Doctor Who: The Daleks

Serial Title: The Daleks
Series: 1
Episodes: 7
The Dead Planet
The Survivors
The Escape
The Ambush
The Expedition
The Ordeal (clearly, this episode is about watching through the whole serial! :-) )
The Rescue
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Ian Chesterton (William Russell), Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford)

Synopsis:
The TARDIS, fresh from escaping the Tribe of Gum (The cavemen from An Unearthly Child), lands on the planet Skaro, in a petrified forest. The planet is highly radioactive, however the Doctor and companions manage to miss the multiple redundant warnings issued by the high technology of the dimensionally-transcendent TARDIS: A single speedometer-style gauge with a sticky needle that doesn't begin registering until several minutes after they've landed. A futuristic city is visible in the distance.

Numerous spooky occurrences on the apparently dead planet suggest someone is there- a hand which Susan believes touched her (Note from Sarah: When doesn't Susan think that there is a hand touching her? Or all the girls on the show for that matter?), a knocking outside the TARDIS- enough to scare the companions into demanding the Doctor leave. Stubbornly and irresponsibly, he sabotages the TARDIS, claiming that all of the liquid mercury needed for the Fluid Link was drained in his sabotage and that the TARDIS cannot leave (Note from Sarah: You see in the new ones...he's so charming that pretty much all he'd have to do is smile and all the companions would get that giddy look on their faces and follow him over a cliff, even if he was wearing wings and they weren't.) without finding a new supply. (Fortunately, this is revealed to be a ruse; the Doctor is not THAT irresponsible!) Now forced to explore, and searching for mercury, the group heads for the city. Upon leaving the ship, they find a box containing vials of an unknown liquid, which they place in the ship for safekeeping; the gift-bearer, like the mysterious bumps in the night, is nowhere to be found.

As the group explores, designated-screamer Barbara is separated from the group and cornered by a Dalek- a human-height creature with a appearance like a salt-shaker on wheels; a large domed tower with a protruding eye-stalk, plunger-hand, and gun-barrel. The strange being is actually a sort of vehicle, a conveyance for the true Dalek creature within.

The rest of the group locates a Geiger counter and realizes their radiation-exposure; the Doctor admits the falseness of his sabotage and prepares to leave; to prevent abandoning Barbara, Ian seizes the crucial (but still mercury-filled and functional) component (Note from Sarah: So now that things feel dangerous to the Doctor HE wants to leave? And it just happens that he wants to leave without Barbara?!). Tension mounts again, but this is cut short as the Daleks capture the remaining trio. The Doctor is interrogated, and the Daleks, not wanting to lose their prisoners, dispatch Susan back to the TARDIS for the vials- which the group has deduced to be an anti-radiation-poisoning serum- and bring it back for the group. However, after she has left, the Daleks reveal they intend to confiscate the drugs and leave the group to die upon her return.

At the TARDIS, Susan encounters an ironically-Aryan race (see my review below for the Dalek/Nazi parallels) of friendly humans (Note from Sarah: Though...how can you tell they are Aryan in black and white, I ask you?:) (the ones who left the drugs) named the Thals. The Dals and Thals (how Doctor Suessian!) engaged in nuclear warfare. As a result of the following radiation, the Dals mutated into the Dalek race, and now need radiation to survive- confining them to the city, where the radiation in strongest. The Thals, now avowed pacifists, are starving, forced to live off the land which is meager and radiation-starved. They warn of Dalek duplicity and give Susan a second set of serum to conceal. Susan agrees to act as a broker on their behalf in hopes of negotiating with the Daleks for food and peace to the now useless war.

Susan manages to distribute the serum and the Thals offer; the Daleks seemingly accept, requesting Thal aid in cultivating the land as their food stockpiles are running low- but in reality, it is a plot to lure in, trap, and exterminate the Thals.

The Doctor and companions fake a fight amongst themselves and break the camera in their jail cell in the process, then come up with a method of immobilizing the Daleks. (Hilariously, these unstoppable forces of pure evil take their power via static electricity from the metal floor; rolling over a jacket that cuts off their metal-on-metal contact renders them powerless. Clearly, much tweaking would be needed to make the Daleks fearsome warriors in future serials.) A Dalek jailer is overpowered and Ian hides in the Dalek shell, impersonating a Dalek prisoner escort long enough to affect an escape.

The four escape and manage to get a warning to the approaching Thals, enabling some- but not all- to escape the deadly Dalek ambush. Back at their camp, Ian attempts to convince the pacifist Thals to fight against the Daleks as it is revealed that the Fluid Link was confiscated by the Daleks; without recovering it, the TARDIS can't leave.

The Thals and group make a plan; Ian and Barbara, with a group of Thals, will try to cross a treacherous swampland and mutant-filled lake to sneak in the back of the city. Meanwhile, The Doctor, Susan, and the remaining Thals, will make an assault on the front door as a diversion.

The Daleks, meanwhile, are attempting to cure themselves of radiation sickness with the captured serum but discover that they have become dependent on radiation, thriving on it- thus, they hatch a plan to launch another nautronic bomb and further flood the planet with radiation, making more of the surface habitable to them (and killing the Thals).

As the Doctor and Susan, successfully taking out Dalek surveillance monitors, become too bold in their sabotage and are captured, the sneaking group encounters a treacherous tunnel and a perilous ledge/jump- this, and the lake mutants, severely decrease their numbers. A thal frontal assault to rescue the Doctor and the back-door party converge in the Dalek control room, disabling the Dalek's bomb and their power source in the city, killing the now-powerless Daleks almost as efficiently as making them run over a jacket(Note from Sarah: Almost). The Doctor and his companions then bid a fond farewell to the victorious, rebuilding Thals and depart.



Review:
Well, I must say, I found this one rather dull (Note From Sarah: apparently I did too...seing as pretty much the only thing I THINK I remember is the lake mutants...maybe). The Daleks are, of course, the Doctor's most famous nemesis. A mutated, radiation scarred race living within strange, lumpy, metal shells- tantamount to personal tanks. Unstoppable, dedicated to a very Nazi-esque ideal of racial purity, full of hatred and loathing for all genetically inferior species, and possessing a will to 'Exterminate!' - their famous catchphrase.

