IN CASE OF RAPTURE.....

Apparently, the Rapture will begin around 6 PM EDT today, so Americans might not even get to see this week's episode of 'Doctor Who', let alone next week's.

'Six Feet Under' showed us one woman who thought it had already come to Toobworld a few years back... for a minute or two, anyway......

I wonder if anybody out there is planning on recreating that stunt later today.......?

BCnU!
(I hope!)

KATIE DONE

Katie Couric ended her five year run as the anchor for the 'CBS Evening News' on Thursday night. (What? She couldn't do a full week?)

Here was her sign-off:

BCnU!

SKED ALERT! "THE REBEL FLESH"

So let's move with higher hopes for this week's episode of 'Doctor Who'......

For the American audience, "The Rebel Flesh" will air tonight at 9 PM on BBC-America. And based on these clips, I'm feeling more optiimistic than I did for last week's "The Doctor's Wife".....

One reason I'm excited for this episode?  Marshall Lancaster, who played Chris Skelton in the original British version of 'Life On Mars' will be one of the guest stars......

And here's a word of warning - apparently there won't be a new episode next week for Americans because it's Memorial Day Weekend.  So we'll be a full week behind the Brits, rather than just six hours or so. 

I expect the bit torrents will be busy that day!
 
BCnU!

LOOKING BACK (AND DOWN) ON "THE DOCTOR'S WIFE"

Since this is the Video Weekend, it's about Time to check in with 'Doctor Who'!

I wasn't very satisfied with last week's episode. I had heard so many plaudits for Neil Gaiman as a writer, that I really expected to have my socks knocked off with his script for "The Doctor's Wife". I even put socks on for the occasion!

But it was somewhat of a humdrum affair. Part of the blame could be laid on the budgetary concerns for the show, as a lot of plot ideas that he had were put aside for lack of money. Here we finally got a chance to roam around in the TARDIS outside of the latest console room and all we got were corridors! No quick peeks into any other rooms, save for another console room and that had to be the last incarnation. I suppose that was a cost-cutting measure as well since they still had the set, but really - would it have been that expensive to recreate the control room from Hartnell's time? It was all cardboard!

Still, the story felt like we had been down this road before, and it wasn't just because of the many touchstones he put in to episodes from the past. (The Ood, the message cube, etc.) And the idea of a human body hosting the living persona of the TARDIS had been done before in a couple of outside-Toobworld venues. In fact, I remember - just before the Christmas special of "Voyage Of The Damned" was broadcast, one of the newspapers over in the UK suggested that Kylie Minogue's character of Astrid would turn out to be the TARDIS. (It's an anagram, you see, Jamie.....)

Suranne Jones, however, was lovely and fetchingly off-kilter in the role of Idris/TARDIS. But the other big name guest star - Michael Sheen? I didn't mind that he was just the disembodied voice of "House", the big baddie, but his voice was augmented so that it could have been just about anybody. (I listened to "Cobwebs", a 'Doctor Who' audio-play on BBC Radio 4 all this week, and the voice of the computer Edgar sounded just the same. They could have hired a much cheaper actor, saved Sheen for a later, meatier role, and used that spare cash to build me that early console room!

Oh well......

AS SEEN ON TV: ANN-MARGRET & ROGER SMITH

ANN-MARGRET & ROGER SMITH
AS SEEN ON:

'Saturday Night Live'

ANN-MARGRET

AS PLAYED BY:
Kristen Wiig

From Wikipedia:
Ann-Margret Olsson (born April 28, 1941) is a Swedish-American actress, singer and dancer whose professional name is Ann-Margret. She became famous for her starring roles in "Bye Bye Birdie", "Viva Las Vegas", "The Cincinnati Kid", "Carnal Knowledge", and "Tommy".

She has won five Golden Globe Awards and been nominated for two Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and six Emmy Awards.

She did a string of successful TV specials, starting with "The Ann-Margret Show" for NBC / CBS in 1968.

She made guest appearances on the television shows 'Touched by an Angel' in 2000 and three episodes of 'Third Watch' in 2003. She also appeared in the Lifetime series 'Army Wives', in the episode "Guns and Roses" (Season 4, Episode 5), which originally aired May 9, 2010. On October 14, 2010, Ann-Margret appeared on CBS' 'CSI'.

Ann-Margret guest-starred in an episode of 'Law & Order: SVU', "Bedtime," which first aired on March 31, 2010. She received her sixth Emmy nomination for her performance. On August 29, 2010, she won an Emmy Award for Guest Performance by an Actress for her "SVU" performance. It was the first Emmy win of her career, and she received a standing ovation from the Emmy venue audience as she approached the stage to receive her award.

Ann-Margret starred in several TV movies, including "Queen: The Story of an American Family" (1993) and "Life of the Party" (1999), the latter of which she received nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She also starred in the TV movies "Who Will Love My Children?" (1983) and a remake of "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1984). These performances collectively won her two Golden Globe Awards and two Emmy nominations.

