MDKNIGHT

Rewatched the BRIAN BLESSED (yes I know what you mean) episode of DW recently and a crazy thought went through my head...can you imagine what would happen if a mad scientist crossed BRIAN BLESSED with Tom Baker? Scary thought ain't it?

Just started an entire classic Who rewatch. Hit a snag when some of the episodes I didn't own on dvd turned out to be Out of Print in US dvd's. Was pleasantly surprised to find out that region free dvd players had come down in price A LOT since 2003 when I'd previously looked into it. And found that buying region 2 Dr Who dvds from England even with postage was reasonable. Have realized there were a HECK of a lot of Pertwee eps I had never seen before. The Master was in it a lot more than I had expected. I liked Terror of the Autons a lot and the Time Monster despite the weird bird-god thing was interesting. Those two are among the ones I had never in my life seen before and so were kind of a surprise. I'm glad that they've put out several of the previously lost episodes on dvd since finding some of them to make animating the still missing ones worth while but still morn that I'll never see a professionally produced Dalek Master plan or Celestial Toymaker. I have seen the Loose Canon photo snap versions of those two but don't know if Loose Canon produced versions of ALL the lost episodes. Are there any other ways of experiencing the still lost episodes than Loose Canon? I was also bummed to find out they closed their websites years ago since I never got copies of some of the ones I know they did. Are all the ones they did available elsewhere? When I rewatched the Dalek Invasion of Earth I had to freeze frame and call a fellow Whovian to express amazement that it actually happened...the mark of the really cheap budget of sci fi movies of yester year...the pie plate on a string passed off as a spaceship. I love Who but that was the one moment I had to point and laugh at it ; while I can normally forgive the questionable sets and special effects. I haven't seen the Peter Cushing vesion in decades but sent away for it , but IIRC one of the minor pluses it has over the admittedly much smaller budgeted tv original version is that the Dalek saucers were not pie plates on a visible string. Still I love the series to bits and the bigger budget does NOT make me love the movies more.

"It was Cathy Lee Crosby who did that weird, one-off Wonder Woman movie with the former game show model, Anitra Ford." And you know who played the villain? Ricardo Montalban. I did my own rewatch of the seasons of Wonder Woman a while back and I liked the WWII first season the best although there is something to be said about the time capsule for the 70's that is Leif Garret playing twins and the Disco episode. Of the WWII eps my fave was covered last week; the one with the female Nazi Olympian capturing WW and basically being TALKED out of being a Nazi by WW because the guys she worked for were such pigs. It was so deliciously over the top I really enjoyed it. When I watch the Roy Rogers ep I think about how Lance Kerwin would wind up doing James at 15 and eventually spiral into drugs and I shake my head. It is sort of like watching the remake of Parent Trap with Lindsey Lohan.

I liked it but like somebody upthread said "Why on earth would the Flash Mob allow RF to use a time machine to do God knows what? And actually not just allow him to use one, but actually build it for him, apparently correctly, even solving a problem for him that he didn't anticipate? Yes, RF says that he plans to go back to his own time. How can you believe him?" I was hoping I'd missed something as to why they built the time machine for RF but haven't seen anything addressed here. Even IF RF "just wanted to go home" SO WHAT? He's a murderer. Why would they LET him go home? So he can ruin the lives of people in the future? So he can murder their decendents? Really what POSSIBLE motivation did they have? It isn't even like he sold them on his HAVING to go home to balance the mass in the wormhole which is ridiculous nonsense science but given some of the stuff on the show they could have slid by. Other things they have to hand wave include how do you aim your time travel to get where you need to go? Regarding the vasectomy - OK there is no such thing as time travel and I'm pretty sure there never will be in the "time machine" sense AND because this is comic book science the writers can choose to make it work any way they want BUT IF time travel functioned in a logical way WHEN Eddie got the vasectomy , so long as it was before he got the woman pregnant WOULD NOT MATTER. In theory RF could murder Barry, Eddie could go to the doctor minutes days weeks months years later it would not matter and get a vasectomy. As long as there were no frozen sperm for somebody to steel and his vasectomy wasn't reversed then the fact that he got a vasectomy and didn't have children would mean that RF would go poof and everything RF did would not have happened. Now unlike what we saw here Barry wouldn't be the Flash unless something other than RF made him the Flash but he would be alive and there would be a totally different timeline. There should be a different timeline now but because they obviously want to continue making the show they can't acknowledge that.

