Saturday, February 20, 2010

DOUBLE VISION: NORMAL FOR NORFOLK?

Since I wrote my theory of relateeveety about "Baynes & Baines" the other day, I've been thinking about how safe it could have been for the Doctor to leave Jeremy Baines' body, now inhabited by Son Of Mine of "The Family Of Blood", disguised as a scarecrow in that field. I felt certain that sooner or later, perhaps by the 1950s with post-war expansion, the owner of that field would certainly sell it off to be developed. And then the body, frozen in Time, would be discovered. (All of this happened in the 'Doctor Who' two-parter "Family Of Blood" & "Human Nature".)

But then it occurred to me: what if the Doctor owned that field?

The Doctor is known for not carrying money around with him; he's more likely to have bananas in his pockets rather than a few bob. And even with a vast wardrobe stored away in the TARDIS, it's likely that most of his clothing was donated, as was his long coat (supplied by Janis Joplin). In fact, I once postulated that all of the items of clothing with the question mark insignia were lifted from the Riddler's collection, probably at a time when the 'Batman' villain didn't have need of it - like in Gotham Penitentiary.

What? You don't think the Doctor had sticky fingers? The Master knew he did!

"Well, Doctor.... Still pursuing burglary, I take it."
The Master
'Doctor Who' : "Colony In Space"

And we did see the Ninth Incarnation of the Doctor use the sonic screwdriver to get Adam unlimited credit on the space station....

I'm thinking a time came when the Doctor realized he should own a piece of land on the planet he protected and loved so much. And he probably had in mind something on that sceptr'd isle where he always found himself returning. Perhaps he envisioned a time when he might need to build a base of operations there, his own version of a Fortress of Solitude. It could be he might have need of a place where he could bury the head of an enemy in a bowling bag. (Oh, sorry. That's Tony Soprano. I get them confused sometimes.....)

So if the Doctor was going to be a Terran property owner, there had to be some way to procure it without having to pay for it. And that meant somebody would have to donate the land to be his, free and clear, into perpetuity - after all, there was no telling when in his nearly immortal life he might have need of a huge tract of land.

I think he found his mark in the Court of Henry VIII......

I don't think the Tenth Incarnation of the Doctor made the arrangements to procure that acreage, however. I think it was one of his earlier selves, the Second Doctor, who came up with the plan. I think he got Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk (the area where the Farringham School for Boys was located), to cede the land holding to him and his descendents - and without the Duke ever being the wiser about the transfer of title.

That's because the Second Doctor impersonated the Duke of Norfolk while Thomas Howard was away from the Court, and only just long enough to sort out the paperwork......


[Sneaking into the castle?]

(It wouldn't have been the first time the Second Doctor impersonated a human, although in a linear chronology of Earth, it would be. In 2030, the Doctor impersonated Ramon Salamander in Australia, in order to foil Salamander's plans to become a dictator. This was chronicled in the 'Doctor Who' story "Enemy Of The World".)

Taking advantage of his resemblance to Thomas Howard (as seen in 'The Six Wives of Henry VIII'), the Doctor found a piece of land to his liking among the Duke's holdings. According to Wikipedia, the main residences commonly associated with the Dukes of Norfolk are: Framlingham Castle, Bungay Castle, as well as Clun Castle in Shropshire, which are now largely ruins; Carlton Towers, Norfolk House in London, and most notably Arundel Castle. But the doctor would have had his eye on something - nothing too large and noticeable once it went missing from the Duke's holdings - in Norfolk. A place that was remote, isolated, and probably even of little value to anyone else.

[Checking out the property?]

Finding the land that might best suit his needs, the Doctor - as the Duke of Norfolk - then drew up the papers to transfer its title to himself as the Doctor. He also stipulated that the property would belong to the Doctor's descendants throughout all of Time, even if they didn't always live there. This way, any of the Doctor's future incarnations could freely return to the place. Then with his signature affixed to the document witnessed by many who saw him as the true Duke of Norfolk, the Doctor would have sealed it in wax with the Duke's own signet ring before tucking it away in the archives.
He might even have done this in collusion with one of his later incarnations, perhaps the Eighth Doctor, posing as the recipient of the deed. (I chose the Eighth Doctor so that it might augment his time in the TARDIS.)

