Ramblings from a Twisted Mind

 I've started watching The Fugitive on DVD.  It's one of those shows that have entered our cultural DNA: though it began before I was born, and the last repeats were shown before I was old enough to sit up and watch it, I somehow manage to absorb the basics by osmosis.  David Janssen plays Richard Kimble, on the run for killing his wife while looking for the One Armed Man who is the real killer.

So how does the real program actually stack up?  Well actually from what I've seen so far, The Fugitive is darn good television.  The production values are good (albeit a bit old fashioned), the scripts well written, and though we know that Kimble will always live to run away another day, there's inbuilt suspense in each episode as the law (or a lynch mob) gets closer and closer to catching him.

If I've got a nit to pick, it's that Kimble finds it a bit too easy to convince random strangers that he's innocent, especially as he fail to convince a jury of the same!  

On a lighter televisual note, I spotted Patrick Troughton the other day, guest starring in an episode of The Goodies as mad scientist Ratfink Von Petal, and having fun hamming it up.  Jon Pertwee had equal fun on the same show a few years later as a mad Welsh preacher!

 I watched "Back and Back and Back to the Future tonight".  It must not be too memorable an episode,  as I couldn't recall a single thing about it even as I watched.   (It surprised me to realise that BABABTTF was where I'd picked up the phrase "rest and revitalize", which is one of my catchphrases! )  However it is  notable for being the first episode where Crichton is mind-frelled.  Hang on, John, you have a lot more of that coming! 

.... And I thought I was a dedicated fan of Isaac (and Claire/Isaac!) Screencapped from Twitter:



On a sadder note, I learned that Tim Brooke-Taylor has died of Covid 19. The Goodies was repeated endlessly on the ABC in Australia while I was growing up, so it was very much part of my teenage.  Rest in peace, Mr Brooke-Taylor.   You made me laugh during those difficult in-between years.

Since I'm going to be home for a bit, I've decided to rewatch Star Trek TOS.  I wonder how far I'll get?  Anyway, here I am at the very first episode: "The Man Trap".  This was the one that introduced viewers to characters and Star Trek universe.  There's a bit of Early Installment Weirdness, but on the whole the series is already knows what it wants to do.

It begins with a landing party beaming down, and Kirk bantering with McCoy.  ("Is that how you get girls to like you?  You bribe them?") He's already "Bones".  Slightly oddly, "The Man Trap" involves an ex-girlfriend of McCoy's, while in the future we'll mostly see a long parade of Kirk's exes.  (I don't think I'll be spoiling a 54-year old show too badly if I reveal that "Nancy' is actually an alien "salt vampire".)

Spock is already Spock - mostly.  We first see him in charge on the bridge, where Uhura is trying to flirt with him (unsuccessfully)

Uhura: Tell me how your planet Vulcan looks on a late easy evening when the moon is full.
Spock: Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura.
Uhura: I'm not surprised, Mr Spock.

However, his "logical" persona comes a bit unstuck at the end of the episode, where he has an extremely emotional outburst.  ("It's killing the captain!")  And as the Vulcan neck pinch has yet to be invented, we see him throwing punches.

The relationship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy is not yet quite there.  Kirk is clearly friends with McCoy, but the snarky banter between Spock and McCoy is not yet in evidence.  There's a germ of a friendship between Kirk and Spock, but their relationship is yet to develop it's relaxed, teasing quality.

Uhura, Janice Rand and Sulu all get decent scenes.  Sulu is hanging out in the botany lab in this episode.  I don't recall if we see him there again.  Is it a characteristic they dropped?  No sign of Scotty in this episode.  All in all, they do a good job of showing us the Enterprise as a working starship with a busy crew.

Oh, and not one, but four redshirts get killed in this episode.  Oddly enough, none of them are wearing red shirts!  However the episode establishes the Star Trek tradition of killing day-players and extras.

 I went to lunch at Questacon today and I noticed they were advertising a new exhibition: Born or Built: Our Robotic Future.

Well I've watched enough science fiction to know exactly what our robotic future holds:



All hail our new robotic overlords!

 More thoughts about The Orville.  Though at one point Bortus says he's glad he's nothing like Isaac, by the end of Season 2 I'm seeing a lot of parallels.  They've both had their horizons expanded by their time on the Orville, to the point where they're both seriously at odds with their home cultures.  They've both actually taken up arms against their own people at different points.  On the other hand, their personalities are so different I doubt either of them will see the similarities anytime soon.