Like Star trek's Borg, they are relentless, unstoppable, horrifically powerful juggernauts and truly frightening foes when handled well... and a group of rather incompetent boobs, rubes, and nitwits who are hollow parodies of their formed menace when overused or written poorly (as has sadly happened several times in the New series.) (Note from Sarah:....Andrew just said 'boobs.')

Still, for this outing... well, it was just too LONG. The Daleks may have been horribly menacing, but by episode 4, I just didn't care about them any more. I wanted this serial to be OVER. This happened in one or two slog-through episodes, but this remains, for me, the worst; running counter to many fans' high opinion of it.

At the time, I wrote the following:
After having made it thus far, I believe I've completed initial observations of the functions of the current TARDIS crew:
Susan is there to be useless.
Barbra exists to raise the alarm, whether it needs raising or not.
Ian is there to get things done.
The Doctor exists to say "No, you stupid man, it really could be this thing, which you dismissed, after all!"

The Dalek city looks nice, but... those hallway matte painting were a bit unfortunate- poorly angled (unless the hallways recede as ramps) and Barbara unfortunately casts a shadow on it the first time she passes it. (Having seen many more episodes since, the shadow-on-the=painted background issue is extremely common in these early serials.) (Note from Sarah: Not to mention the odd bump with the camera issues.)

Boy, these 1st Doc-era women get freaked out at pretty simple things... like walls. A lot of gasping and pressing back against the walls in terror in this episode. Susan's running... not so convincing. I'm on the verge of saying that she's not the world's greatest actress. :-)

Good thing that sucker/plunger isn't a weapon yet or the Doctor and Ian would be dead in the third episode! Actually, between the wrestling-the-Daleks-to-death and the giggle-inducing Dalek-screaming-in-terror-as-it-hallucinates... they're not quite so formidable this first time out. :-) I stopped taking notes at this point in the third episode, at which time I said ' A pretty good serial, though things seemed to get a bit dull from here onwards (who couldn't see the last chasm-jumper not making it and sacrificing himself?) but overall, pretty enjoyable. Assuredly more interesting than the last serial.' Ironic, since in my ret-conned memory, I would actually reverse the two positions.

Great moments:
The Doctor asking Barbara to talk to Susan was, to me, the first crack of 'humanity' we've seen through the veneer.

And the Ian-commandeered Dalek, though unrealistic by current standard of how we know Dalek interiors to be, was tons of fun.

Rating:
From the time: Four out of five blessings of Orb. (Five for the first 3 episodes, Three for the last... leaving aside that concepts like 'numerals' and 'averaging' are probably a bit beyond the Tribe of Gum. ;-) ) From my current memories of it: 1.5 out of 5. It seems my memory is retroactively a lot harsher; fortunately, the episodes progress on a steady upward curve of quality and enjoyment, so things that seemed stellar at the time now seem weak in comparison, knowing how much better things got!

