Reilly2040's Blog

Oops.  I never did get round to posting about GL #55.  The short version being, that I’m not much of a Lobo fan, so most of the issue didn’t do anything for me.  That said, I have been enjoying the Red Lantern stuff, and the reveal that Atrocitus had manipulated Hal and co was a good one.

So anyway, on to GL #56.  The story with the entities rumbles on as the mysterious figure frees Hector Hammond and Hal heads out to find Larfleeze to ask him how he managed to contain Ophidian (who is trapped in the Orange Lantern).

To be honest, the reveal that Larfleeze had captured Ophidian was a bit of a surprise, as I’d taken it from the previous Agent Orange story that Larfleeze had just inherited everything.  However thinking about it, while Larfleeze found the Orange Lantern and its temple, its possible Larfleeze later trapped Ophidian.  However there’s still backstory to the Orange Lantern that we’re waiting on being revealed.

Another thing I enjoyed about this issue was breaking up the Hal, Carol, Sinestro team.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been greatly enjoying the characters.  However for me Hal was starting to feel a bit like a guest star in his own book.  As a result, the Hal/Larfleeze scenes felt more paired down to me, in a good way.

It is also interesting to note that Larfleeze is right back to being a mostly comic relief character as well.  Any hint of menace from his initial appearance now is lost in his writing letters to Santa and the like.  Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, as it does help make him distinct amongst the raft of new characters.  If you want menace, then Atrocitus and the Red Lanterns have that in spades.

However it will be interesting to see where Sayd’s been sent…

The hunt for the entities remains at centre stage despite the shift in cast for this issue, and I must say it was very nice to see Saint Walker again.  The Blue Lanterns were a big hit for me when they first appeared, but since then, they haven’t really been explored much at all, unlike most of the other Lanterns (barring probably the Indigos).  Especially now they’ve lost both their Guardians, I remain keen to see more of the Blue Lanterns.  However, I’m not entirely convinced its going to happen outside of Saint Walker and the Blue Entity.

It was also good to see Hector Hammond’s previous appearances pay off in this issue.  He’s been a nice lingering threat throughout most of Johns’ run, with red herrings early on that he’d be linked to the Orange Lanterns (of course he wasn’t, that turned out to be Larfleeze).  So here we get to see that pay off, as he frees and joins with Ophidian.  Hammond’s been a successful character in this run, well done as a creepy threat and its nice to see him take centre stage for next issue.

Overall, this issue grabbed me a lot more than last month.  I still feel a little close to burn out with the various new Lanterns and Entities, but Hal felt less overshadowed this month to me and the mysterious figure (who appears to be hot on the trail of the Predator in Las Vegas) continues to be intriguing.

Tying into the Return of Bruce Wayne, this week launches a miniseries that follows the adventures of Rip Hunter and his crew as they try and track down Bruce in the past.

I’ve been waiting on this series patiently since Dan Jurgens left the Booster Gold book, and it didn’t disappoint.   Despite the Batman tie in, and Superman and Green Lantern being along for the ride, this feels like a natural extension of the Booster Gold book, as Jurgens also works in Daniel Carter as Supernova to the story, an element that will be lost on anyone who wasn’t following the Booster Gold book (although who he is is explained in the book).

This first issue worked well to me, both as a continuation of Dan Jurgens run, and as a Return of Bruce Wayne tie-in, with the action picking up not long after the Archivist (a disguised Bruce Wayne), left the group on the soon-to-be destroyed Vanishing Point.  Escaping into the past (not long after pirate issue  of the other mini-series) the group then has to figure out how to get back and stop Bruce.

I’ve always liked the idea behind this series.  Given that Rip Hunter and Booster Gold are now the DCU’s defenders of the time stream, it made a lot of sense to me that they’d be involved.  However, I guess it also means the list of people who know the truth about Booster is expanding, with Superman and Green Lantern joining the group.  Its not been specifically covered in either series, but I assume there must’ve been a moment off-screen when Rip and Booster discussed letting the others know.   I wonder if anyone else from the League is aware of Booster’s status, or if they’ve managed to keep it quiet and limited to just Supes and GL?  Of course, Superman finding out is fine.  Hal?  Well, Green Lantern does help shift the books these days

Of course, that’s all by the by.  The appearance of Supernova was a nice surprise in this series, which I’d assumed would just feature the characters already seen in Return of Bruce Wayne.   Supernova’s not been seen in a while in the Booster Gold book, so its nice to see the character still active, and his time travel abilities make him a natural way to try and rescue Booster and co.

There’s a big difference between this series and Booster Gold though.  In this series, things are being written from Rip Hunter’s perspective, which adds a fresh spin on things.  It allows more of an insight into his relationship with Booster, giving us the nice flashback to when he was a boy, being taken by his Dad (Booster) to see Dinosaurs in the past, but also serves to underline that he’s been trained in time travel and its complexities from a young age, and so is uniquely qualified to deal with the current situation, despite the presence of heavyweight heroes Superman and Green Lantern.