On Kaylon Primary... I read a post somewhere wondering why Primary bothered keeping Isaac around after the Kaylon had taken over the Orville.  He served no purpose, and in the end thwarted Primary's plans.  However, looking at Primary's actions as a whole, I see he enjoys playing cruel mind games with people.  Keeping Isaac around was a way of twisting the knife in the biological crew of the Orville.  The same goes for his "loyalty" test where he demanded that Isaac execute Ty.  The sensible thing would have been to have an ordinary "unit" kill the boy.

I wonder if this sadism is something that Primary learned from his Kaylon builders?

Lastly, something silly.  In "New Dimensions" John LaMarr builds a shuttle which is bigger on the inside than the outside.  In "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" Isaac invents time travel.  Now all we need is Dr Finn to discover the secrets of regeneration and the Orville crew can be the first of a new race of Time Lords!

Just a few more thoughts on how things played out in the timeline we saw in "The Road Not Taken".

( Cut for spoilers... )

 ... Well not literally, but there is time travel involved.  In other words, I watched "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" last night.  I can't say it's the best episode, ever, but since it was clearly setting us up for something bigger, I'll give it a pass.

I'll give Adrianne Palicki much more than a pass - a high commendation at least! - for her acting in this one.  She managed to convey the differences between Old!Kelly and Young!Kelly so convincingly yet so subtly that I could easily believe they were the same person at different stages of their life.

Bonus points for a couple of scenes: firstly, the nightclub.  I loved seeing Bortus and Yaphit rocking out on the floor, while Ed and Gordon sit it out on the sidelines.  Secondly, the scene where the Orville hides from the Kaylon ships in the ice field.  It was enjoyably menacing (reminding me of certain scenes from WWII movies where submarines have to hid from passing destroyers).  It was also a reminder that the Kaylon are still out there, and being turned back at Earth hasn't stopped their quest to eradicate all biological life.

Now for Doctor Who.  Old Who first - I finished watching "Full Circle" on Saturday.  A surprisingly enjoyable serial, though I did see the "twist" ending (that the Alzarians were descended from the swamp people rather than the original starship crew) coming.  I think it was implied, if not outright stated, that the original starship crew genetically engineered the Alzarians, otherwise I can't see how they evolved from being scaly amphibians to humanoid mammals in the space of a mere 40,000 years!   In addition, the starship crew must have taught the first Alzarians how to read and write.  I liked the way the episode managed to portray a really hidebound society with a secret at its heart, and it was  refreshing to see (Tom Baker's) Doctor actually get angry in this one!

(On a less positive note, I think whoever decided to film the "swamp creatures" in full light was mistaken: rising from the mists in the swam they were suitably alien and eerie, but in a brightly lit corridor the rubber suits were all too evident!)

New Who: I watched "The Haunting of Villa Diodati" last night.  Suffice it to say it was suitable scary, building from a sense of "something is wrong" to a proper climax.  We got to see the "lone cyberman" we were warned about, and we saw the Doctor on the horns of a timey-wimey dilemma.  A+ to all concerned.

My main problem at the moment is how are they going to resolve all the plot threads they have left dangling from earlier in the season?  We have the Master, the Timeless Child and the Other!Doctor still lurking in the wings, and I'm not sure we've got enough episodes left in order to sort everything out.

 For nearly a year I've been watching all the classic Tom Baker serials, one episode at a time.  I'm in the home stretch right now: last night I started watching "Full Circle".  It has been such a long time since I last watched the E-Space Trilogy that I can't remember much of it (except, Space Vampires!) so it's almost like watching something new.  

I haven't much to say about "Full Circle" at the point except: Adric!  Poor nerdy boy-genius with a star for mathematical excellence who became the most hated Doctor Who companion, ever.  Though personally I think  Perpugilliam Brown gave him a run for his money.

I watched Identity (Parts 1 and 2) on the weekend, and oh boy! Our weird little space dramady is all grown up! It not only came me one hell of an adrenaline hit, but all the world-building that went on made my thoughts churn as well. And for me a TV show which makes me think madly is the best kind of TV show. Below are a few of the thoughts "Identity" gave rise to.

( Cut for spoilers )
So, a last word about how I'd like it to all pan out. I think Isaac is merely at the beginning of his quest to establish his identity. However this thread goes, I hope they don't make Isaac too human--I love The Orville's balancing act in at once making him completely alien and totally relatable. As far as the wider universe is concerned, I'd like to see Captain Mercer's mercy towards Isaac have significance apart from it being a way to keep a popular character in the show. What if it leads some Kaylons to reconsider their genocidal mission when they discover that the Union has neither dissected nor enslaved Isaac?