Stargate SG1: The Enemy Within

Season One Episode 3: The Enemy Within

First off I will say that this won't be a very long review... (Note from Andrew: Coulda fooled me! :-) ) because as episodes go this one doesn't really have that much to either make fun of or comment on. It's one of those episodes that's not boring; it's just that there isn't really a diversity of content, so it's more difficult to review... at least for me, that is.
First off I must just say that Jay Acovone definitely proves his acting chops in this episode. His breakdown when he's strapped on the bed, with the little hole in it for his head, is really some amazing acting. I mean...it's totally what we would all do if we found out there was this evil thing wrapped around our spines and eating our brains (okay...it's not really eating his brain, but...). He just starts freaking out "KILL IT!!! KILL IT!! KILL IT!!!!" ....highly understandable.
I was reading in the Dialing Up guide to SG1 seasons 1-5 that they couldn't get John Diehl back to play Kawalski (Gee whiz...you gotta give Alexis Cruz and Erick Avari credit for being the only original actors COOL enough to actually want to come back and reprise their roles! (Note from Andrew: You can say that again!) I could be forgetting someone else...but I am pretty sure they are the only ones. They get like fifteen coolness points for that) because he didn't want to do a television series. Which I kind of think is funny because then they decided pretty much that they would get someone else to play Kawalski and then just kill him off in the second episode. This confuses me....why not just say "Johnny boy....we've got the perfect solution...you come back for the first three episodes and then we'll kill ya off!" Maybe he would have come back then. But that said, I am glad they got Jay Acovone because he really does the character justice. He does what Richard Dean Anderson does, totally make the character his own. Although I still think it's kind of sad that pretty much they use poor Kawalski as a vehicle to get Teal'c to be able to be on SG1... they needed some kind of mission for him to complete to get him to be accepted by the real jerks who wanted to take him back and study him. Once again.... that said, I give Jay props for acting it out in real style. Knowing that he was only going to be a one-note (at least in the beginning) could have made for some shoddy acting but he really gives it his all and makes sure you'll remember him; other actors might not have tried as hard.
I also really appreciated the character development we got between O'Neill and Kawalski. I loved that part especially when he was talking to him and he just says " Listen, I gotta ask you something. It's not easy for me." and Kawalski says "We're friends." and then O'Neill says: "If you don't make it, can I have your stereo?" It's a classic moment. I gotta say this episode (since remember I've seen up to season 7 episode 3, but only have seen each episode once and wanted to rewatch and review them up to where I am now) is SEVERELY lacking Dr. Janet Fraiser. I mean, it's funny cause normally I am just kind of like feeling ambivalent to that character but when watching an episode without her suddenly I realize she kind of ties the whole team together when they are on base. I don't know why...but when she's not there it feels kinda lame! It's kind of a shocking revelation to me. (Note from Andrew: Well, now I feel like a rube; I came into this with you having 6 seasons of experience under my belt... and I never noticed this! Very insightful, hon!) I think partly it's because we know she really cares about these people and finding solutions, so we get that side of the drama too. Like Teryl Rothery plays a good character, she brings a dimension to the show in that she's really a character too, she's not just some doctor-type person who feels 2 dimensional and we never really grow much of an attatchment to, like, say, Nurse Ogawa from Star Trek The Next Generation (although, in her defense she was never given more lines than "Yes, Doctor." Although I still must say I give Patti Yasutake ALOT of credit for continuing to appear in a show where her character got basically no development) She's one of those people who I feel like should have gotten her name in the opening credits because she feels so integral to the show.
Another thing I really appreciated was O'Neill being so ready to help Teal'c through the whole episode, it's kind of a rare thing to see O'Neill handing out his trust so readily to people and I love that Teal'c has his full trust from the beginning. One of my favorite lines is when Teal'c says that he will prove his allegiance and O'Neill just says "Teal'c, I sure wish you didn't have to."Also LOVE that part when Hammond yells at Kennedy "Just what kind of an officer are you Colonel?!" That's just sheer awesomeness. It's like....if I was sitting at the table I probably would have done one of those highly annoying and obnoxious fist pumps because I just wouldn't have been able to help myself.
Okay two things that are weird with this episode. When Kawalski first escapes and it's RED ALERT everywhere....pretty much no one is acting as if it's Red Alert at all. I mean when Kawalski gets to the Dialing room everyone is just kind of like "doo-dee-doo" with their pens and papers and keyboards. It's highly.... not so good for security.
The other thing is the whole "that was just a dead husk" thing feels like a bit of a stretch. Well...okay...it was a dead husk but it's kind of like they severed all of these little tendril things (as far as we can tell, all of them) and took it out and then...it's like that was a husk and the thing became 'one' which means it's undetectable by anyone? (Note from Andrew: Agreed; they clearly hadn't established the symbiote 'rules' yet, 'cause I don't think this works so well within known symbiote M.O.) Like, A. They had that active scan thing going on the whole operation- and B. I am SO sure they probably would have done a few follow-up scans to make sure they got everything (Well...at least Dr. FRAISER would have....) so it just seems unlikely. Plus, is this something we hear about ever again (keep in mind...only seen each episode ONCE so I could be not remembering...which is why you get the 'Note from Andrew" since he has them all pretty much memorized... I am working my way toward that.) at all? (Note from Andrew: Nah-uh. We see symbiotes posioning the hosts when they die in an act of spite, die in the host and get absorbed by the body leaving Naquadah in the bloodstream... and pretty much being un-removable... but never 'hiding' during a surgery or producing a 'husk.' In fact, they turn out to be amphibious, not reptilian, so the shedding-their-skin doesn't really work.) That the Goa'uld parasite can shed it's whole outer body and become like one eighth of what it looked like before? Cause I am pretty sure any time we've seen a mature host that's taken over someone it's looked exactly as long as the so called "husk'.
That was another thing...HOW COOL....like I mean seriously....HOW COOL of a way to die is that? I mean Teal'c was holding Kawalski's HEAD in the event horizon and then they just shut it off!! I mean...wow...pretty good way to die (I mean as an actor...not like in real life or anything). I appreciated that they really kind of let you see a little bit of the damage but it wasn't like he fell forward and his head crashed into the camera and his brain slid down the screen letting us see the full glory (Note from Andrew: Or would that be 'full gory?') of what had just happened (okay so I am exagerrating what other tv shows do...but you get the idea). Although I must say that when I was watching it I was appalled and shocked when part of his brain falls out onto the floor....that is until I realized it was the Goa'uld actually...and then I was kind of like... "ohhh." Although I realize it sizzling and shrinking was for dramatic effect, that was also a little weird. I think I just really need to read up more on how the Goa'uld take over people is all...cause the whole thing seems really confusing. Especially seeing as how they can go through your back, neck, head, mouth....bleah...and bleah. (Note from Andrew- any way that they can burrow through to the spinal column/brain stem...) It's like....and then do they attatch to your brain once they've gotten full control over you I guess? I guess it's like when they aren't fully integrated that's when they use the little filament tendrils to reach into the brain? These are all questions I am committed to finding the answers to....and many of them I am sure will be explained once my husband gets home from work. Until then.

Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child

Hi there, Andrew here! It is my plan to join my wife in the prcoess of reviewing- complementing her fantastic reviews of Stargate: SG1 episodes with a few of my own humble musings on the classic episodes of Doctor Who.

Now, to start, a brief intro on my history with The Doctor:
Growing up, I actively disliked Doctor Who. Saw a few old episodes out of context as a kid, weirded me out.
I was re-introduced to Who (after being intruiged by a trailer) with Series 3 of the New Who with the phenomenal episode 'Blink.' I followed the next three episodes (The Series 3 finale- and for those of you wondering, by the by, in England they use 'series' to describe one year of a TV show the way we use 'season'), then immediately downloaded and jumped onto watching the New Who from the beginning. I followed it for about 1.5 seasons before Sarah came to join me, and we both rebooted back to New Who, Series 1. We carried all the way on through Series 4, and somewhere in the long, dark recesses of the Gap Year, between Planet of the Dead and Waters of Mars, we decided to take the plunge and start on the TRUE Series 1.

For those of you that don't get my jabbering about 'New' Who, the series, in brief, went like this: Doctor Who was designed as a science fiction/educational show for the BBC in 1963. The show was about a man (known only as 'The Doctor'- Not 'Doctor Who'! That's the name of the show, not the man (note from Sarah: Even though I know this to be true, it still takes an extreme amount of energy for me NOT to refer to him as 'Doctor Who".)) who traveled around with his companions, an ever-changing roster of individuals who accompanied him on his journies, in his spaceship/time machine, the TARDIS (or Time and Relative Dimensions In Space). The ship itself was designed to blend in with it's time period; if one were to travel to the era of ancient Greece, the ship would look like a Greek column; In ancient Perisa, a sedan chair. If one were to travel to the old west, it might assume the shape of an outhouse. Or visit easter island, and the outside appearence would probably be one of those giant stone heads. The only catch was, the TARDIS was broken; it had taken the shape of a Police Box- a sort of phone booth/temporary holding cell for petty criminals that was employed at the time- and was stuck looking that way, no matter where it went. And so, The Doctor (who was not a very good pilot and seldom knew where the ship would end up after he took off, thus making each adventure an exporation of the new location in which they'd randomly landed) and his comapnions would travel throughout time and space to the past and the future in a Blue phone booth (which, due to alien techonology, was far bigger on the inside than it was on the outside- although it was the size of a phone booth, the interior was spacious and contained many rooms.)

