Once Upon a Geek

A recent episode of Doctor Who entitled “Midnight” struck me as very reminiscent of an old Twilight Zone episode named “The Shelter“.  Both stories took place in a very confined place with a small cast in a dire situation.  As emotions ran high, the concept of human decency came into question.  I love high-energy, high-stress stories like these that tackle the human condition.

In “The Shelter”, a group of neighborhood friends argue over the right to be in a bomb shelter (truthfully the right to survive) as they believe nuclear missiles are soaring their way.   The family with the bomb shelter is locked inside while the other neighbors demand to be let in.  Arguments ensue and emotions become extraordinarily tense.  In desperation to survive, these neighbors are willing to sacrifice the feelings of others, the right to private property, friendship itself, and ultimately they submit to violence.  As the neighbors smash through the bomb shelter door, the air raid is called off as a false alarm.  Thus the former friends are forced to live with what they said, their actions, and somehow return to their normal lives.

In “Midnight”, a group of tourists trapped on a tour bus argue what to do when an unexplainable presence possesses one of their own.  The danger they face by being trapped is very real (immediate death by solar exposure if they open the door to the broken-down tour bus).  The question becomes: what do they do with their fellow tourist who is now possessed by the very creature that trapped them.  At least two people have already died, and the tourists believe they may be next.  As in “The Shelter”, the instinct to survive drives everyone to terrible choices.  While panic ensues, emotions boil over and the tourists decide to murder their fellow tourist who has become possessed.  Part of the drama in this scene comes from the fact that the tourists are about to kill the wrong person.  In the end, the tour hostess sacrifices herself to destroy the possessing entity.  Since its science fiction, the high tension level is blamed on the alien presence. However, the emotional impact of the story works just as well without the sci-fi excuse.  Again, the band of characters are forced to live with what they said, their actions, and somehow return to their normal lives.

Really great claustrophobic and frantic storytelling in both.  I’ve always believed that science fiction is at its best when it uses outlandish settings in contrast with very real, down-to-earth dramatic situations.  Check out both stories, definitely worth your time.

Here is another installment of KID WHO! This time we decided to watch the classic episode, “The Curse of Peladon“.

“Kid Who” features reviews of Doctor Who episodes from the perspective of a child. These short audio interviews are between myself and my eight-year old step-son.

You can play the audio file right here on the Once Upon a Geek site with the handy-dandy player below!  Running time 1 minute and 36 seconds.

If  you’re unable to play the file above, please download it here.

The name “B-Wing” has always bothered me.  I believe I can safely say that some of you are thinking, “hell ya, that’s always bugged the crap out of me too!”  While another percentage of you are thinking, “what the frig is a B-Wing, and why do I care?”

The B-Wing is a spaceship from the movie “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi” (don’t you dare refer to it as “Episode 6″ around me).  However, unlike all the other letter-named ships in the series (i.e. X-Wing, Y-Wing, and A-Wing), the ship design doesn’t resemble the letter of the alphabet. 

Here are some images to demonstrate my point.  First row (l-to-r): X-Wing and Y-Wing.  Second row (l-to-r): A-Wing and B-Wing.

Clearly the B-Wing name doesn’t match its body design.  It doesn’t look anything like a “B”!  In fact, the B-Wing sure looks a lot like the lower case letter “t”.  You’d think it would be called the “T-Wing”.  I suspect someone at ILM had their radio up too loud listening to “Maneater” by Daryl Hall and John Oates.  Because of the noise, they simply misheard “bee” in place of ”tee” and it stuck.  Once Kenner started making the toys, they realized they couldn’t go back and change it to “T-Wing” (especially after the whole 4-LOM/Zuckuss debacle from “Empire Strikes Back”).

Now before you go believing that crap about “B-Wing” being named for the Nebulon-B frigate, you gotta realize that’s a “expanded universe” retcon.  So I don’t believe for a second that was the plan back in 1983. 

I blame Hall & Oates. 

What a great Father’s Day I had!  My wife made chocolate chip muffins for breakfast, I spent the morning playing with the kids, then we all swam in pool for the first time this season, next I got to eat Sonny’s barbeque for lunch, and finally we went to the comic book shop!  What a fun stress-free day!