Having achieved his purpose, the Doctor would have abandoned the guise and the true Duke of Norfolk would have returned, none the wiser.
Of course, it wouldn't be a properly dramatic story if there wasn't some conflict to gum up the works. Could it be that the Doctor was trapped in his role as the Duke during some significant period in the Duke's life? Could it be he was forced to act out the role as dictated by History, even if it was morally repugnant to him?

Could this have been the Doctor, rather than the actual Duke?





It's not comforting to think that the Doctor could have been so cruel, but we've seen how cruel he could be in his Tenth Incarnation, when he often gave himself over to the Dark Side.

And he may not have had any choice. His First Incarnation stipulated in no uncertain terms that "You can't rewrite History. Not one line!" And as his Tenth Incarnation pointed out, there are certain moments in History that are "fixed in Time", that must be allowed to play out with no interference. It very well could be that at this point in Time we really were seeing the Doctor as the Duke, rather than the Duke himself, forced to see the doom of his "niece" Catherine Howard through to the end.




[Is this the Duke? Or the Doctor?]

At any rate, whether or not he was actually involved in the major historical events in the life of the Duke of Norfolk, the Doctor could have still achieved the purpose of gaining the land grant. And therefore he had the wherewithal to dispose of the possessed body of Jeremy Baines.

Just an idea, pure speculation. But if anybody wants to take it and run with it, feel free.

BCnU!


NUMBERS RUNNING: PSYCH/OUTBREAK

In the latest episode of 'Psych' ("Death Is In The Air"), Shawn admitted that he missed the first twenty-three minutes of a movie, not that it mattered. (If I'm not mistaken, the movie was "Outbreak".)

"23" is one of "the Numbers" from 'Lost'....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: 3rd DUKE OF NORFOLK

THOMAS HOWARD
DUKE OF NORFOLK


AS SEEN IN:
'The Six Wives Of Henry VIII'

AS PLAYED BY:
Patrick Troughton
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, KG (1473 – 25 August 1554) was a prominent Tudor politician. He was uncle to Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, two wives of King Henry VIII, and played a major role in the machinations behind these relationships. After falling from favour, he was stripped of his dukedom and imprisoned in the Tower of London, but was released on the accession of Queen Mary I. He aided Mary in securing her throne, setting the stage for alienation between his Catholic family and the Protestant royal line that would be continued by his great-niece, Queen Elizabeth I. [Wikipedia]

BCnU!

Friday, February 19, 2010

THE HAT SQUAD: KATHRYN GRAYSON

She was better known for her MGM musicals, but Kathryn Grayson - who has passed away at the age of 88 - also made a few appearances in Toobworld, more than just the usual talk show appearances, variety shows, and nostalgia documentaries.

She provided a Cabot Cove, Maine, resident, Ideal Molloy, for three episodes of 'Murder, She Wrote'. Ideal and several other ladies of the town frequented Loretta Spiegel's beauty shop, where they gathered to share all of the latest gossip. In their first appearance together, most of them became suspects in the murder of a Cabot Cove deputy's wife when it was revealed that the deputy had romanced many of them.

I always had the feeling that those appearances by Ms. Grayson and Ruth Roman, Gloria DeHaven, and Julie Adams were a chance for Angela Lansbury to hang out with her old friends from the studio days.

Here's a list of Ms. Grayson's roles in Toobworld:

"Murder, She Wrote" .... Ideal Molloy
- Town Father (1989)
- The Sins of Castle Cove (1989)
- If It's Thursday, It Must Be Beverly (1987)

"Baretta"
- The Marker (1978) .... Cameo

"Lux Playhouse"
- A Game of Hate (1958).... Dr. Sally Wells

"Playhouse 90"
- Lone Woman (1957) .... Lone Woman

"General Electric Theater"
- The Invitation (1956) .... Alice Kellen

- Shadow on the Heart (1955) .... Julie Denton

I haven't been able to find out any more about that cameo she did on 'Baretta'. I'm wondering if we were meant to assume that she was appearing as herself, or as some fictional character. And if she was playing a fictional character, then why not as Ideal Molloy or one of her other Toobworld characters? (I have no clue what happens in that cameo appearance, but that would greatly affect any connection to her other roles.)