ROGER SMITH

AS PLAYED BY:
Ed Helms

From Wikipedia:
Roger LaVerne Smith (born December 18, 1932) is an American television and film actor and screenwriter. He starred in the television detective series '77 Sunset Strip' [as Jeff Spencer]. He is married to the actress Ann-Margret.

Smith appeared in 74 episodes of this Warner Bros.-produced series but left the popular ABC program in 1962 because of a blood clot in his brain. His health continued to decline for some time, and he was forced to retire from acting after Myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disease, was diagnosed in 1965. His condition went into remission in 1985. Following his retirement from performing, he managed his wife Ann-Margret's career and produced her popular Las Vegas stage shows.

Smith appeared very rarely on television once his health deteriorated, but did participate on 'This is Your Life' when host Ralph Edwards devoted an episode to Ann-Margret.

His character of Jeff Spencer is a candidate for membership in the TV Crossover Hall Of Fame:

'77 Sunset Strip' (1958–1963) .... Jeff Spencer
'Hawaiian Eye': "I Wed Three Wives" (1960) .... Jeff Spencer
'Surfside 6': "Love Song for a Deadly Redhead" (1962) .... Jeff Spencer

BCnU!

THE HAT SQUAD: RANDY SAVAGE

Besides all of his appearances in televised wrestling events, Randy Savage also made numerous appearances as a member of the League of Themselves in several TV series and TV movies. He even appeared in animated form in the Tooniverse.

THE TOONIVERSE
'Family Guy' (TV series)
The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire (2005)

EARTH PRIME-TIME
'Arli$$' (TV series)
To Thine Own Self Be True (1999)

'Mad About You' (TV series)
Separate Beds (1999)

'The Weird Al Show' (TV series)
Al Gets Robbed (1997)

'The Jeff Foxworthy Show' (TV series)
Wrestling Opera (1997)

'Baywatch' (TV series)
Bash at the Beach (1996) 

'BAYWATCH'

"King of the Ring" (TV movie)

"Royal Rumble" (TV movie)

BCnU......

A TASTE OF BLACK OIL VENOM

In the Facebook page for the TV Crossover Universe (Link to the left for the blog, Me Hearties!), Robert Wronski, Jr. and several of our like-minded comrades discussed the possibility that the entity which was the malevolent Spiderman suit symbiote known as "Venom" was actually the living, sentient Black Oil from 'The X-Files'.

Here's a couple of excerpts:

Gordon Long:
There's also the Black Oil, a living entity itself, which might be similar to the inhibition-releasing virus from "The Naked Time" ('Trek TOS') and revisited in 'TNG' ("The Naked Now").

Ivan Ronald Schablotski:
I'll point out for the sake of being pointy that a theory exists linking the Purity (black oil) alien virus to the Venom alien symbiote, especially the way it is depicted in the movie SPIDER-MAN 3.

It was an interesting discussion in which unfortunately I could not partake. The TVCU draws on several sources besides TV, as does the Toobworld concept - like certain movies and online content.  But they also use comic books and consider the character as a whole. With Toobworld, the Cineverse is a separate realm; there are exceptions, but the "Spiderman" franchise is not one of them. Its Spiderman is not the same as the TV Spiderman.

So far Venom has only been seen in the universes of movies and comic books. Back in the 1970's, Venom wasn't even in the comic books when Spiderman was in his crime-fighting glory on Earth Prime-Time.

As for the Black Oil, it may have been living and lurking on Toobworld since the Dawn of Time; it may have arrived with the aliens known as the Silence of recent 'Doctor Who' fame, or even earlier - with Scaroth or even in the clutch of Racnoss eggs planted at the core of the planet......

So it could be that the Black Oil-created Venom was in a Spiderman adventure not seen on TV back in the 1970's, about a decade before it was created for the comic books. If so, it has to be an off-screen adventure and could very well be the reason why Spidey stopped appearing on our TV screens. (Within the "reality" of Toobworld, of course. 'Twas ratings killed the series.)

I just can't claim that this crossover between 'The Amazing Spiderman' and 'The X-Files' actually did take place, because then I'm veering definitively into fanfic territory. (My splainins and theories of relateeveety have always been just tenuous possibilities.)

Still, it's a great theory and I extend kudos to whoever first came up with the idea. I just wish I could use it.....

BCnU!

THE DREAM POLICE

It's not unusual for me to have television dreams, usually after watching something on the DVR just before I go to bed. In some of these dreams, I'm a participant, but in most of them I'm an observer - just not with the bald head and wearing a grey flannel suit and fedora.

It happened early this morning and unfortunately I woke up just as it was getting good......

Late last night, I listened to Episode 3 of the BBC Radio 4 presentation of "Cobwebs", a 'Doctor Who' audio play by Big Finish. In the first episode, the fifth incarnation of the Doctor and his companions Nyssa, Tegan, and Turlough discovered their own skeletal remains.

After Episode 3 ended, I popped in the Netflix disc of the first two episodes of 'Dalziel And Pascoe' so I could finish it off and get it into the mail today before pick-up.

With the second episode, Dalziel and Pascoe discovered the skeletal remains of a murder victim under the base of a statue that was being relocated.

Once I finished that second episode, I went to bed.