The show was intially designed as an educational program- each story would alternate; a future story with science fiction adventure to keep the kids hooked in, followed by a historical story set in the past and designed to provide educational programming to encourage children to learn about history. (Sadly, after about the first six years, the educational element was dropped and the show became pure sci-fi... though of course we fans aren't complaining! :-) ) The show changed formats several times; for a period, the Doctor lost his ability to fly the TARDIS and became an Earth-bound ally of a sort of British Men In Black/X-files organization fighting off alien threats to Earth, then alter returned to his space travels... ah, but I still haven't dealt with the primary reason for this digression- The 'Old' vs. 'New' Who.

Bear with me for one more rabbit-trail, and all will be explained. You see, the Doctor was eventually revealed to be a Time Lord, a human-looking alien with two hearts... and the ability to 'Regenerate' after a mortal wound or injury- more or less 'rebooting' his body like you would re-set a computer; the resulting man would still be The Doctor, and have all of the Doctor's knowledge and memories- but a completely different physical appearence and personality. This allowed the show a great longevity; when your main actor decided to leave, the show ddin't ahve to end- the Doctor just regenerated, changed appearences, and was played by a new actor. Thus, all incarnations of the Doctor are known by their 'regeneration'- the original Doctor, played by William Hartnell, is the 'First Doctor'- the man he changed into in the show's fourth year was the Second Doctor, etc. (On average, Doctors tended to stay around 3-4 years, with the exception of one of the most famous, Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor. The guy with the scarf, curly hair, and big teeth. If you've seen the old Doctor Who, he's probably the one that you've seen.)

So, 'what is with all of this Old and New business, Andrew??' you may ask, glaring with irritation at the imagined avatar of my meandering, wandering ramblings of explanation and seeking to pin me down to a solid answer with a withering stare, or barring that, to pin by hands to the keyboard with a very sharp kitchen knife so as to prevent me from typing any further non-sequiters, as your mounting frustration continues to roar through your veins and you feel the start of a throbbing headache coming on...
(Note... that last may contain a bit of supposition on my part.)
Well, I shall tell you. At last.
Doctor Who ran from 1963 to 1989 in a serial format (a series of half-hour episodes linked together by to-be-continueds; every 2-6 forming a complete story) and covering seven Doctors in it's 26 seasons. After that, the show was canceled. An abortive attempt to revive the show was made in 1996 with a made-for-TV movie (featuring an 8th Doctor) in hopes of starting the series in the USA. It failed.
Finally, in 2005, the series started up again witha 9th Doctor, a far higher budget, and a standard single-episode format. It is still ongoing, now up to the 11th Doctor. This re-launched Series is known as the New Who (and it is FANTASTIC!) and started over from Series 1; but technically it's Series 1 was also Doctor Who's Series 27!

So, what you will see in these reviews- which will be far shorter than this introductory entry- are overviews of the episodes from the original, 1963-onwards Doctor Who series; albeit written from the perspective of someone who has overviewed the history of Doctor Who from the New series. Eventually- though it may be sometime in coming- we should work our way all the way through. But for now, we begin with the origin of the Doctow Who franchize itself, the 4-episode serial "An Unearthly Child." I'll give a brief synopsis, my review, and finally, a rating!

Serial Title: An Unearthly Child
Series: 1
Episodes: 4
An Unearthly Child
The Cave of Skulls
The Forest of Fear
The Firemaker
Doctor: William Hartnell
Companions: Ian Chesterton (William Russell), Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill), Susan Foreman (Carole Ann Ford)
Synopsis:
Schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright (a science teacher and a history teacher respectively, in keeping with the shows intended alternation between sci-fi and historical education)- colleagues and friends with just the slightest hint of potential romance- have noticed something strange about their new student, Susan Foreman. At times, she seems very... different. Out of place. Almost... unearthly (Note from Sarah: *wink wink* get it?). On a whim, they decide to follow her home, one of approximately 3,952 things that were not as creepy to do in the 60s as they would be today- or perhaps were, but nobody noticed.
They find, to their surprise, that she returns to a junkyard, belonging to an I.M. Foreman (from whom she's taken a psuedonym last name) and there, encounters the Doctor, a gruff, brusque old man and Susan's grandfather. (As of 30+ Series' later, we still have yet to learn anything further about the Doctor's family, children, or history with Susan!)
After Ian and Brabarra stumble into the TARDIS, the Doctor, who does not want them revealing his secret, abruptly blasts of the TARDIS, rather roughly, knocking them all unconscious and shanghaing Ian and Barbara into time and space.
The first episode ends here, and is really the true pilot; the remaining three episodes are more like a sequel, thought technically still part of the same story.

After landing, the Doctor steps outside to survey the area (he is a meticulous explorer and scientist), and stops to smoke his pipe. He is observed a caveman of the paleolithic age, the time period in which the TARDIS has landed. The Doctor is knocked unconscious and kidnapped to the enclave of the Tribe of Gum. Za, the potential leader of the tribe, whose father, the previous tribe leader, did not pass on the secret of making fire to him before he died, is engaged in a power struggle. The cavemen, who worship Orb (the sun) and value fire above all else, are expecting fire from their new leader, and soon- and Kal, a stranger from another tribe- considered to be another strong contender for leadership- having seen the smoking Doctor, now sees the stranger as his ticket to fire-making dominance.

Ian, Barbara, and Susan charge and attempt a resuce, but are easily overpowered (Note from Sarah: Expect this to very much become the norm. Susan and Barbara pretty much get captured every other show. Susan actually pretty much exists just TO BE captured, but at least Barbara seems to really add to the show with her knowledge and intuition...at least she does after a couple of episodes). Za, the tenuous leader, orders them taken to the Cave of Skulls to be sacrificed to Orb. He believes that Orb will then be pelased and return the secret of fire to him.

In the cave, filled with bones of previous victims, all killed by a blow to the head, the group truly unites for the first time, working together to use the sharp shards of bones to cut the ropes binding them... (Ropes? Those are some pretty advanced cavemen!) An elder who fears fire and does not want it's return enters the cave via a secret passage and frees them, turning them loose so that fire does not return. A pursuing Za is greivously wounded by a wild animal, and tensions mount as the two British school teachers insist on helpng the injured man. Back with the cave-people, Kal stirs up rebelion, claiming that Za was the one who set the strangers free; he is appointed the new leader.

