think. Not by a LONG WAY.

It's A Metaphor

Holding Out For A Heroclix. Or Not.

Man, I'm not having a lot of luck with games lately. I mean, The Bureau was the video game equivalent of a giant car crash (there's bit's going all over the place, and whilst it looks kinda cool from certain angles you can't help but wonder why a merciful god would allow this level of suffering) and the pacific Rim video game was apparently designed by one of those Nigerian princes you keep hearing about.

£2.69 for a character that's ALREADY IN THE DAMN GAME? Sure......

So it was I figured I'd retreat from the realms of digital abuse back to the tabletop. It's been a bit of wait, but the Pacific Rim Heroclix are finally starting to become available. You'd have thought maybe getting the stuff on shelves whilst the film was still showing might have been a better idea, but I am not the king of marketing, so what do I know about anything? Anyway, having exhausted all other (legal) avenues for getting more Pacific Rim action I figured I'd grab the starter set. I mean, if nothing else it'd provide me with a couple of minis and an evenings entertainment, right?

Oh dear, oh dear oh dear. How could it all have gone so wrong?

Not Exactly X-Rated Action.

You've got to feel sorry for the developers of The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. Throughout the long and troubled production of the game they never really caught any breaks. No matter how good a game the final product may have actually ended up being, coming out and announcing an FPS Prequel to a beloved franchise to the internet was never going to end well.

This is not marketing. This is SUICIDE.

And then after weathering the inevitable shitstorm all their thunder is suddenly stolen by the surprise announcement of a "proper" XCOM game. Which, unsurprisingly is VERY popular. And then they start scrambling around trying to be more like this new version. Because desperately aping whatever happens to be popular always works SO WELL. But they do it and they finish the game and then just before it's finally released, what happens?

MOTHERFUCKING CHICKEN LEGS HAPPENED.

The great big incredibly awesome expansion for Enemy Unknown is suddenly announced out of nowhere. And just like that nobody gives shit about The Bureau again.

Which, in all honesty is probably for the best.

Wild Knights, Hot Crazy Box

If you'll indulge me I'm going to be doing something a little different today. Generally speaking I try and keep things kinda general, or at least not overly technical. But today I feel like talking about a particular Yu-Gi-Oh card. And this, obviously, is going to get fairly specific. So if you're not all that into playing Yu-Gi-Oh then I guess there's a strong possibility that none of what I'm going to say will mean anything to you.

Just remember:

Now, having said all that, let's talk about Number 85: Crazy Box