Another aspect to this series I like, is the way its plugging one of the gaps in the Return of Bruce Wayne story.  Prior to Blackest Night, Bruce was assumed dead by all except Tim Drake.  After Blackest Night, Dick tried to revive the body of Bruce, only to suddenly discover the body was actually that of a clone created by Darkseid.  So far, so good.  However then things suddenly jumped.  Now, granted Tim had discovered the cave painting Bruce made at the end of Final Crisis, but suddenly all the characters knew that not only was Bruce alive, but also that he was trapped, bouncing around time as a result of the Omega Effect.  It was a bit jarring with no real explanation of how they all found this out.  This issue though suggests that it was Rip and Booster who filled everyone in (or at least, they recruited Superman and GL, who told everyone else).

Overall a great start.   Perhaps Superman and GL weren’t being completely written in character, but to be honest, its not them I’m reading this for.  And as a continuation of Dan Jurgens Booster Gold, this is ticking the right boxes for me.

As is customary for MMOs, Star Trek Online is currently near to releasing its next major free content expansion.  However prior to its release on the live server (Holodeck), much of the content is currently on the test server (Tribble) so that the userbase can beta test the new content and find any critical bugs.

So I’ve installed the test server and had a sneaky peak at what to expect from season 2, and I’m really excited.

I’ve avoided playing the new storyline missions so as not to spoil everything, and I don’t actually have a Klingon character, so I can’t try that side of things (I really should start a new Klingon and slowly level them up although I’m already juggling my Tactical and Science alts).

However I have checked out the much-anticipated ship interiors and diplomacy missions.

The ship interiors are something players (especially the role players) have been after for a while.  Since the game launched, ships have always had bridges that you could visit, acting as a social area for you to interact with your friends in a private space.   Several variant bridges were available for you to choose from, and this customisation was later added to by adding more bridge packs into the C-Store.

However, now they’ve been revamped.  The bridges themselves remain largely unchanged, however now, where doors would be static, you have the option to visit the Captain’s ready room off to the side of the bridge.  A nice office area where you can display some of your gained accolades on the wall.  Head out and to the turbolift, and the doors again open, and you’re presented with the option to head to either Engineering or the crew deck.

These decks were great fun to explore.  The corridors looked spot on for a Federation starship, and from them you can visit various key areas of the ship including the engine room, sick bay, the lounge (a la Ten Forward) or even the Captain’s quarters.  At the moment they seem to be purely social areas to be explored for fun, but like a lot of the stuff early in the game, its easy to see where they’ll provide the basis for further functionality.   I know that various mini-games are being discussed, so you’ll be able to help research something in the science lab, or fix an issue in engineering.   I really hope these minigames do make it in, as they sound like a great idea.  And obviously once the interiors are in place, they can easily be used in missions, should you get boarded by Hirogen or someone.

Also expanded the game’s non-combat aspects are the new diplomacy missions.  These take two forms.  The first is First Contact missions, assigned by an Ambassador that appears in your contacts, they involve you meeting up with representatives who then beam to your ship’s conference lounge.  Once there, your job is to talk to the various representatives to gain an insight to their culture, before talking to their ambassador and trying to cement a good relationship with them based on that knowledge.

The second type of diplomacy mission can be found on the various social planets.  So far I’ve only tried the mission on Vulcan, but it involves a Romulan delegation arriving on the planet only to have the Romulan Ambassador’s life threatened and you must investigate and find the guilty party.

Both these types of missions involve quite a bit of reading, but they do break up the constant combat missions quite a bit.  They’re also a nice use of the social areas which until now have generally sat empty, and will give people a reason to visit planets like Vulcan and Risa that they might’ve ignored up until now.  Completing these missions gives diplomacy XP and will allow you to rise through the ranks of the Diplomacy Corps separate to the main ranks, with special perks unlocked as you go, so it provides nice alternative content.

There’s also a nice atmosphere to the new missions.  Seeing the ship’s observation lounge being used for the first contact missions worked well, and a nice touch was seeing your own bridge officers interacting with the visiting diplomats.

Both the interiors and diplomacy missions seem really well done to me.  I’ve had a quick play around with them, and I can’t wait until season 2 goes live and I explore them properly.  Obviously, with the test server I’m wary of trying out too much, as I still want some surprises for the proper release

This year was always going to be a big deal for Doctor Who.  RTD had been show runner since it came back, and David Tennant was an amazingly successful Doctor.  So the prospect of a new series, with a new show runner, a new vision and a new Doctor was a daunting one.  Would audiences accept the change?  And how noticeable would Steven Moffat’s vision be in the final product versus RTD’s?