Snookums-Thanks for your entertaining combo of wit and disdain. I'm going to miss your recaps more than the show. If you don't mind my asking, what other threads do you hang out in? What will fill the void(a mindless insult to culture of a void but a void none the less )for you?

The site won't let me edit my previous post. Don't know why but I wanted to add How did Eliza keep her job when she just went through something like 10 body guards in a couple of days? Heck how is she still alive if people can just kill her body guards left and right? She lucked out that Theo didn't want to kill her because he had PLENTY of opportunities. Seriously her body guards made the Feds on this show seem competent and we know how ridiculous that is.

Can somebody explain why Russian chick from the Amerikans changed the plan to DON'T kill Ryan? I know it came from upstairs but I didn't follow WHY upstairs wanted that. Can somebody help me out? It is so unbelievable in this day and age for somebody to fake their death and become a vigilante. It was pretty far out there in Sherlock Holmes' time but at least he (a) didn't do it forever and (b) did it before there were such things as Social Security numbers and video cameras all over the place. How will Ryan even have money to buy bullets and gas to mount his crusade? Let's hope nobody knocks off the doc and their kid for giggles although I DO think if people think he's dead they won't kidnap them as often.

Anybody think "Reichenback Falls" during this episode? Ryan being Sherlock Holmes made my head spin. Did they even bother to say whether wife o f lesbian FBI agent was ok after getting shot?

If the author really had done what he SAID he was doing, the AU would have been much more interesting. I read a book called Grendel when I was young which was the story of Baewulf from the point of view of the monster. The humans were a bunch of superstitious hyperviolent drunks and the "monster" was actually very smart and evolved and you felt bad for him when Baewulf rips his arm off. Something like that would have been cool. I think something like the Angelina Jolie version of Malifecent may have also worked.

Good point. I think at heart both Isaac and Rumple are WEAK little men. They both lack strength of character and succumb to temptation easily. Isaac would therefore side with Rumple because he sees himself in him. He wants the wimpy coward to come out on top, above the heroes, and you are right, Emma is the ultimate hero and therefore the one to most humiliate to make himself feel better about himself. If Superman existed in this universe Isaac would have had HIM chained up somewhere, probably having his liver eaten by a raven. You know what? Isaac and Rumple aren't both JUST evil, they are petty. I'm going to hate it if Rumple escapes his cosmic charma and now with what seems to be a BLINDINGLY white heart has become insta-good without any sacrifice or work. Don't get me wrong I agree that Regina has had it ridiculously and unfairly easy BUT she at least tried a LITTLE to be good. (She didn't participate in the let's make Emma evil plot for one thing.) Rumple hasn't even ATTEMPTED to do the right thing, not even when he was insta-hero in the AU. The second Isaac told him Rump's self interest lay in the murder of a child he dropped the good act and was right there ready to scewer a child. Regina in the meantime, not knowing the kid was really hers, stepped up LITERALLY and got killed. I love Carlyle as much as the next guy and I have to bend space time to accept Regina but I think the writers owed us and the character a more believeable way for Rumple to turn good. If you think they botched Regina's redemption (which I agree they did) you got to admit Rumpe's redemption if that is what this is is even LESS satisfying.

Tom made me wonder what the minimum IQ requirement for the FBI is. I mean I kept looking at his decision making skills and saying is he supposed to be mentally deficient? I know people with Down Syndrome who would have made better moves. No way any of them would have gone out with a face full of acid having killed one cop and betrayed another one to a serial killer. JUST NOT POSSIBLE. Seriously so maybe he would have gotten a reprimand for taking evidence from a crime scene and if he were really unlucky fired. Big frickin deal compared to what did go down. And given that this show had a serial killer who held FBI agents and tried to murder them have a good enough lawyer that he waltzed out the door I think Tom could have reasonably said I want my union rep, gotten a lawyer and been re-enstated . He could have claimed seeing his girlfriend cheat on him made him snap and he's better now. Really how does what happened before snowball into killing a cop and handing another over to be murdered? And who trusts a serial killer to keep his word? Made me laugh hysterically when 5 seconds after Mark betrayed him with the acid , Mark whined to Theo about how bargaining with Mike "wasn't the deal"

My post got cut off and the system isn't letting me fix it. Basically I felt that the flaws could have been fixed if there had been changes by somebody who cares about continuity and logic but I still enjoyed the episode.