The group is re-captured and returned with the healing Za to the cavemen. The group manages to turn the tables and reveal Kal (who had killed the fire-fearing elder to cover his tracks) as a murdered- driving him off into the woods; a less-than-grateful Za returns them to the cave of Skulls, to either give up the secret of fire or be sacrificed to Orb. What a jerk.

Back in captivity, the group re-bonds, Ian defers to the Doctor in a show of respect, Kal returns, battles Za, and dies (probably not the best plan of his neanderthal life...) Za, despite recieving basic knoweldge of fire, decides to keep the handy strangers around permanently, and Ian and Susan comes up with a plan to create 4 makeshift torches, topped by a skull set in the flames, the apparition of which scares the superstitious cavemen long enough for the group to escape to the TARDIS and take off, for whatever unknown destination may await them...



Review:
A little uncertain. Comments I made at the time seem to indicate I enjoyed it greatly; now, about one year later, it has taken a distinctly less impressive turn in my memory. I think it was overall enjoyable... but fairly poor compared to what came after it.


At this point in the series, the Doctor hasn't been established as an alien- in fact, the first filmed version of the pilot indicates he and Susan to be humans from the far future of Earth, a line omitted in the final project. (This concept was adapted in the film series which cast Peter Cushing- Grand Moff Tarkin to you Star Wars fans- as Dr. Who- a human with the last name of Who that has a doctorate- that invents a time machine. There were two movies, with plans for a third, that adapted existing stories from the first couple of years of the program into movies. These are decidedly NOT canon with the rest of the series!) Thus, while the Doctor has some alienesque moments- his smug superiority that Ian and Barbara 'wouldn't understand' what they're being exposed to- very much of the Doctor's alien nature is not really present. Indeed, the Doctor's two hearts wouldn't be established for several years!

William Hartnell as the Doctor is at first very gruff, superior, impatient, unlikeable. Fortunately, he mellows greatly in coming serials to become my second favorite Doctor to which I have yet been exposed (4 of them) and a very funny, genial character. (David Tennant, the 10th Doctor, ret-conned this brilliantly, implying that this first incarnation of himself, still very young compared to his 900+ year lifespan by that time, was 'always trying to be old and grumpy and important—like you do, when you're young.')
Ian and Barbara are a bit dull here, and both Barbara and Susan do little more than act as screaming damsels- thankfully, all three will expand into better characters as the series progresses. Well... Ian and Barbara will, at least...

I really think this story would be far more interesting if it turned out that they were in another planet's prehistory.

Great moments:
Not as many as one might like; this story is somewhat dull and the epitome of 'humble beginings.' From William Hartnell's line flubs- there was seldom time in early production to do a second take, so if the actors messed up, they just kept it in the show, and Hartnell did frequently- to The Doctor being so anxious to return to the TARDIS and escape that he nearly murders the wounded Za by smashing his head in with a rock just to keep Ian and Barbara from delaying the group to help him- this is not the Doctor's finest hour. Fortunately, the Doctor never displays such dark tendencies again, and the flubs become a very humorous source of bemusement for the audience, looking back on dear, departed Hartnell- who likely would not have been nearly so dear had he remained the gruff, pedantic Dcotor from this serial. Even so, after the incredible episodes of the New Doctor Who, I had expected this serial to be a slog-through, with no likeable Doctor AT ALL until at least the 4th; I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the first two episodes, and how much I liked the first Doctor.

Only one thing truly annoyed me about this episode... but I don't think I'll harp on it much as this board is only 'an illusion,' and the keyboard I'm typing with is a figment of my imagination, and the room I'm standing in apparently isn't real... or at least, one might be led to believe so by Ian and Barbara's rather thick-headed inability to accept what they were seeing when they first entered the TARDIS. They took the Denial Award and then some, with Barbara rather preosterously exclaiming that "Can't you see this is all an illusion?" and various related speeches to Susan while they're STANDING IN THE TARDIS. I mean, I've heard of denial, but telling someone to their face that the room you're both standing in is an illusion? That's pretty dense. :-)


Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Blessings of Orb; more on the strength of it being a pilot that established the characters and cocnepts well than anything else- even if said characters needed quite a bit of refinement after to become the truly likeable people we would later meet.

Stargate SG1: Children of the Gods Original Release

So I decided to start Stargate SG1 over from the beginning. I got to tell you I came very close to skipping the pilot. When I first was introduced to SG1 by my husband we very logically started at the beginning, and I will be honest with you...Children of the Gods did not encourage me to give up my righteous stance of 'The movie is better! The tv show RUINED any chance of there being a sequel to the movie!". It felt a bit tacky, boring, and kind of exhaustive.
I was pleasantly surprised however, in my second viewing just this afternoon to find that it was actually quite good this time around. Though I suspect it might only be so because now that I know the characters, where they go, and how they act it was kind of interesting to see 'where it all began' to use a cliche. I am not saying that this is the only way Children of the Gods can be enjoyed...I am just saying I am pretty sure it's the only reason I enjoyed it. :)