Good night, and may God bless.

BCnU.....

DEEP SIX: FAVORITE ONE-SHOT CHARACTER NAMES

"Jim Sterling. Interpol.
Rolls off the tongue, doesn't it
?"
Jim Sterling
'Leverage'
I've posted in the past about my favorite names for regular TV characters, but every so often a character comes along in a one-shot that has the coolest moniker as well.

I'm limiting this to one-shot roles (with one exception), so recurring characters like Miguelito Loveless and William Omaha MacElroy are excluded. (And the same goes for the above-quote Jim Sterling.....)

FAVORITE GUEST CHARACTER NAMES

Salathiel Harms
Rosey Grier, 'Kojak'
Okay, the bounty hunter appeared twice, but that second time was more like a backdoor pilot. It didn't have the air of a recurring role. And besides, it's such a bad-ass name!


Honey Trapp
Dana Delany, 'Spy Game'


Pinky Likewise
Jill St. John, 'Burke's Law'

Twinks Tvedt
Pat Finley, 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show'

Quirt Manly
Henry Gibson, 'The Beverly Hillbillies'

Guy Incognito
voiced by Dan Castellenata, 'The Simpsons'

I don't know why I like 'em like I do. I don't know why but I do.....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: HARRIET TUBMAN

HARRIET TUBMAN

AS SEEN IN:
'Voyagers!' - "Created Equal"

AS PLAYED BY:
Fay Hauser

Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross; c. 1822 – March 10, 1913) was an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War. After escaping from slavery, into which she was born, she made thirteen missions to rescue over seventy slaves using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. She later helped John Brown recruit men for his raid on Harpers Ferry, and in the post-war era struggled for women's suffrage. [Wikipedia]

BCnU!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

AS SEEN ON TV: ROBERT HANSSEN

February 18, 2001FBI agent Robert Hanssen is arrested for spying for the Soviet Union. He is ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison. [Wikipedia]


ROBERT HANSSEN

AS SEEN IN:
"Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story"

AS PLAYED BY:
William Hurt
BCnU!

SHEPHARD'S PLACE

Here's an interesting web post in which the writers try to reconcile locations from Toobworld with their real world counterparts. This time out, it's about the location of Dr. Jack Shephard's medical office in 'Lost':

The thing is, there's no sense worrying about this sort of thing. It's not a discrepancy, what I call a Zonk, because the TV Universe and the "Trueniverse" are two different places.

Linda Stasi once got bent out of shape about this sort of thing in the New York Post when 'Clubhouse' tried to create new subway lines for the show. Somebody else did the same thing with '24' and its version of Washington, DC. (Sorry, can't remember who wrote that up.)

So anyhoo, the 8444 Wilshire Blvd of 'Lost', at least in the Sideways Dimension, can be located in Los Angeles. And in the long run, where's the harm?

BCnU!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY: HUGHES VIEWS

Here's a quick theory of relateeveety:

Tonight on 'The Human Target', a young security agent working the monitors during "Lockdown" apologized to Chance's client for nearly getting him killed. And she revealed that she was "NiteOwl", the online "friend" that he had for the last few months. Her real name was Layla, however.

For once, this isn't a case of twin sisters, or identical cousins, or any other sort of exact double. But I'm going to make the claim that Layla's last name could be Hughes, and that she has an older sister named Dr. Diane Hughes, about nine years her senior (as seen in 'Jake 2.0').Like I said, they wouldn't be twins, there is an age difference, but it's more due to them both being intelligent and highly skilled in what they do. And both showed hidden depths of courage when it came time to step up for a friend....

Besides, they both look damned cute in glasses.....

BCnU!

