Well, that was truely epic.

So much good stuff, and after last year’s “Daleks in Manhatten” misfire, its nice to see the Daleks being flippin scary again (a large part due to Elisabeth Sladen’s fantastic performance).

Great seeing the gang get back together (although the slow-motion run between the Doctor and Rose was veering dangerous close to cheese overload - thank God that Dalek was passing).  Billie Piper seems to have sorted out her performance since last week as well, and felt a lot more like this was the Rose of old turning up.

Killer cliffhanger as well.  Be interesting to see how it gets resolved.

That cover really doesn’t work as a thumbnail, does it?

Well, this week heralds the release of the second part of DC’s big summer event.  Of course, the way things are going, the main DC summer event is all the controversy surrounding this book and specifically the mis-handling of its build up.   However its well established now that Countdown sucked, so there’s little point going over it again.

Instead, to Final Crisis #2.  Final Crisis has been taking a bit of a kicking, due to its “slow burn” approach, versus Secret Invasion’s all-out summer grandslam spectacular with helicarriers falling from the sky.  However, when all’s said and done, based on the issues so far, and with no disrespect to the great job Bendis is doing on SI, I do think Final Crisis is going to be the better read.

Both first issues just ooze mystery and foreboding.  With this issue picking up Dan Turpin’s investigation into the missing children, which leads him to some horrific discoveries, and also the JLA and Green Lanterns’ investigation into Orion’s murder, which leads to pretty much the same horrific discovery, but also features Hal being framed for the murder, and some great craziness as to the nature of the murder weapon (which is honestly something that you’d only find in a Morrison book).

Its a real shame that this book is being overshadowed by the controversy surrounding it.  It promises to be something much deeper in scope than the big, Hollywood blockbuster style approaches of recent summer events, and the writing and art are both outstanding.   Sadly, at least when it comes to online forums, it seems that readers would rather go straight for the falling helicarriers, which is a great pity as I wasn’t even a fan of the fourth world stuff, and I can tell Grant Morrison’s doing something pretty special here.

I’ve been using my iPod Touch for a good few weeks now, and with the v2 software due out imminently, I thought it’d be interesting to put together a wishlist for what kind of things I’d like to see, that haven’t already been mentioned.

• Better home screen customisation.  Currently, while you can re-order items on the home screen, and add Safari links, you can’t add quick links to different types of audio, in the same way you can on the other iPods.  I tend to use Playlists, Podcasts and Audiobooks a lot, so it’d be nice to have buttons on the home screen for them, rather than navigating to them via the Music section.
• Podcast syncing.  I’ve noticed there seems to be a bug with podcast syncing, in that sometimes podcasts I’ve listened to, aren’t marked as such, and removed from the iPod on the next sync.  However its an intermittant problem.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t, and I have to mark the podcasts as not new in iTunes manually.  It’d be nice to see this fixed.
• Podcast descriptions.   When first released neither the iPhone nor iPod Touch supported lyrics.  Apple added that functionality with the first software update, however they didn’t extend it to include podcast descriptions.  Viewing them is a feature I miss, as when I’m listening to Linux podcasts, its handy to be able to refer to the show notes to double-check the name of any interesting software they might be talking about.   Some podcasts have started copying their description to the lyrics section, but really it’d be good if Apple could just fix this properly.
• Radio Remote compatibility.  Everytime I’ve got to pull this iPod out just to skip to the next track, I tend to be worried that I’m painting a big “mug me!” sign above my head.  It’d be good if Apple could either tweak the software to allow the existing radio remote to work, or ship a new version with iPod Touch/iPhone compatibility.

Those are probably my top 4 niggles with any otherwise brilliant device.  They’re minor things, and these kinds of things are to be expected in the first generation of a new device, but I hope Apple addresses them.

Well, I’ve talked a bit about how exciting the “next time” trailer was, but what about the episode itself?

Borrowing from a sci-fi staple, time is altered so that Donna never met the Doctor, resulting in his death during his battle with the Racnoss.  Its downhill for Earth from there.