So to start off. I have to say it still felt a little bit tacky in the beginning....I mean it kind of really felt as though they were all but waving a flag that said "We've seen the movie! We know what happens! This pilot is supposed to take place after the movie!"...not necessarily because of what they were saying but HOW they were saying it. Most of the dialogue that involved plot points from the Movie just were said really stupidly, like they kind of stuck out like a sore thumb. Especially Kowalski's line about "remember he kept saluting you?" when referring to Skaara. It was kind of like...yeah maybe a nostalgic line or two about how Skaara was idolizing O'Neill would have been good...but they just came out sounding like Lt. Major Dorkus.
I have to say it's really quite hilarious seeing how differently the characters act in the pilot, some of them have reason to act differently and you can draw a series of events to point to how their character arcs and changes...some others are just acting plain weird for no apparent reason other than that the script writers didn't actually have any idea how they were going to end up writing the characters in the future. Captain Sam Carter is a chief example of this. Not only is she highly competitive with O'Neill for almost no reason other than the fact that he thought she was a guy when he heard the name Captain Carter, hurling inflammatory and highly obnoxious lines at him that make her sound like a very un-practiced feminist. I mean the whole line about "...just because my reproductive organs are on the inside instead of the outside, doesn't mean I can't handle whatever you can handle.". Okay firstly...for seriously? And secondly...pretty much the only thing you accomplish when using a line like that is remind folks that you have private parts....real nice.
The funniest thing about Carter is that about five minutes later she's a totally different person! I mean from all accounts when we saw her at the conference table we pretty much get the impression she's going to be whining and moaning about how the guys are treating her differently or "if you think I can't do this because I'm a girl then..." and instead we get such sincere lines as "You know you really will like me when you get to know me" and "Don't worry Colonel, I won't let you down". It's kind of a confusing moment. It's like "oh...were you just being a jerk back there to show off for all the dudes in the room or something?" And we all know (if you've seen more than the first episode) that this is not even remotely how Sam is! She's way too confident in herself and her abilities to be a feminist.
General Hammond is also completely different, he's kind of....well....totally grumpy and meanish. Although that more makes sense because all he knows of these people is that Jack doesn't follow orders, Sam is a whiny scientist, and Daniel didn't come back to Earth the way he was supposed to. He hasn't formed relationships with these people yet, he doesn't trust them yet so his personality makes sense. Daniel definitely is a lot different in this pilot too. He's not as quirky-funny as he usually is...though we can reason that perhaps the reason he isn't is because his wife got kidnapped and now has a goa'uld in her....though I get the feeling watching him that that's not the reason he's not quirky-funny..you know when you just know a character had to have been envisioned differently? Even if there's a good reason why he isn't acting the way you know him to act?
Another thing....Skaara definitely should probably have chosen a different outfit by now....cause....like whoa.
Something I totally missed the first viewing around was Sam's classic line when she has her hands on the dialing device, she's talking about how it was the one thing that was missing at the dig in Giza and she says "It took us 15 years and 3 supercomputers to MacGyver a system for the gate on Earth". O'Neill as she says this makes a really funny face that we can translate into "You knew they had to bring that up at some point...". (Note from Andrew: Actually, you didn't miss this- when we watched the Final Cut version, this line was omitted.) For those of you who've grown up locked away in your basement and have never seen the light of a television screen...Richard Dean Anderson (O'Neill) played MacGyver in the long running television show. Which just happens to be a show SO iconic that fans are practically SALIVATING for there to be some kind of secret nod or code word that lets them know that Richard Dean Anderson knows they are watching and knows they remember who he played. I know...cause I'm one of them. It's almost as if you feel like it's a moment that's meant just for you when someone throws an in-joke in like that. Now...if only they would've gotten Scott Bakula to come and play some cool role beside Richard....I mean how cool would that have been? I mean they came close with the episode 'Shadow Play" that had Dean Stockwell in it...I mean...close...but no Sam Beckett. (Although interesting Geekynote: Don S. Davis was the surgeon in the AWESOME disney tv movie "I-Man" which starred Scott Bakula. I just think this is too cool for words...for obvious geeky reasons)
I was just kind of laughing to myself about all the things that they didn't keep up with from the Movie and this episode....although they could possibly have come up with solutions for them at some point during the series and I am just forgetting. Number one would be Daniel's allergies. He had them quite often in the movie, and they used that in the pilot with this cute scene where O'Neill sends a box of kleenex through the gate so that Daniel will know that it's them. And throughout the pilot there are a couple (okay one) scenes where Daniel sneezes....but I am as far as season six and he's definitely not been having trouble with allergies. But I will keep an eye out as I move on through season one.
Number two...and this is a biggy....the effects of a jump through the gate. We are told that you feel as though you've gone through a blizzard naked, and not only that but usually you kind of want to puke everywhere once you've gone through it. Now I can understand building up a tolerance to puking, I mean pilots do that all the time. But....building up a tolerance to the "compression your molecules undergo during the millisecond required for reconstitution"? Not so likely. The other thing that makes no sense is that when they DO do the 'pukey freezy' thing in the pilot, no one seems to be suffering from it whenever they return from Abydos....it's like...does it ONLY happen when one is leaving ones own homeworld? I am pretty sure that's not how it works...but watch the show...I am pretty sure that not once (when they are actually following the rules that you get sick and frozen) when they return to the gate room are they ever sick or frozen. (Note from Andrew: Actually, they do deal with this later- the jump FROM Earth is so rough because we are not using a properly calibrated DHD- just our own rough approximation dialing computer, which was not correctly calibrated. Gates returning to Earth are DHD-generated and have no such issues. In the first or second season they mention they used to have that problem but Sam had corrected it. Presumeably it happened just after the pilot. Sorry if I'm stealing your thunder! :-) )
And I know that the show made the whole Stargate thing it's own thing...yes I realize this....but my thing is that I cannot stop being annoyed at how they changed Sha'uri's name!!! Oh my WORD! My husband can attest to the fact that pretty much any time Daniel says her name I just repeat it incredulously. I mean...how did we go from Sha'uri to Sha're??? It's like...do they ever explain this? Did her name get changed for some odd reason? Was Sha'uri the only copyrighted thing in the whole of the Stargate franchise?? I mean....as my husband pointed out they changed O'Neil's name by adding the extra 'L"...but at least that wasn't so....obvious! Sha're....it just...sounds so...weird.
But...I digress. (always wanted to say that!)
By far the most interesting was to see Teal'c, and know what was going on in his mind....to be able to see the conflict on his face. It was pretty amazing. Also I was really appreciative of how they had those emotional establishing shots when we would get the closeups of his face when Apophis kept asking his little goa'uld mate if the new nakey girl on the slab of a table was 'pleasing to her"....okay...now I have to comment on THAT part. For seriously!? Like...why? Why....why do they have to be naked? It's like....okay I could buy that maybe they just want to be sure they are getting the best 'speciment' (gosh that's an awful word)...but for reals...it's just...so yuck. Which brings me to my OTHER 'what the heck?!" moment....(This is the un-good edition of Children of the Gods aka: the nc-17 type one, that I am commenting on, which means if you've only seen the very much more classy and better done new version you might not have some of these scenes) why in the heck-world would the girls that they gathered for potential queenship be in like a little harem thing wearing pretty dresses? Especially if they are only going to have their pretty dresses taken off anyways in like five seconds? It's so stupid! There's REALLY absolutely NO reason whatsoever for them to be in there....to the best of my knowledge the Jaffa wouldn't be able to go hang out with the Harem girls, nor does it seem like Goa'uld have any interest in....shall we say....taking "advantage' of humans that are not hosts. So it just felt like....pointless and kind of dumb. Which brings me to my NEXT 'what the heck?!" moment...which is....What the heck is that half naked guy doing on that chaise with that girl using a hand device? He's just sitting there....and for a second I thought it was girl but then I realized the muscles were all wrong for a girl and then I saw the hand device and it was kind of like...."Whaaat?" I mean...I am guessing maybe he was healing her of her imperfections or something? Calming her down? Maybe she had a headache? I don't even know. All I know is that I definitely like the remastered version because the nudes are totally out of the pilot in that version and it's just so much better. The whole thing just doesn't fit with the show AT ALL and it feels kind of like they were desperate to hook viewers...i'd like to think that the viewers would have been hooked just as effectively with good storylines and characters, that people can like a show without having to have the whole "LOOK IT'S A NAKED WOMAN....AND SHE'S NUDE TOO!" aspect thrust at them to get them interested....people just aren't that dumb, and it seems the makers of the show agree with me since they pretty much used that line of gathering viewers from the next episodes on. (Note from Andrew: Aparently, as the pilot was produced for Showtime, this nudity was forced on them under protest- an apt parallel to the scene in question- and they immediately took it out as soon as they had control of the pilot, including syndication runs.)
Anyway...back to Teal'c. I feel like his character was handled so wonderfully in this episode, like I said the establishing emotional shots just make it totally acceptable that he rebels against everything and helps O'Neill and the others escape. This could have been a really terrible scene kind of akin to the "I escaped somehow!" scene in Thumb Wars. We could have been like "What the heck!? That's so conveniant, it's insulting! Why would he just suddenly help them!?" Because of those few shots where Christopher Judge so adequately shows us that Teal'c is totally disgusted with this, that he wants to be done with this life, that he knows these people he serves are evil, we totally buy that he wants to help our team of heroes.
I loved the scene we got when the last couple people escape through the Stargate from Chulak, when we get a rare view of the Stargate from behind as people jump through it...it's pretty cool! (Although just before that part, there was this scene with Apophis and 'Sha're', and Apophis looks up at the death glider above him and then looks down...and I had to rewind it to be sure but the film was TOTALLY reversed! It's so obvious! I am guessing it was either REALLY important to them that Apophis look down at the end of the scene...or more likely...there was more death glider scene than Apophis scene so they had to loop it to make it last longer) Also seeing the hardly ever seen secondary window above the main window in the gate room where Hammond and that whiney guy are standing near the end of the pilot. Although I kind of laughed a little bit when Sam came flip flopping onto the ramp when she jumped through...cause she kind of clearly just normal ran through the Stargate...it's kind of like...unless her molecules were being flung faster than normal or came together sooner than expected just before she came through the event horizon...you usually always come out of the Stargate the same way you went in.
I had to rewind the part when both Sam and Daniel are yelling "Hold your fire!" when Teal'c and that giant guy come through the gate, for some reason unknown to me...it was an extremely cool scene.
Although not even that scene could top the extreme WOW of the scene that takes place at about 1 hour 35 minutes I believe...when we get a little tast of whats to come with Sam, Daniel, O'Neill and Teal'c standing together framed beautifully by the Stargate behind them. Now THIS is definitely a moment that you can't really appreciate fully unless you've seen and loved the show because when you are first watching the pilot you obviously don't know whats to come and therefore can't appreciate the whole "THERE THEY ARE! TOGETHER! It's SG1 and they don't even KNOW IT yet!....OH MY WORD THAT'S SO BOSS!" moment. That's the best thing about this show, is that it's got 'replay' value to the extreme. It's not a show you watch once and then give away to someone, it's something you watch over and over again and notice something different every time, it's got an amazing internal continuity that no other show has. It makes you realize that they KNOW we remember, that we really want to hear references to past episodes, plights, solutions, friends. It's one of the only shows that when someone dies in like say episode 56...it's not like, in episode 57, everyone suddenly has amnesia and is all like "Bareil? Bareil who?", people actually remember and go through the hard emotions that come with losing someone. It makes you realize that the people who make and write and act this show aren't lazy bums who don't want to have to remember past continuity because it's NOT easy writing and remembering everything that happened in the past and making sure that what happens in the future reflects that (anyone who has tried to write a book can tell you that). But it makes the world of Stargate SG1 so much more rich and vibrant and real! It feels so real because that internal continuity! And I seriously know of no other show that does it like SG1....which is why it is tied for first place on my top five list of favorite tv shows. :)
All in all this was a good episode, It would have held my attention had I gone into it not knowing what Stargate was but I think I would have been a little skeptical about what it could do.