ISIS ON MULTIPLE EARTHS

Near the end of this week's episode of 'Lost' ("The Substitute"), John Locke of the Sideways Dimension had finally found his calling as a substitute teacher in Tustin, California. And that set my Tooby sense a-tingling: which high school? And could it be linked to any other TV shows? Not being the cartographer my nephew Neil is going to be, I immediately thought of the more famous of TV high schools in the Los Angeles area - Whitman ('Room 222'), Carver ('The White Shadow'), or Westdale ('The Brady Bunch'). But once I saw the distance between LA and Tustin, I couldn't see Locke driving that far just to teach - especially not when such a long ride might be hell on the area where he was paralyzed. For that reason I also ruled out TV high schools to be found in Beverly Hills, Malibu, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, and even Pan High School which was inland from Neptune ('Veronica Mars').

But I did find a school from a TV show that not only seemed to be suitable for the topography, but also seemed appropriate considering its own mythology......

First off, let's look at the topography of the area surrounding Tustin: As you can see, it's very close to foothills that might have a desert/mountainous quality to them. And that would fit in perfectly with the area near where Larkspur High School was located. If this could be the high school where John Locke (and Benjamin Linus) were teachers, you know who else used to teach there (and perhaps still does)?

Andrea Thomas. Also known as 'Isis' - "dedicated foe of evil, defender of the weak, champion of truth and justice." Back in the mid-1970s, Andrea Thomas was a young science teacher who traveled to Egypt to join an archaeological dig. There she found a box containing an amulet once worn by the Queen Hatshepsup. Crafted by her royal sorceror, this amulet would give the Queen and her descendants "powers of the animals and the elements."

By calling on the powers of Isis, Andrea Thomas was transformed into an avatar of the goddess with the abilities to "run with the speed of gazelles and command the elements of sky and earth!"

Much of the action in the following episodes of 'Isis' took place in foothills much like those that are just outside the town limits of Tustin. (One episode did involve the theft of a boat, but maybe it was worth the drive to the Huntington shore to use it......)

Of course, this is all Toobworld Central speculation. For alls I know, the name of John Locke's high school will be revealed in a later episode and it won't be Larkspur. That still won't negate this theory, however, as there could be more than one high school in the tele-Tustin, just as there is in the real world.

And if Andrea Thomas is teaching at the same school where John Locke is, and even if she is in the same department that he's in - Science! - that doesn't mean their paths have to cross on any future episode of 'Lost'. Besides we could always make the claim that Andrea Thomas has retired by now. Although she'd only be 59 this year, she still may have left the field of teaching to either pursue other interests or perhaps to settle down as a housewife or mother. (I know - sexist of me.) There's also the possibility that she was killed during the course of her adventures as Isis, but I hope that's not the case.

Considering the heavy Egyptian overtones to the mythology of the Island in 'Lost', choosing 'Isis' as a theoretical companion to 'Lost' has a nice feel to it. Besides, 'Isis' had several crossover episodes with 'Captain Marvel', so that brings yet another show into the fold! Again, this is all speculation, and this version of Locke's life is set in an alternate dimension, not in the main Toobworld. So no worries.....

BCnU!

YOOHOO, MRS. BLOOM!

JJ Abrams has written and will direct his first TV pilot since 'Lost'. 'Undercovers', from Warner Bros. TV, revolves around Steven (Boris Kodjoe) and Samantha Bloom (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a husband and wife spy team who are re-activated by the CIA after years of retirement.

I've just finished watching Ms. Mbatha-Raw's nine episode arc on 'MI-5' (as 'Spooks' is known over here). She played Wes Carter's nanny Jenny, with whom MI-5 operative Adam Carter had a short affair after the death of his wife. But in Jenny's final appearance back in October of 2006 ("The Criminal"), Adam broke it off with her because it was just too dangerous. He couldn't risk her safety in the life that he chose.

She countered with "What if I choose it too?"

Perhaps Jenny already knew what that sort of life entailed....

It's an intriguing idea, but I don't think we can make the assumption for Toobworld tidyness that Jenny and Samantha Bloom are one and the same. Mrs. Bloom may have been working for the CIA undercover in the guise of "Jenny" in order to spy on the spies of our country's chief ally - and taking her involvement with Adam farther than originally intended. But it will probably turn out that the Blooms have been retired far longer than the four year span between those episodes of 'MI-5' and 'Undercovers' - if the Abrams project gets picked up, or if the pilot gets broadcast at least. It will probably even be stated in the pilot just how long they have been out of the game.