In addition to some nice typical Father’s Day items, I gotta mention the geek-related swag I received.  I got a cool Marvel t-shirt from Target that I’ve been eyeing lately (see picture to right).  Then I also received two plates that my kids drew for me! You can see the plate on the left was done by two-year old daughter.  She’s currently in her Impressionist period.  Don’t worry, we’re watching her closely to ensure she doesn’t cut off her ear and give it to anyone.  The plate on the right was done by my eight year old step-son.  You can see he’s done a Doctor Who themed plate for me.  This may just be my favorite piece of Doctor Who related merchandise now!  You can clearly make out the 10th Doctor, Martha Jones, K-9, and the remains of a recently-destroyed Dalek!  He got all the colors right, and even drew in the Sonic Screwdriver.  I’m so proud of my budding little geek!

In regard to the shirt, I love the 1960’s/1970’s era Marvel apparel.  The fake fading makes them look even cooler! However, I gotta ask you (my geek buddies) to help me identify one of the faces on my new shirt.  I recognize everyone except this guy.  Who the funk is he?  He’s not Reed Richards and he’s not Nick Fury.  I’m clueless.  A little help here?

I thought a poll might be fun today!  So… who is your favorite actor to play “The Doctor” on Doctor Who?  I’m excluding David Tennant and Tom Baker from the poll because they always top the list of favorites.  This way, I thought you might have to work a littler harder to choose.

Please use the poll in the right-hand sidebar to vote.  If you are reading this blog on LiveJournal, please visit my main site to vote.

I’ve even added an option for people, like Serv, who would rather see Doctor Who die a slow and horrible death.

When you are raising a very young child, you always want to keep a few things in mind when purchasing toys. First, you want to be sure the toy is safe. Second, you should ensure some of their toys have educational value. When I say educational value, I don’t mean academic education, like “book smarts”. I mean real life, need-to-know, common sense kind of education. Y’know, the kind of stuff that people really use in life. In the pursuit of giving my 2 year old daughter the best upbringing, I made it my mission to get fun, safe, and truly educational toys. I believe I’ve reached the pinnacle of that mission. Sadly, from here on out I believe I’ve “jumped the shark” when it comes to vitally important teaching toys.

I proudly present my daughters new educational toys…

From here we’ll begin educating her on some important principles that will guide her throughout life. These toys can teach her important things such as:

• Truth, Justice and the American Way.

• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.

• Criminals are a Superstitious, Cowardly Lot.

• It’s Against My Programming to Impersonate a Deity.

and most importantly …

• Together We Can Rule the Galaxy as Father and Daughter!

It’s very gratifying when you can educate the youth of today on truly important matters.

Doctor Who’s first bad ass (and one of my favorite characters) was Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer.  He first appeared in 1980 in a back-up comic strip published in Doctor Who Weekly (later called Doctor Who Magazine).  He was created by writer Steve Moore and artist Steve Dillon.  Dillon went on to fame as one of the primary artists on Garth Ennis’ “Hellblazer” and “Preacher”.

Daak was a hardened criminal that was sentenced with D-K duty.  This entailed being teleported from the human empire to a planet deep within enemy Dalek territory.  While there, condemned criminals served the human empire by killing as many Daleks as possible before being killed themselves.  The life expectancy of a D-K was about 2 and 1/2 hours.

To give you an idea just how bad ass Abslom Daak was, here is the dialogue from his first couple panels…

Judge: “Abslom Daak… you have been found guilty on 23 charges of murder, pillage, piracy, massacre and other crimes too horrible to bring to the public attention. There are two choices: death by vapourization or exile D-K!!”

Daak: “Vapourization doesn’t hurt… I’ll take Dee-Kay!!”

Awesome!  Abslom cut a swathe through the Daleks with his chainsaw-sword, blaster, and his never-give-up attitude.  Along the way he found love, friends, booze, and adventure.  Interestingly enough, the Doctor did not appear in any of Daak’s adventures until 1989. Abslom appeared in several issues of Doctor Who Magazine over the years, ending in 1993.  He also appeared in one of the Virgin “Doctor Who New Adventures” novels (well… sort of).