I give this episode 2 1/2 Grenade Lobbing Giants out of 5.

Why I loved the LOST Finale.

I'm freaking out...I just saw the last episode of LOST ever...I am so moved and so happy and so sad that it's over; and then I see the news right after the episode and see that people are confused!!! I am not angry at people for being confused because it's not a persons fault if they don't understand something...I am just worried that they won't try to figure it out and therefore hate what they don't understand; and I find myself feeling the same nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach as I do when I think about the rainforest being at the brink of extinction...."What if Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof think NONE of us gets it?" It's that same feeling you get when your favorite tv show gets canceled, when you WISH TO GOD you had that writer, that actor, that directors phone number so you could call them up THAT SECOND and say "DON'T WORRY! I LOVED YOUR SHOW, I knew MILLIONS of people who loved it too! I know for the next couple of days all you will be hearing is the negative part but don't forget us...the ones who got it!" But I don't have their phone numbers and I am pretty sure that they will never see the twitter message I sent them. So I am sitting here thinking...what can I do? WRITE A BLOG ABOUT IT! And so here I am...wanting to share how I interpreted the finale of Lost, in hopes that if you are reading this...you might just 'get it" too! Now there is always the possibility that I got it wrong too...there is a possibility that if Damon and Carlton read this they would be like "Where the heck did she get that idea!?" but...I really don't think I'm wrong; but like Jack said: "There's always a first time!" ;-D