But!


It could be that Jenny made such a comment because she already knew about that life thanks to her twin sister Samantha. The suggestion that Jenny was working undercover while with Adam could even hold true still; maybe both sisters ended up in the program. Who knows? Such a family plan could expand beyond the sisters and Samantha's husband Steven - maybe they got into the spy game because one of their parents (or both) were also spies.

If the series gets picked up, let's see how long it takes before they pull off that storyline. (Sounds more in keeping with 'Chuck'.)

Anyhoo, Ms. Mbatha-Raw is a beautiful woman and I hope Toobworld can land its own version of "Mr. And Mrs. Smith" so that we can see more of her......

As for Samantha Bloom and Jenny both looking like Viv Davis of 'Bonekickers' (above, right) and Tish Jones of 'Doctor Who' (left), that could either be chalked up to genetic coincidence, identical cousins, or Papa was a rolling stone....


By the way, "Samantha Bloom" could be an alias, cribbed from a woman long thought dead - but who was in fact in hiding with her father, Dr. Joseph Bloom, a scientist working on 'VR.5' technology....

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: THE CREW OF THE H.L. HUNLEY

On this date in 1864, the "H.L. Hunley" (named after its late designer) becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic (named for a river in my home state).

H. L. Hunley was a submarine of the Confederate States of America that played a small part in the American Civil War, but a large role in naval warfare. The Confederate States Ship (CSS) Hunley demonstrated both the advantages and the dangers of undersea warfare. The CSS Hunley was the first submarine to sink an enemy warship, although the vessel was also lost following the successful attack. The Confederates lost 21 crewmen in three sinkings during the CSS Hunley's career. The submarine was renamed after the death of her inventor, Horace Lawson Hunley, and some time after she had been taken into the Confederate forces at Charleston, South Carolina.

H. L. Hunley, almost 40 feet (12 meters) long, was built at Mobile, Alabama, launched in July 1863, and shipped by rail to Charleston, South Carolina on August 12, 1863. On February 17, 1864, Hunley attacked and sank the 1240-short ton screw sloop USS Housatonic in Charleston harbor, but soon after, Hunley also apparently sank, drowning all eight crewmen. Over 136 years later, on August 8, 2000, the wreck was recovered, and on April 17, 2004, the DNA-identified remains of the eight Hunley crewmen were interred in Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery with full military honors.

AS SEEN IN:
"The Hunley"

The 1999 TV movie "The Hunley" tells the story of the H. L. Hunley's final mission while on station in Charleston, SC. It stars Armand Assante as Lt. Dixon and Donald Sutherland as General Beauregard, Dixon's direct superior on Hunley project.








Another surprise occurred in 2002, when a researcher examining the area close to Lieutenant Dixon found a misshapen $20 gold piece, minted in 1860, with the inscription "Shiloh April 6, 1862 My life Preserver G. E. D." and a forensic anthropologist found a healed injury to Lt. Dixon's hip bone. The findings matched a legend, passed down in the family, that Dixon's sweetheart, Queenie Bennett, had given him the coin to protect him. Dixon had the coin with him at the Battle of Shiloh, where he was wounded in the thigh on April 6, 1862. The bullet struck the coin in his pocket, saving his leg and possibly his life. He had the gold coin engraved and carried it as a lucky charm.

You can see the coin at the end of the movie, which concludes with an ending to be found only in Toobworld, or in the "Cineverse" (coined by Craig Shaw Gardner).......

The crew was composed of Lieutenant George E. Dixon (Commander), Frank Collins, Joseph F. Ridgaway, James A. Wicks, Arnold Becker, Corporal J. F. Carlsen, C. Lumpkin, and Miller, whose first name is still uncertain.
AS PLAYED BY:
Armand Assante ... Lt. George Dixon

Chris Bauer ... Simkins


Michael Dolan ... Becker

Sebastian Roché ... Collins

Michael Stuhlbarg ... Wicks

Jeff Mandon ... Miller

Jack Baun ... Ridgeway

Kevin Robertson ... Carlson

The name of "Lumpkin" doesn't appear in the IMDb credits, so I have to assume that it was changed to Simkins - based on the position of Chris Bauer's name so high in the list.