Up until this year, I would probably say series 4 was my favourite.  David Tennant had playing the 10th Doctor down to a fine art, and in Donna there was a companion who I found a much better match for Tennant’s Doctor than either Rose or Martha.  The episodes by and large I found consistently good and the return of Davros, the icing on the cake.

So Steven Moffat certainly had a lot to live up to.  And straight from the Eleventh Hour, the new series hit the ground running, with possibly the best series opener yet.

For me, the real stand-out thing of the whole series was undoubtedly Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor.  The youngest actor in the role, and pretty much an unknown (not that David Tennant was really a household name prior to getting the role) there had been a fair amount of worry in fandom about how he would be in the role.  But it quickly became obvious why Steven Moffat had had so much confidence in him.  The initial scenes with Amelia won me over quickly, and over the course of the series he continued to impress, pitching his Doctor as much more of a mad professor than his predecessor, this portrayal really struck a chord with me, aided no doubt by the great quotable lines Steven Moffat kept feeding him, and his brilliant delivery of them. “Its a fez, I wear a fez now.  Fez’s are cool.”

This series also showed a willingness to experiment a little, obviously a sign of the new production team finding their feet.  The arc plot was greatly expanded in comparison to previous years, with the scene in Flesh and Stone that was later revisited in the finale, and the cracks appearing throughout the show.   The overarching threat of the Silence was left unresolved, and instead set things up for next year.   However we also had the Van Gogh episode.  An episode that could’ve so easily been a pure historical, focused solely on Van Gogh and his mental issues.  These were brave moves, and for me paid off.  Whether the more general audience bought into it I don’t know, but at least with the overarching plot, they’re promised a resolution next year, so don’t have too long to wait.

In Amy and Rory, again Steven Moffat took what RTD had done previously and built on it.  In some ways you can easily draw parallels to Rose and Mickey in the Christopher Eccleston series, but here things play out very differently.  Rose was obviously not as attached to Mickey as Amy is to Rory, and where the former couple ended up separating over Rose’s travels with the Doctor, here the Doctor gets actively involved in trying to help the couple, bringing Rory onboard the TARDIS and taking them away for a romantic getaway (how was he supposed to know there’d be evil fish-vampires there?).  This provided the middle of the series with a nice boost, and gave Amy a strong character arc for the series as she realises how much she loves Rory, only to lose him again in Cold Blood.  All this means that when he comes back in an Auton body, only to near-fatally wound Amy and then spend 2000 years guarding her in the Pandorica, its all the more powerful, and it all culminates nicely in their wedding.

Not just the actors and writers changed this year though, with various pieces of design getting make overs as well.  The new TARDIS console room went down very well with me.  I’m not a huge fan of the actual console itself (I’ve never been a massive fan of the bric-a-brac look), especially the central column which I think looks too cluttered making it hard to make out features like the blown-glass sculpture at the centre.   However the room is brilliant.  I love the multi-level aspect that’s been increased from the previous version, and it was really nice to see a return of the big viewscreen that was completely absent in the Eccleston/Tennant console.  The fact there’s various corridors and doors heading off really leads me to hope that at somepoint we’re going to finally explore more of the TARDIS in the new series.

The one makeover though that didn’t work for me, was the new Daleks.  They’ve been discussed to death in most places, but suffice to say, I greatly preferred the RTD versions.  I do though like the idea of the specific Daleks in certain roles marked out by their colour, and what role the Eternal will come to play should be interesting (my assumption is that it’ll end up like the Cult of Skaro, working separately from the others on its own projects to ensure the Dalek race continues and thrives).

Overall, this series has definitely been a big success for me.  I’m actually slightly surprised at just how much Matt Smith has won me over so quickly.  If I were doing a “best Doctors” list, he’d almost certainly be near the top.  Steven Moffat’s ambitious scripting paid off massively for me, and the high points of the series (The Eleventh Hour, Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone and The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang) probably, for me, were even higher than those set by previous series.

I find myself eagerly awaiting the Christmas Special and series 6, but in the meantime we’ve got Matt Smith’s appearance in Sarah Jane Adventures to look forward to.  Sure to be interesting as Sarah and Jo meet the new Doctor, but also as we have Russell T Davies scripting the Eleventh Doctor for the first time, something I’m very much looking forward to.

And so we have our first look at Ryan Reynolds in the much-publicised CGI Green Lantern costume.

I have to admit, my gut reaction is that I’m not sure.  Admittedly, this is only a static, partial shot on a magazine cover, so of course this could all change when we get our first proper footage, but to be honest, I’ve never really understood why they felt the costume had to be all CG in the first place.  It just sounds needlessly expensive to me, versus making a physical suit.