Throughout his appearances, he remained a bad ass, a bastard, and killed a bunch of Daleks.  He was a real jerk, but you couldn’t help liking him and cheering for him.  I think that’s why I love this character so much.  I’m always drawn toward the heroic assholes - Guy Gardner, Nathan Petrelli, and guys like that.  Y’know, the irredeemable type. 

You can still find copies on eBay of the collection reprinting his appearances, “Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer” by Marvel Comics.  Additionally, a group called Altered Vistas has produced some Abslom Daak audio adaptations that might be worth checking out.  Finally, at one point you could get a t-shirt with Abslom Daak (see picture to right).  My good friend Ravenface bought me this t-shirt when he visited England in the early 1990’s.  I seriously doubt you could find one nowadays.  I’m eternally in Ravenface’s debt.

So if you find yourself trying to decide who is the toughest/coolest Doctor Who character, and you’re wondering is it Captain Jack Harkness, Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor, or Duggan?  Forget all those bitches… its Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer!

Surprisingly, John Byrne’s recent comic book, “Star Trek:  Assignment Earth” #1 was actually enjoyable.  While I’m not a huge devotee of Star Trek TOS (”The Original Series” for those of you not in the know… geez), I do remember the episode “Assignment: Earth” with Gary Seven (Robert Lansing), Isis the cat, and Roberta Lincoln (a very young Teri Garr).  I’m also a lapsed fan of John Byrne.  I certainly don’t buy everything by him, but I do have fond memories of his Alpha Flight & Superman runs.  So every so often I’ll pick up a book he’s working on just on a whim.  This was just such a purchase.  I hadn’t expected it to be any good, so I was pleasantly surprised.

The story wasn’t anything earth-shattering, but it was a fun read.  It took place in 1968 and was really very reminiscent of the action/adventure spy series of the time.  I felt like I was reading a comic book version of “I Spy” with a dash of sci-fi.  The fact that the main threat was Soviets really helped to sell the 1968 factor.  With the nuclear testing, Soviets, and scientists, it reminded me a little of the origin story of the Hulk.  Also, I loved the swinging sixties-style decorating of Gary Seven’s pad.  I’m not sure if this is held over from the TV appearance or just for the comic.  Regardless, I fell in love with the secret sliding door behind the bar.  Brilliant!

Byrne’s art was fine for the issue, though I’ve read interviews where he was worried about getting the likenesses of real people correct.  No worries here, everything looked good.  Issue #2 just came out and the cover indicates that somehow Gary Seven and Ms. Lincoln will once again bump into 23rd century Starfleet folks.  Looks cool to me.

This is a five issue mini-series that will apparently leap forward one year with each issue.  Neat idea which will hopefully pay off.  I probably won’t add this book to my pull-list, but I’ll pick it up off the shelf if it hits me on the right week.

Also, you should be checking out IDW’s Star Trek: New Frontier title.  I’m not sure how it would read for newbies to the “New Frontier” corner of the STNG universe, but I’m loving it!  IDW is really making a worthwhile push this year with their Star Trek Second Stage initiative.  Good luck to them!

Here is another installment of KID WHO! This time we decided to watch the classic episode, “Genesis of the Daleks“. Given that the mid-season trailer showed several Daleks and hinted at the possible return of a wheelchair-bound villain, I thought this would be a good one to post. 

“Kid Who” features reviews of Doctor Who episodes from the perspective of a child. These short audio interviews are between myself and my eight-year old step-son.  Please forgive the poor audio quality and the abrupt ending on this one.  It was actually the very first Kid Who installment we recorded.

You can play the audio file right here on the Once Upon a Geek site with the handy-dandy player below! 

Click here to see all installments of KID WHO.

I am still in awe of the Steampunk Star Wars action figures created by Sillof’s Workshop.  He posted them a while ago, but I was looking at them again recently.  If you haven’t seen them, you must check them out.  The amount of creativity and craftsmanship that went into these is amazing.  I don’t want to steal his site’s thunder, so I’m only posting one of the pics below.  This is the Steampunk C-3PO.  Isn’t that awesome?!?!

Additionally, he has done Victorian Avengers, Gaslight Justice League, Star Wars Re-Visioned, Star Wars: 1942, Dune: House Atreides, Daredevil, and many more.  You’ve got to check out his work.  Wow… just wow.  A link to his site is below…