Musings of a Babylon Lurker

Brief review : “Dr Horrible’s Sing Along Blog”

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 | awards, film and tv, funny, scifi | No Comments

A web story by Joss Whedon.

After having heard most people rave about this little show I finally got the DVD and watched the thing.

The beginning is quite funny, but for me the fun wears off quite quickly. I find it too repetitive and to me that gets boring. I probably have heard too much hype about how hilarious this is.

I have no problem with the production as such, and it probably deserved winning in its Hugo category.

It just did not bring much *to me*.

Sorry about that, guys. Don’t let this take away any of your enjoyment of the show.

6/10 on the Lurker’s scale

Tags: Dr. Horrible, Hugo Awards, scifi

Review : Doctor Who : ‘Silence in the Library’/'Forest of the Dead’

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 | Doctor Who, awards, film and tv, reviews, scifi | No Comments

From the beginning of the first new season I have always loved the episodes written by Steven Moffat, from ‘The Empty Child’/'The Doctor Dances’ over ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’ and the brilliant ‘Blink’ to this double episode. I am looking forward to see what he will bring to the series as show runner.

Like the other stories (when they were written) this story stands a bit by itself in the Doctor Who time line.

We find The Doctor and Donna arriving (in the 51th century) at a planet full of books. In essence it is a library of all known books, known just as The Library. Something is very wrong, since the library seems completely empty. Well, there are the books, but no people at all, just a cryptic computerized warning message ‘Count the Shadows !’ .

Another party arrives, with among others, a certain professor River Song who appears to have a past with The Doctor, in his future. It turns out she even knows the name of The Doctor, something unheard of in the series until now, of course not counting The Doctor posing as John Smith, clearly an alias.

The “monster” of this story is the invisible, but very deadly Vashta Nerada, residing in the shadows and being a kind of “piranhas of darkness”.

In the story we learn enough to know why the Vashta Nerada act like they do, and of course The Doctor, aided by professor Song saves the vast majority of the people trapped on the planet.

The Little girl, living an imaginary life, does raise the questions of “what is reality” when Doctor Moon tells her that the life she thinks of as her own is not real .

For me the story has the best of the elements creating a good Who adventure, a good “monster”, a mystery or two, some good characters accompanying the Doctor, etc.

This was my first choice in the category for the Hugo Awards 2009. ‘Dr Horrible’ won that one, and that is fine.

‘Spoilers !!’ (River Song)

9/10 on the Lurker’s scale

Tags: Doctor Who, film, Hugo Awards, scifi

Review : Doctor Who : ‘Turn Left’

Saturday, December 19th, 2009 | Doctor Who, Uncategorized, awards, film and tv, scifi | No Comments

Hugo Nominee 2009 Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form.

This is Russell T. Davies’ writing at its best, aided by Graeme Harper’s directing. With all due respect for his team reviving Doctor Who Davies’ writing has not always been the best during the new Who era – probably due to the pressure of being the show runner.

While we have seen indications of inner strength in Donne Noble, this episode pulls all that to the fore. She has a little help from a friend she did not know she had : Rose. This is, for now, the culmination of the small glimpses we have had of Rose since the beginning of the season

The story finds Donna tricked into living a version of history where she did not meet the Doctor, and it is not a pretty picture. Guided by Rose from a different reality she finds her inner strength to change history back to what we know from the third season of the 10th Doctor.

The story has a good deal of fine drama, some fine character development of Donna, and a stunning conclusion, as a prelude to the two final episodes.

I consider this episode better than the two final ones, although I find those quite good as well.

This is certainly one of my favourites of the season, mainly rivaled by the double episode ‘Silence in the Library’/'Forest of the Dead’

9/10 on the lurker’s scale.

Tags: Doctor Who, film and tv, Hugo Awards, scifi

Second Hugo Award (2007) for Doctor Who

Sunday, September 9th, 2007 | Doctor Who, awards, film and tv, scifi | No Comments

Last year the Doctor Who series received a Hugo Award for the double episode “The Empty Child”/”The Doctor Dances” . The award was for the best short dramatic presentation (less than 90 minutes).
The episodes were written by Steven Moffat, and are among my favorites from the new Doctor Who series.

They have done it again …

This year’s Hugo award for the best short dramatic presentation was awarded the Doctor Who episode “The Girl in the Fireplace” – also writen by Steven Moffat – and also one of my personal favorites.

The same TV series receiving Hugo awards for two years in a row is quite rare – the last time I know of was when the “Babylon 5″ series did that in the 90’s.

It will be interesting to see if The Doctor can make it to a third consecutive award….

You can find the complete list of Hugo winners 2007 here