Heck, they made physical Iron Man armour for those  movies and there’s probably a stronger argument for them being CGI-only.

Having said all that, the CGI should help underline that the costume is a ring construct, which could make for interesting visuals.

As for the costume in this picture, I’m really not sure.  Its instantly recognisable, but I’m not sure about the energy lines which cover the suit (although again, in motion they may help play with the fact the suit is a construct itself).  The mask also brings more to mind Parallax than Hal Jordan, but that’s just being a fanboy.  To be honest, its hard to really tell from this one picture.

So overall, not sure, but I’ll wait until we see proper footage.  That’s usually where movie costumes shine when under proper lighting and the like.

Yay, the first episode of the Guild season 4 was released last night on Bing Videos.

I’ve been a fan since the first season, so I definitely recommend checking it out.  Its one of the big success stories when it comes to web series, and if you’re interested then you can check out all of the first three seasons on the Guild’s Youtube page.

Now this looks like it should be a lot of fun

And that’s a great cast list too

So, last we saw, Rory was an Auton, Amy had been shot (by Rory), The Doctor had been locked in the Pandorica by pretty much every alien ever and River was trapped in the TARDIS as it exploded, destroying pretty much everything.  The big question being, how the heck do they get out of this one?

Steven Moffat had certainly held true to RTD’s template for the first part of his finale.  All of reality at stake and lots of returning faces and everything screaming EPIC!   However for his finale, things suddenly get scaled back to become much more intimate as the focus is brought squarely on the TARDIS crew (and River) as they try to restore the universe and the TARDIS.

The opening was particularly effective, re-using the opening from Eleventh Hour, but with the twist that this is now the universe as seen at the end of The Pandorica Opens, where all other worlds have been wiped out, and the Doctor never crash lands in the back garden. Given how popular the Amelia/Doctor scenes were in the series opener, it was great to see her back, and the reveal of Amy being the one in the Pandorica was really nicely done.

Steven Moffat indulges his love of time travel here to great effect.  With the Doctor popping in and out throughout the story to help arrange his own escape, Amy’s resurrection via Amelia and the Pandorica and finally the resetting of the universe, all via the vortex manipulator seen last episode.   Its played with great fun, as the strangeness of the Doctor suddenly appearing in a fez and with a mop (fez’s are cool) sits wonderfully with Matt Smith’s take on the character.

As the Doctor takes a hit from a partially-restored Dalek, the story shifts to the Doctor, badly injured and having realised the only way to restore the universe is to use the Pandorica and risk trapping himself in the void on the other side of the cracks.   These scenes are where Steven Moffat brings back some of the emotion people have claimed has been missing from his run, as the Doctor, living his life in reverse, carefully figures out the way he can be restored, finding Amelia waiting for him in her garden, tucking her into bed, and telling his story of the old, yet new, borrowed box in the most brilliant blue.

It all built up to a brilliant “punch the air” moment, as the wedding day arrives and the Doctor’s story triggers Amy’s memories of him, allowing her imaginary friend to reappear slap, bang in the middle of the meal.  The Doctor emerging already dressed in his top hat and tails for the wedding was great, and it all built wonderfully towards giving us the great final moments of the Doctor, Amy and Rory all together in the TARDIS, heading off towards the Orient Express and the Christmas Special. The fact the old, new, borrowed, blue had been so expertly woven into the Doctor’s story worked beautifully, allowing the viewer to suddenly twig what the Doctor (and Steven Moffat) had done just as Amy’s figuring out herself.

I don’t think we’ve had an ending that upbeat since the series came back, as they’ve always had to deal with a main cast member leaving (9th Doctor, Rose, Martha and Donna), so it made a welcome change in pace, and allowed Steven Moffat to end the series in such a brilliantly happy way that RTD was always denied. But then, in fairness, RTD was exceptionally good at those emotional wringer endings, so this isn’t really a complaint, just a very nice change of pace.

Despite that however, I’m very tempted to say this was the strongest series finale we’ve had. Both parts held up as great episodes on their own, and Steven Moffat expertly weaved in finale aspects people were used to, while also allowing it to draw in things that had been setup throughout the series.

And there’s setup in place for next year as well. The Silence and whoever orchestrated everything by controlling the TARDIS remain to be revealed. Likewise, we’re teased that we’ll be finding out River Song’s story soon too. I like the fact neither of these reveals have been rushed, but I’m also glad its being indicated they will be revealed next year. I like the setup going across series, but this isn’t, and should never be Lost, so I’m glad we’ve got lots of good stuff to look forward to next year with the promise that it’ll actually be resolved.

Christmas can’t come soon enough

I can’t be the only one that’s really, really looking forward to this

A-team Official Trailer

“They are the the best, and they specialise in the ridiculous”.  Love it