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Born Standing Up and The Jerk

I decided to read Steve Martin’s autobiography Born Standing Up. The book focuses on Martin’s career as a stand up comedian. It’s a strange thing to think of when it comes to Steve Martin, as he stopped performing stand up comedy before I was born. The book starts at his young days learning the craft while working at Disney Land in the magic shop, and slowing follows his career. The book is more than just a plain telling of his story, one that I don’t think had been told before, but instead Martin is writing a how-to for stand up comedians. Martin began, not as a comedian, but an entertainer,… Read More »Born Standing Up and The Jerk

Doctor Who Story 009 – Planet of Giants

Ah, thus we begin season two of Doctor Who. Our Doctor is still William Hartnell and his companions are Ian (William Russell), Barbara (Jacqueline Hill), and The Doctor’s granddaughter Susan (Carole Ann Ford). Synopsis: An accident lands the TARDIS in England again, but this time, they’ve shrunk to be an inch tall. This has to be the worst episode ever. The drama of the story revolves around a murder over a pesticide, but because The Doctor and company are shrunk to tiny sizes they’re completely uninvolved in the story. Thus the viewer has no interest. Oh, and also the Honey, I Shrunk The Kids trope is well over played.

The Power

I know I’ve posted this before, but I did something I haven’t done in FOREVER… I dragged my ass out of the house to a rock show. Yes! I went to see Army Girls! I adore their cassette EP. I’ve listened to it so much that if I didn’t use the download code and was listening to it on tape, it would be mangled by now. There was something mighty special when they performed “The Power,” their closing song. When the audience were singing along to the final lyrics “Your past, your lack, your cruelty/The power you’ll never have on me” over and over again. “Your past, your lack, your cruelty/The… Read More »The Power

Doctor Who Story 008 – The Reign of Terror

May I first say, it’s ridiculous I have to add a leading double zero because Doctor Who has hundreds of stories? “The Reign of Terror” is the final story of the first season. We’ve been through 42 episodes, broken down into 8 serials. Until “The Reign of Terror” we’ve only had seven missing episodes. Those seven episodes make up the entirety of “Marco Polo.” “The Reign of Terror” is missing two episodes (“The Tyrant of France” and “A Bargain of Necessity”). When I was a kid, I would record episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation on VHS, and then all other versions of Star Trek. It seems that British kids had a… Read More »Doctor Who Story 008 – The Reign of Terror

Doctor Who Story 007 – The Sensorites

Synopsis: The Doctor and his companions arrive on a spaceship to find a crew sleeping. They wake up to warn The Doctor to flee as soon as possible as the Sensorites are keeping them prisoner. The Doctor and his companions return to the TARDIS to find the locking and opening mechanism for the TARDIS has been removed. They can’t get in. This is one of the weirder ones; not because of the story. In 1997, a new TV channel launched called Space. They decided to show episodes of Doctor Who, and they started right from the beginning. They only showed complete serials, and they had the rights to air episodes from… Read More »Doctor Who Story 007 – The Sensorites

Doctor Who Story 006 – The Aztecs

Synopsis: After leaving the TARDIS, Barbara emerges from from the tomb of Yetaxa, a priest of the Aztec people. The Doctor, Ian, and Susan are mistaken for Yetaxa’s servants. This is second1 historical story. The original plan for Doctor Who was to have The Doctor finding themselves on alien worlds and in Earth’s past. This isn’t something that lasted longer than William Hartnell. Pretty early on, the party discover that a human sacrifice is about to take place. Barbara refuses to allow it. In her words If I could start the destruction of everything that’s evil here… then everything that is good would survive when Cortez lands.” But The Doctor has a… Read More »Doctor Who Story 006 – The Aztecs

Doctor Who Story 005 – The Keys of Marinus

Synopsis: The TARDIS arrives on a beach of glass on the shore of an acidic sea. They are being stalked by a man in a scuba suit. They find a building, and for some odd reason split up. They are all captured by an old man in robes, except for Ian, who saves the old man from a scuba man. Once he knows he can trust The Doctor and his companions, the old man tells them of his machine which can save his world, but he needs the four keys of marinus to work the machine. The Doctor and his companions are forced into helping the old man. They modelled… Read More »Doctor Who Story 005 – The Keys of Marinus

Doctor Who Story 003 – The Edge of Destruction

Plot Synopsis: Doctor Who was originally commissioned for a 13 episode run. The Four episode story “An Unearthly Child” and the seven episode story “The Daleks” left the production crew with a two episode void. They decided for budget purposes to set the entire story within the confines of the TARDIS. An accident completely knocks The Doctor and his companions to the ground (except Ian who seems to land perfectly in a chair). They all wake up confused and Susan complains of pain, ready to scream “GRANDFATHER!” They find the doors ajar, and Susan freaks out and assumes something got in. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a big… Read More »Doctor Who Story 003 – The Edge of Destruction

Doctor Who Story 002 – The Daleks

Plot Synopsis: The crew find themselves on an alien world in an alien forest where the vegetation has turned to stone. While his companions wish to leave and search for home, The Doctor is insistent they travel to the city. There they encounter The Daleks, a species of mutated organic beings encased in a metal box. Only on story 2 and we already see the most iconic of Doctor Who baddies. The first episode is filled mostly with exposition and positioning the characters where they need to go. The audience learns the planet is flooded with radiation, while the characters are oblivious. We see The Doctor sabotage the TARDIS to… Read More »Doctor Who Story 002 – The Daleks