First I want to address the common fan misunderstanding that "They were all dead to begin with? Well then how did they know each other if they all died in a plane crash in the beginning?"
THEY DID NOT ALL DIE IN THE PLANE CRASH! I reiterate...they have been ALIVE from the beginning! I am really doubting they would have explained how the plane crash didn't kill all of them in a really logical way if they were actually just going to pull the rug out from under them at the end and say "Oops! NOPE! NO explanation for how you survived the plane crash cause you actually died!" Christian Shepherd says; "...everything that happened to you was real." But he also says that he himself is real and Jack is real, which confuses people because everyone knows that Christian is dead. Here's where it might get confusing...but it will be a whole lot easier if you've seen Star Trek Generations. Remember there's a part where Guinan is voicing over the scene with Captain Kirk chopping the wood and she says "And from his point of view...he just got here too." Kirk and Picard are not in heaven but in the Nexxus, and in Picard's timeline Kirk had dissapeared like 80 years before...yet Kirk thinks he's just arrived. Because there is NO SUCH THING AS TIME in the nexxus.
This principle translates to the sideways universe. Remember when Christan says "There is no 'NOW' here." But that's hard for us to fathom as humans! We feel like if we are seeing the entire cast of LOST in what we think is 'heaven' then they MUST have had to have all died at the same time! But in the case of there being no such thing as TIME then that's simply not true! Remember Jack asks when they all died...and Christian says "Some before you...some after you." I think this is really hard for the fans to grasp because we just simply cannot fathom a place where TIME does not exist...as much as we think sci fi movies have prepared us to think more broadly it just is too hard. But remember, Hurley turns to tell Ben before he goes into the church (just minutes after we've seen him ask Ben for help on the Island) "You made an awesome number 2" and Ben replies "You made a great number one"...which infers that they've lived a long time protecting the island together before they came here. I know that's confusing because then at the end of the show, we see Jack die and it's obviously long before Ben and Hurley die...but then once again you realize you are thinking like a human...you are thinking inside the limits of TIME! Where there is no time, it would seem like everyone got there at the same time no matter how far apart everyone died. I also think people got confused because everyone looked the same, like if they all died at different times why wasn't Sawyer an old man, or Kate a middle aged woman? But those images of who they were are how they recognize each other and how they remember each other best, that is what they looked like when the most important events of their lives took place, and we have no idea what they might look like once they finally move all the way on.
Now on to explain the sideways universe. My theory is that it's like Christian said "this is the place you created so you'd know how to find each other." Because everything they went through on the island is, as Christian said, the most important events of their lives...they are bonded so closely! I think what Carlton and Damon were trying to bring across is that they are so integral to each other's lives that they couldn't possibly move onto "Heaven' without each other, they couldn't be 'whole' without each other. So there is this kind of 'waiting room' before Heaven (although 'waiting' isn't quite the right word seeing as there is no such thing as time there) where they can be reunited to make the journey together. They need each other, their souls are bound to each other because of everything they have gone through. Which is also why they needed each other to help remind them of who they really are, hence the sudden memories of their life back on 'earth' was.
This is also why Ben stayed behind, he still had work to do before he could really move on. I think this is part of the reason why he was so grateful to Locke for forgiving him...that was a HUGE part of his journey to forgiving himself and letting go his guilt for all he has done in the past let alone the death of his daughter. (we all know how important and pervasive the message of 'letting go" has been in the past couple episodes) This is also, I believe, why Eloise kept trying to keep Desmond from 'reminding' everyone of their 'past', of helping everyone move on...because she couldn't. She liked living in her little fairy-tale world where she could pretend that the weight of her guilt wasn't crushing her...she could live the life she wished she always could with Daniel, a Daniel who didn't remember that his own mother sent him to an island where she would kill him herself as a young woman. It's an illustration on how the people who feel like no one can forgive them, not even God, decide to live in a sham of a world where they pretend they don't know any better. I think she was jealous of people being able to move on with things which is why she tried to stop Desmond time and time again.

My husband explained it really well here, and a lot shorter:

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jack died from his wounds ("I'm dead already...") but lived long enough to know he saved the Island and see the plane escape. Basically, as soon as his eye closes at the end of this episode, he finds himself immediately on the Oceanic 815 in the sideways universe from LA X.

Meanwhile, others, Like Ben, Hurley, and the plane crew, end up living a regular life, dying of old age in, like 2063 or somesuch, and then they also end up right there on the plane in LA X in 2004 in the sideways universe. Sarah came up with the comparison to Star Trek: Generations, which I think is appropriate- you can depart at any time, but you all arrive at the same time."

I really think that two 'camps' of people watched the LOST finale, the Emotional Camp and the Intellectual Camp (I am NOT saying that people who are emotional and not intellectual and vice versa...but you have to use broad terms to make a point), I think the Emotional camp was just so happy that they were all safe and together in the end it didn't matter to them whether EVERY single last thing got cleared up, but the intellectual camp felt kind of dissapointed that some of the mysteries they've been watching the show for haven't gotten answered...and I am sure that feels a bit like a betrayal and I am also not saying that the Emotional camp wasn't dissapointed with some little mysteries they were hoping to get cleared up. But you know what?? I kind of really LIKE that we didn't get all the answers...because there is still room for us to play in the world with our thoughts and our imaginations...we aren't crowded and limited by answers; we can dream and imagine why this could have been or that (I mean come on...how cool is it imagining what life with Ben would have been like on the Island? And wondering who Hurley chose for his replacement?! That's why this show is so cool! It gets our imaginations revving!)...and I know some people probably aren't happy with that because for some people that's just not how things work for them. But for the people like me, and for myself I think that I am really happy with it, LOST was all about the characters and the mystery, and as much as people might argue about not liking the mystery...that's TOTALLY what drew them to the show in the first place! Lost was ALL about the characters and the mystery, the adventure....and they left off with all aspects we love intact!:) Like Jorge Garcia said "It wouldn't be LOST if we didn't keep a few things close to the chest."My final thoughts on LOST? Darnit I'm gonna miss these guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for the amazing ride, I'll remember it for a lifetime!