Overall I liked it but I was bothered by three things. They pretty much said that Evil Snow was doing the same thing with Evil Charming that Regina did with Graham i.e Rape through de-hearting. The attractiveness of both women is moot and it is just going too far. It brings up yet again why Regina could not be redeemed if she were a real person. I got the uneasy feeling the writers were sneaking yet another message that Regina isn't all that bad because Evi Snow did the same thing, extort sex from a boy toy through ripping out the heart. What they fail to see is that they made Evil Snow ALSO a rapist it does not make Regina NOT a rapist. I say this as somone who enjoys Regina and wants Parilla to stay on the show but feel that the writers erred in making her too evil to realistically come back from it. Two: I am an intelligent person and know a LOT about human motivation and psychology and yet I found the Author's motivations difficult to follow. I feel I have to go though a lot of mental gymnastics to make any sense of how the Charmings reminded him of his pushy loud mouth boss and I didn't even think that guy was the worst boss ever. Now if you told me the guy stole Isaac's manuscript and signed his name and got a book deal then at least you give me a reason for hatred, even if the connection to the Charmings is still wanting. Lastly they did a terrible job of explaining how the best selling book where "villains" win is in any way related to the book the characters were stuck in. I can only guess that the two books are totally different (but no because Henry was using it to navigate the AU world so that can't be it.) Just naming the outlaw bandit Regina and naming the evil queen Snow is not what he was describing doing. And the Superfan of Regina who gave the Author the button loved WHAT about the character exactly? I could see loving the Evil Queen Regina after all Parilla has Evil Regals and I'm a fan. I can see loving the down but not out outlaw princess who is Regina in this AU but Snow in the original who then wins in the end,%2

I won't mis the show I'll miss the snark here (and previously on TWOP).Tonight is two hours. Is this the finale?

Playing Devil's advocate: Yet a HUGE part of fandom were totally about Spuffy (Spike and Buffy) and of course Buffy/Angel when both Angel and Spike had done HORRENDOUS things including murdering a parent, murdering slayers, and let's not forget Jenny Calendar. But everybody got along with them. I particularly hated that Spike was popular while he was chipped and still WANTED to murder people, he just couldn't do it because of the pain. He even told a story to Dawn about hunting down and killing a child while babysitting her. I wonder what makes the difference. Personally I'm with the crowd that sees Julliette as too far gone but I'm consistant as I don't think it was reasonable for the Scubies to have accepted Spike. I think it is much more realistic for these characters to not be able to forgive Juliette. But I do wonder if gender bias plays a part in how people react. I think redemption via death may be in the cards although I never forgave Darth Vader for killing children so it won't really work for me either way.

Anybody know what's up with them removing episode one several days ago from On Demand. How many days are they going to keep and episode on for? This took me by surprise so I didn't get to see it.

"If Oliver can finally get the message that he needs his team, I might be willing to say the season was worth something. " I think this is further evidence Barry Allen is smarter than Oliver Queen. Barry had a problem. He kept it from his team. Felicity of all people told him he needed to share with his team to get their support. He learned that and went to his team. Oliver on the other hand not so much. Somebody upthread made the observation that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is thought to be madness. It made me wonder though if Oliver really isn't mentally ill. Kidding aside he did go through a lot on the island and even after that there has been SO much to deal with including death of multiple loved ones in the most in your face violent ways possible (can't wrap my head around seeing your mom stabbed to death in front of you when you are already pretty traumatized) what if he really IS insane? I think I'm going to filter his actions through the premise- What if the character has a HUGE case of PTSD? Would his dumb decisions be any more excusable? It may help.