This was probably one of the strongest scripts RTD has delivered.  Its always fun seeing how alternate Earths might’ve turned out, safe in the knowledge that things will be back to normal at the end.  However, this was more haunting than that.  The scenes of London’s destruction after being hit by the Titanic were incredibly well done, and it was genuinely disturbing watching things go downhill, as Earth struggles to repel the various alien menaces without the Doctor’s help.  Its not long before we hear that both Martha and Sarah Jane (and Luke, Maria and Clyde.  Ouch) died at the hands of the Juudoon, and the Torchwood team sacrifice themselves to stop the Sontarans turning Earth into their new cloning world.

Of course, all eyes were on Billie Piper’s return as Rose, however she was by no means the star of this episode.  This was Donna’s chance to shine, and Catherine Tate stepped up to the mark admirably, blowing away all her nay-sayers (yes, that includes me.  I wasn’t pleased by the initial announcement either, but in my defense, I was still smarting from Martha leaving, and a pre-season 4 rewatch of the Runaway Bride completely changed my mind).   There’s no doubt in my mind that Donna has been the perfect 10th Doctor companion.  She plays off of Tennant’s Doctor perfectly in a way neither Rose (who I’ll always view as more suited to the 9th Doctor) nor Martha did.  Catherine Tate really seized this chance to show off her acting muscles, and you really felt Donna’s desperation as she thinks she’s realised she won’t die, only to have Rose tell her otherwise.

An absolutely cracking episode.  The killer cliffhanger was only the icing on the cake.  And we even got a nice reference to Sarah Jane Adventures when the Doctor identified the Time Beetle as one of the Trickster’s Brigade (a being who wiped Sarah Jane from history and had commented that it’d be a laugh to do the same to the Doctor).

All eyes are on the finale now.  There’s no doubt in my mind that for me, this has been the strongest season yet.  The finale’s got a lot to live up to, and with juggling all those different elements and characters, its either going to be the most awesome finale ever, or a complete disaster.    Personally, I’m hyped up for it and can’t wait till Saturday.

Well, the second trailer today is up for the Stolen Earth.

However, I’m not going to repost it here, as I know some of my friends will want to avoid spoilers, and this one contains a huge spoiler.

However, if you’re already fairly well spoiled, or don’t care, then click here.  Its a good ‘un.

Yeah, this blog’s probably going to be a bit Dr Who-crazy for the next 14 days or so…

I noticed today that my first Dr Who Music Video on Youtube has passed 1000 views!

Ok, so that’s not much in the grand scheme of Youtube, but still its a good acomplishment for me

Surprisingly my classic series tribute is also doing well, having racked up 270 views, versus my other new series tribute, which only has 94.   I say surprising, because the classic series one was the one I’d quickly cobbled together to test out an idea I had, versus the new series one, which I actually spent some time over.

Well, the Stolen Earth hype is firmly underway, with the Beeb showing a new teaser this morning, and a longer trailer expected tonight just before 7pm.  Here’s the Dalek teaser.

6 days to go…

I like the caption section on the BBC Youtube channel

Well, anyone that watched tonight’s Dr Who probably had their head explode due to the sheer awesomeness of the next time trailer.  Daleks, Sarah Jane, Torchwood, Daleks vs Torchwood…

Its going to be a long 7 day wait…

Here’s the next time trailer, which the Beeb have nicely put up on Youtube.

I’ve talked before about my love for the Knights of the Old Republic series from Dark Horse. Granted during Vektor I really struggled with it, but now they’re unencumbered by the crossover event, things have really kicked off, with Zayne moving towards his final confrontation with Lucien.

Issue #30 picks up where we left off. Zayne and his crew have discovered the covenant’s store of Sith artifacts when they are captured by Feln, a member of the Covenant who has perverted his race’s traditions to serve the Covenant.

Its a cracking read, and Zayne fairing so well in combat against Feln was great to see. We’re seeing the cracks show in the remaining members of the Covenant as well, with Lucien’s command over them slipping as their members dwindle and Zayne coming ever closer to exposing what they’ve done.

I’m really looking forward to the conclusion of this arc. Its the story that has dominated the series from the beginning, and I’m really hoping we see Zayne finally cleared of the Padawan massacre (of course, there’s a reasonable number of people now who know the truth, or at least suspect, in the case of Master Vandar).

While Legacy (also a good read) tends to get the praised heaped upon it, this title is still my top pick from Dark Horse’s Star Wars range.