Apart from the commander of the submarine, Lieutenant George E. Dixon, the identities of the volunteer crewmen of the Hunley had long remained a mystery. Douglas Owsley, a physical anthropologist working for the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, examined the remains and determined that four of the men were American born, while the four others were European born, based on the chemical signatures left on the men's teeth and bones by the predominant components of their diet. Four of the men had eaten plenty of maize, an American diet, while the remainder ate mostly wheat and rye, a mainly European one. By examining Civil War records and conducting DNA testing with possible relatives, forensic genealogist Linda Abrams was able to identify the remains of Dixon and the three other Americans: Frank Collins, Joseph Ridgaway, and James A. Wicks. Identifying the European crewmen has been more problematic, but was apparently solved in late 2004. The position of the remains indicated that the men died at their stations and were not trying to escape from the sinking submarine.

All details courtesy of Wikipedia.....

BCnU!


PS:
Originally, this post contained two scenes from that TV movie which I had found on YouTube. I think they had been there for months. So I come along and embed them in this post and suddently they've been yanked off YouTube.

Something like that can make a guy more paranoid than he already is.......

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

CROSSING ZONE: TAKING SHELTER FROM THE SOAP

Here's the TV.com description of "The Shelter", a third season episode of 'The Twilight Zone':

When a nuclear attack appears imminent, several suburban friends and neighbors fight over control of a single bomb shelter.

(I could have printed the full summary, but the whole point of 'The Twilight Zone' is the twist you never see coming. I will say this - "The Shelter" was one of the more realistic episodes....)

Dr. Bill Stockton and his family lived in a suburb of New York City, within a forty mile radius from the Big Apple. And since his small town wasn't named in the episode, I think we're free to give it a name; give it a theoretical link to another TV show which took place within a forty mile radius of NYC.
That's why I'm declaring the Stocktons, the Harlowes, the Hendersons, and the Weisses to be all living in Dunn's River, Connecticut. You may know the town as the location for most of the action on 'Soap' over thirty years ago.
This is where the Tates live.....
And the Campbells live here.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that this home owned by Dr. Stockton and his family is just a few blocks over from the Campbells, closer them perhaps than to the Tates.

My reason for the hometown of the Stocktons is that it had to be close enough to Manhattan for all the restaurants visited by the characters in 'Soap'.
Best of all, it may be a small town, but still big enough that nobody ever had to mention Bill Stockton or Marty Weiss or Jerry Harlowe. And they weren't about to go around bragging about that dark night back in 1961, so there's no reason for the Tates and the Campbells to know about it or discuss it.....
BCnU!

THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY: BAYNES & BAINES

Here's another theory of relateeveety, thanks to the adaptation of "Wisteria Lodge" with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. (I caught it on one of the local PBS stations the other day.)

Sherlock Holmes thought he was going to contend with a police detective who would get in his way. But instead he encountered Inspector Baynes - a countryside detective in Surrey who more than measured up to Holmes' own methods (Holmes being used to bumblers like Lestrade).

Here's how he's described in Wikipedia:

Inspector Baynes of the Surrey force appears in the two-part series "The Adventure Of Wisteria Lodge", named (i) "The singular experience of Mr. John Scott Eccles", and (ii) "The Tiger of San Pedro". He is the only uniformed police officer to have matched Sherlock Holmes in investigative skills. In this story, the reader finds that even though both these people work in different lines, finally both of them are there when the dreaded criminal meets his end. Baynes had misled even Holmes as he used a method similar to one that Holmes often used when Baynes arrested the wrong man and gave inaccurate information to the press in order to lull the true criminal into a false sense of security. Holmes congratulated this Inspector, and believed that he would have many more chances in Scotland Yard.

It's going to be the Toobworld contention that his grandson was Jeremy Baines a student at a school for boys in 1913. Jeremy's body was taken over by an alien life-force - as seen in the 'Doctor Who' two-parter, "The Family Of Blood" and "Human Nature".