I understand how some people may feel so negatively about Nyssa, a gay character, being forced to marry a man but I look at it as just another way of showing Rahs is EVIL!!! If they were trying to pass this off as OK behavior then yes, sure, let's riot. But the way I see it this is like if they had Rahs decapitate someone for being a specific religion it wouldn't mean the show is anti that religion, it would mean you are showing Rahs is a bigot. Making him a homophobe and mysoginist, taking agency away from his daughter, is not in and of itself a bad thing. Showing a good character doing something like that would be real bad. Heck I'm not forgiving completely the writers of Flash for having a good character lie and lie and lie to his GROWN daughter thus treating her like a child. But at least he didn't try to marry her to somebody not her choice (and not her sexual preference). Pretty sure the writers aren't THAT bad. Personally I'm hoping Nyssa winds up cleaning her dad's clock and I'm sure people would cheer if she did.

Again I bring up history. The Nazis would ask good German citizens "harmless" questions. They'd start with things like your name your parents names where were you born and they'd work their way to do you know any Jews, do you know where they live? I'm not kidding. A whole lot of people were sent to their deaths on the strength of what regular people thought were something like a census questionnaire. I think it is likely that if something like the Inhumans really occurred that there would be many abuses of civil liberties. Until Sky mommy's killing Olmos they hadn't done anything illegal ecsept maybe harboring a fugitive i.e. Cal. SHIELD (or anybody else) doesn't actually have the right to bother these people. Now there is going to be a war which wouldn't have started if Shield hadn't spooked the inhumans in the first place.

"Jiaying being so old she knows that humans like to categorize people and after Whitehall I get her not trusting them not to experiment on them if given the chance. Maybe not Gonzales but others will and SHIELD has shown over and over again they can't control their own people." Yes. Actually the Nazis in particular were into making lists of people and Skye Mommy has first hand experience with the Nazis. (As did Magneto.) So I don't blame her for her fear and mistrust I just question her method of dealing with it. BTW as a historical fact a doctor in Germany suggested that people would fear homosexuals less (as in people would be less likely to be violent to homosexuals fearing they were all child molestors and otherwise evil) if they were registered so the heterosexuals knew that the authorities knew who they were and were on top of things if there was trouble. By all accounts the guy really thought he was a force for good. Thing is that then the fascists under Hitler came to power and all the lists were used to round up the homosexuals and put them into concentration camps. I could definitely see someone who dealt with the Nazis NEVER wanting to be on anybody's list.

I think the reason he doesn't is that that would be boring. Nobody wants to "read" about Ebenezer Scrooge AFTER his change of heart. Nobody wants to "read" Rumplestiltskin brought sandwiches to the town picnic or made a sizeable donation to the pediatric wing of the hospital. It is either Rumple stole a baby OR Rumple saved a maiden. It isn't Rumple is a normal guy. Still I think there has to be something deeply wrong with the author to go along with this. ETA All My Children used to have a thing where fans wrote in things they'd like to see and the actors would do them I don't know if it was for April Fools or what. (another soap had a yearly musical) But I have a feeling that the season finale will be a little like that only Rumple is the fan. I think Snow will be acting like and dressing like Regina. That could be funny.

Welcome to We've Been Reading the Internet Theater. So you've been rolling your eyes at a woman on a modern tv show making having a man her happy ending? Well we'll just have Regina flat out say Robin ISN'T her happy ending, he is merely part of the environment of her happy ending. So you think the characters are morons for needing the author to write them a happy ending? Have Regina realize she has been her own damned problem all along and all she has to do is STOP. She doesn't need the author. While I think it was a misstep to have Regina kill yet another innocent this ep reminding us she doesn't deserve forgiveness I (since I've always argued that Rumple is worse than Regina) liked that Rumple HASN'T learned anything and is going ahead with the author. I think the big guy mopping in the psych hospital is the Indian from One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest. How the heck does Regina have the power to put anybody down there and how is it nobody is aware real Psychiatry doesn't work like this?