And this morning I had a dream in which Dalziel and Pascoe discovered two dead bodies in a cave and it didn't take long to realize that the bodies were their own.

Despite that puzzle, they got to work and quickly found enough evidence to point them to the guilty party. And that turned out to be more than they needed because the suspect screamed at the sight of them. (He was one of those little milquetoast kind of guys with thick glasses.)

As the murderer was led away Pascoe warned the lead investigator that they still had no clue as to how they could be still alive. Had the other Dalziel and Pascoe come from the Future? If so, there would be a paradox until they went back in Time to get killed.

Dalziel told him to bleep off - he didn't care so long as he got the killer. And besides, he wasn't planning on taking any trips into the Past any time soon.

Of course, that's when the roar of the parking brake announced the arrival of the TARDIS right in front of them.

And then I woke up.

I don't even know which incarnation of the Doctor would have been featured in my dream!

I'm down in the building's laundry room "now", and as I'm writing up this "dream journal" entry, I know how I would have finished that story.

The murdered Dalziel and Pascoe weren't from the Future. They were from "Over There", the alternate dimension as seen in 'Fringe'. (As well as in "Mirror Image" and several other episodes of 'The Twilight Zone'.)

Whatever crime he may have committed over there, "Milquetoast" was able to escape through the dimensional veil to the main Toobworld. The Alt-Dalziel and Parallel Pascoe followed him through (further weakening the walls between worlds) but "Milquetoast" was able to get the drop on them.

So it's come to this.... I'm dreaming fanfic......

BCnU!

AS SEEN ON TV: BEN BERNANKE

BEN BERNANKE

AS SEEN IN:
"Too Big To Fail"

AS PLAYED BY:
Paul Giamatti

TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time

“We think about the phrase ‘too big to fail’ in the context of big, financial institutions,

but it’s really a story about people who themselves think they’re too big to fail."

Andrew Ross Sorkin

 On Monday, May 23rd at 9:00p.m. ET/PT, HBO Films presents TOO BIG TO FAIL. The film is based on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s bestselling book of the same name. Directed by Oscar-winner Curtis Hanson (“L.A. Confidential”), the film offers an intimate look at the epochal Wall Street financial crisis of 2008 and explores the inner sanctum of the powerful men and women who decided the fate of the world’s economy in a matter of a few weeks. Centering on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the film goes behind closed doors to examine the symbiotic relationship between Wall Street and Washington.

The film’s stellar cast includes stars Oscar-winner William Hurt (“Kiss of the Spider Woman”), seven-time Emmy-winner Edward Asner (“Up”), Billy Crudup (“Eat Pray Love”), Emmy-winner Paul Giamatti (HBO’s “John Adams”), Topher Grace (“Spider-Man 3”), Matthew Modine (“Weeds”), two-time Emmy-winner Cynthia Nixon (HBO’s “Sex and the City”), Michael O’Keefe (“Michael Clayton”), Bill Pullman (“While You Were Sleeping”), three-time Emmy-winner Tony Shalhoub (“Monk”) and two-time Emmy-winner James Woods (HBO’s “Citizen Cohn”).

For more on Bernanke:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bernanke

BCnU!

CRISIS AT TOOBWORLD CENTRAL!

It's really not all that bad, especially not when compared to the problems of others, but that heading does have a nice movie-of-the-week tone to it, doesn't it?

I'm into Day Two of a cable-unready existence. Yesterday my cable box systematically proclaimed every channel I visited to be unavailable. When I called T-W (and that ain't Toob World!), they told me to reboot the system by unplugging from the wall.

By doing that, I blew a fuse.

Once I did get it up and running again, I now couldn't access the system at all. I should have known better; I should have watched as much as I could off the DVR before I called it in. Now I have an appointment for tomorrow morning - only two months since they last swapped out the boxes.

Hopefully they won't have to do that because I've got a lot more stored up on there than the last time. It was only 19% full then, it was about 50% this time. And there was a lot of stuff I really wanted to see.

The TV shows I'm not so worried about - the season finale of 'Hawaii Five-O', the last three episodes of 'Raising Hope', the latest 'Doctor Who' (written by Neil Gaiman) which I wanted to see again, wondering if my opinion had changed to something more positive..... Most of that stuff I can find elsewhere online like Hulu or CBS.com, or - as is the case with 'Doctor Who' - I can wait until it repeats later in the week.

But the one that really bums me out is the Chuck McCann movie "The Projectionist" shown on TCM. I knew I should have watched it right away; I recorded it soon after the DVR was last replaced and I knew it could happen again at any time.

I've never seen "The Projectionist" and having heard such rave reviews for it, it's always been a holy grail among movies.

That'll larn me.

Add to that the news bomb dropped on me by the superette when she came up to change my fuse - because of the unreasonable demands made by my next-door neighbor, everybody's rent will have to go up once they do major renovation to the front entrance. If they could do it through one of the two side doors in the basement, the cost wouldn't be passed on to us, but her social workers apparently are pushing her to hold fast to her original demand.

Since I heard that, variations on the first twenty minutes of 'Columbo' have been playing out in my mind.....

BCnU!