Freddie Jones portrayed Inspector Baynes, and Harry Lloyd played the part of young Master Baines.

In 1913, Jeremy Baines was a school boy attending Farringham School for Boys in Norfolk. As the Doctor Who Wiki pointed out, he "had a nasty personality, bullied people and was racist" - and yet still was considered the proper lad to become the school prefect, in charge of the other boys.

According to Dr. Watson, "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge" should have taken place in 1892. But that was obviously faulty research on his part, as Holmes had not yet returned from his "Great Hiatus". William S. Baring Gould places the tale in 1890, while other Holmesian chronologists look at 1895 as the date. The Toobworld timeline would be happy with either entry.

And as portrayed on television by Freddie Jones, Inspector Baynes would have been about 61 years of age when he investigated the murder of Mr. Garcia. At that age, in that window of opportunity in the timeline, there was plenty of time for a son of Baynes to father a male heir; one who would grow up to become the prefect of Farringham School by 1913.

But as mentioned earlier, Jeremy Baines was a bully and just nasty all around. Unless forced to do so otherwise, he was the type to only pay lip service to the conventions of society - and that could have included honoring his own family. Changing one's name is not uncommon, and especially back then when people weren't all trapped by numbers in computer databases. And I could see Jeremy changing his surname from "Baynes" to a more anglicized "Baines" as an act of rebellion against his father as well as his grandfather.

Had he lived, Jeremy Baines might have grown up to survive the "war to end all wars" and go on to either a career as a writer or ruthless capitalist... or find himself leading a life of crime.

But "The Family Of Blood" arrived and needed human forms to blend in with the rest of human society in Norfolk. And so they killed Baines and "Son of Mine" inhabited the body. When the Gallifreyan Time Lord known as the Doctor defeated the Family of Blood, he left "Son of Mine", still in the body of Jeremy Baines, frozen in Time and disguised as a scarecrow out in a field. (For the safety of the planet, I'm fairly certain the Doctor couldn't leave him there for long - encroaching development might have taken over that field by the 1950s.....)

A sad ending for one so young, but perhaps in the long run a lot of people's lives were spared any potential dangers from crossing the path of Jeremy Baines.

And by that time in 1913, I would think that Inspector Baynes had passed away and so would never have to bear the heartbreak of how his grandson had turned out......

BCnU!



PS:
We can make one other theoretical connection to that "Human Nature" story of 'Doctor Who', based on its location in the Norfolk area. Since this claim doesn't contradict anything to be found either in that two-part episode or in the series 'Kingdom' starring Stephen Fry, we're going to state that the Farringham School for Boys was not too far from the town of Market Shipborough.....

AS SEEN ON TV: SPARTACUS x II

"Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?"
Captain Oveur
"Airplane!"

Better known for his presence in the movie universe with Kirk Douglas playing the role in "Spartacus", the gladiator hero now has his own TV series on Starz....
SPARTACUS

AS SEEN IN:

'Spartacus: Blood And Sand'

PLAYED BY:
Andy Whitfield

But he also appeared more than a quarter century ago in an episode of a time travel series as well.....
SPARTACUS

AS SEEN IN:

'Voyagers' - "Created Equal"

AS PLAYED BY:
Dan Pastorini

Two for Tuesday!

BCnU!

Monday, February 15, 2010

AS SEEN ON TV: NERO. AGAIN.

We began and ended 2009 with Emperor Nero in the As Seen On TV gallery, but that doesn't mean we can't feature him again in yet another portrayal:
EMPEROR NERO

AS SEEN IN:
"Imperium: Nerone"

AS PLAYED BY:
Hans Matheson

BCnU!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

HAPPY ANNA HOWARD SHAW DAY!

"A HAPPY ANNA HOWARD SHAW DAY TO US ALL!"
Liz Lemon
'30 Rock'



You know who would have been perfect to play Ms. Shaw in a TV production?

Reta Shaw!


Hrmmm.... Anna Howard Shaw... Reta Shaw....?

BCnU!
[My thanks to Gosia for the inspiration!]