A weird part of me wanted Joe and Crazy Cal from Agents of SHIELD to go on a road trip. The current situation reminds me of John Crighton and Head Scorpius on Farscape and that was fun. If it were possible to hack cell doors for prisons from outside it would already be done. I'm sure there are people with enough money to make it worth a hacker's time. I'm pretty sure that the execution would have been delayed to do the formality of investigating and placing blame for the death of the guard a week ago. Joe killed a guy on death row. Until they go through the whole rigamarol of inverstigating exactly how that happened they wouldn't kill the only witness. Technically they might be bound by law to prosecute Joe for the death although it would set a bad precident by saying you can cheat death for a longer while if you kill more people while you're in prison but I'm not sure the state would have a choice. I hope female lawyer finds another line of work. I can't see how you can continue to defend killers and rapists after you've seen them in this light. I'm sure it is easier to place the right to best defense possible, above the misery of the victims when it hasn't happened to you. Of course the way this show rolls she'll probably file papers to arrest Ryan for police brutality to the guys who were going to rape her. One would think the FBI would have figured out who Theo is as in if the name they have now is his birth certificate name but if not whatever it is they should know he has a sister by now. Don't the police etc keep tabs on the family of felons they are looking for? By now we should know what their home life was like and anybody they might go to or likely places for them to go. Joe gave them Philly but they should have known that already. I'm guessing foster care or something because the sibs had a convo about how now they have control when they didn't when they were young. Sis is self medicating SOMETHING. Speaking of her addiction...everything I've ever seen of junkies lead me to believe that there is no way that a junkie would be able to keep secrets at the levels this chick has. At SOME point while stoned I'm sure she would spill that her brother is a serial killer. Oh I know she'd probably be talking to another junkie who wouldn't believe it or wouldn't care or wouldn't remember but the law of averages would seem to me to lead to her being a big risk for Theo. I wonder if he is capable of loving her so even if it becomes the expedient thing he wouldn't be able to kill her. Given how he was able to turn off his "love" for his wife, I suspect this guy IS cold enough to sacrifice his sis if he feels he needs to. I think we are looking at a true sociopath; incapable of real human emotion. Seriously the first Lovecraft quote he picks is the right one? Serously? Do you know how many books he wrote and how many pages each was and therefore how many quotes could have been it even assuming that Lovecraft was the only writer that it could have been? (And did anybody follow the reasoning that it was Lovecraft? Did I hear right that he looked for what book SHOULD be in common between Strauss and Joe but wasn't? What the heck? Even if you picked the right book and again how do you do that most books have differences because of the edition. ) Then assuming this mumbo jumbo works what is uncoded is I assume longitude and latitude. IF it is a person would they always stay in the same place? If it isn't a person how could whatever is there help Theo? How could Strauss forsee a scenario where whatever/whoever is at those coordinates would be beneficial to a situation in which Theo finds himself in now? I am taking a wild guess and the coordinates lead to a dooms day device (poison gas, nuclear bomb etc) that Theo is going to use to leverage his way out of trouble. The obvious flaw in that being that a thing would not care about Ryan being alive or dead so that line about using Ryan's death as leverage doesn't make sense HOWEVER given the show's track record I would not be surprised if I'm right. Still hung up that if it is a person the coordinates would change. OTOH maybe it is a survivalist in a bunker who hasn't moved in 30 years.

Age of Ultron opens in US theaters Thursday or Friday. I'm not going this weekend. I never go opening weekend it is too frantic. Man when Jemma says If I ever see you again I'll kill you she means it. ...Ata girl. I wish she'd had a second gizmo ready when he had the nerve to try to take the moral high ground. He's as deluded as Cal. Actually I hate Ward a lot more than Cal. I think Cal genuinely snapped at seeing his beloved wife flayed and finding his daughter gone. Ward's sob story was BS. And let"s not forget Cal hasn't murdered his own. I seriously think they've made Skye a heck of a lot more likeable. Has she always been genre savvy? She's a computer hacker so of course she'd know Sonic the Hedgehog but Ioved she referenced Candy Man and expected everybody else to know it. So glad everybody is still happy she shot Ward.

You know what I would have found interesting? If because Lily had "darkness" foisted upon her she had been evil AND SUCCESSFUL. Let's face it. Part of why we love fairytales is that in them the good triumph and are rewarded and the evil are punished CONTRARY to how it is in REAL LIFE. In real life your moral standing does not affect your success and you can even make an arguement that the more evil and ruthless you are, the more chance you have to succeed at least in some fields. High finance is full of sociopaths. It would have made sense if the spell had made Emma choose good even when it was detrimental to her and that had cost her some things growing up. Lily on the other hand could have slept her way to the top or been and identity thief and lived the high life on other people's money etc etc and then it would have been an interesting confrontation of whether somebody who has a lot of marterial things would want to change. I agree with many that if they just HAD to mess with free will they could have at least put up a story that was much better than this.