November Round-Up Plus Advanced Class Guide Playtest, Doctor Who Christmas Special Trailer, and TARDIS In Orbit Update

Not surprisingly, November was an even busier month for Doctor Who than October was. We didn’t have the excitement of newly discovered missing episodes, but we did get the 50th anniversary celebrations! Not surprisingly, the vast majority of things on this blog this month had to do with Doctor Who, but let’s start with the non-Doctor Who things first.

I only got round to one Pathfinder review this month: Player Companion: Blood of the Moon. There are a few more products waiting in the wings, including the third part of Wrath of the Righteous, Towns of the Inner Sea, and also Bestiary 4. Expect reviews of those over the next couple of weeks. Of course, there’ll be a whole new selection of products coming in December, too.

With all the focus on Doctor Who this month, I missed mentioning that Paizo has started an open playtest for the upcoming Advanced Class Guide, which will be released next August. This book will contain ten new classes. The Pathfinder game itself began its life with a massive open playtest, and Paizo has kept up the tradition with many of the subsequent rulebooks they have produced. This playtest runs until December 17th, and is a great opportunity for gamers to test what is to come and give feedback on it. There’s only a couple of weeks left, but that’s still enough time to try out a couple of the classes and run them through a few encounters.

The new season of Wizards Vs Aliens premièred at the end of October, and I began reviewing the episodes at the beginning of this month. Unfortunately, I’ve fallen a little behind and so far have only covered the first three stories—“100 Wizards”, “Vice Versa”, and “The Cave of Menla Gto”. I hope to catch up over the next week or so.

And that brings us back to Doctor Who. In the build-up to “The Day of the Doctor”, the beginning of the month saw the release of a couple trailers as well as a clip or two. But far more exciting was Paul McGann’s triumphant return to Doctor Who in “The Night of the Doctor”. This serves as a prequel to the anniversary special, but also details the end of the eighth Doctor’s life and the rise of John Hurt’s War Doctor. A second prequel, “The Last Day” was released shortly after. Then came the docudrama, An Adventure in Space and Time, about the beginnings of our favourite television programme. The month was rounded off with Peter Davison’s hilarious “The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot” and the special itself, “The Day of the Doctor”.

Also this month, I completed my series of reflections looking back on my own personal history with Doctor Who. I looked at the tenth and eleventh Doctors, as well as the spin-offs, movies, and other media.

Now, attention turns towards the Christmas special on December 25th. This will be Matt Smith’s final story and will feature his regeneration into Peter Capaldi’s Doctor—the twelfth...er....thirteenth Doctor. The numbering has gotten a little confusing now that John Hurt is in there. And it’s about to get more confusing (slightly spoilerish link here regarding the Doctor’s regenerations). Grumble, grumble, grumble...

Anyway, the Christmas special is titled, “The Time of the Doctor”. We’ve had a lot of “[Noun] of the Doctor” titles recently (“Name of...”, “Night of...”, “Day of...”). I hope this is the last for a little while. Here’s the first (very brief) trailer:

To end the month, here’s the latest update regarding the TARDIS In Orbit project.

Have a great December folks!

Wizards Vs Aliens - The Cave of Menla Gto

After a great, but frustrating story last time, Wizards Vs Aliens continues with a rather mediocre story. While there are moments that I like in “The Cave of Menla Gto”, the overall plot is weak and rather contrived. There are some nice character moments, particularly for Randal Moon, but also Benny—which makes for a nice change, as any development of Benny is welcome. However, much of what comes from those moments is undone by a nice big reset button at the end. There is also some nice advancement of the series’ metaplot, but that is only a small part of these two episodes, and it is not enough to save the entire story as a whole.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Wizards Vs Aliens - Vice Versa

“Vice Versa” by Clayton Hickman is rather unusual—not in its plot or subject matter, but in its effect. It is simultaneously one of the best episodes of Wizards Vs Aliens so far, and also one of the most frustrating. Taken by itself, without the context of the series around it, it works perfectly. It is fun and energetic, but well paced. The cast are at their best, delivering some absolutely wonderful performances. The story holds together well and wraps itself up cleverly. Yet, when taken in the context of what comes before it (namely the tragic conclusion of “100 Wizards”), it simply doesn’t fit. Everyone’s far too happy, especially Tom. In fact, if it weren’t for the mention of Katie dumping Tom, there would be nothing at all to indicate that “100 Wizards” ever even happened.

Part of the problem is that it’s a pretty standard second story of a television series: light-hearted filler that has little effect on the direction of the show as a whole. Apart from possibly a hint or two of a larger meta-plot, second stories tend to be “throwaways”, ones you can miss without ruining your enjoyment of the series as a whole, as little of any importance happens in them. Wizards Vs Aliens followed this pattern in series one with its second story, “Grazlax Attacks”, and is doing so again now with “Vice Versa”. But while a throwaway story works in early series one (even though “Grazlax Attacks” is otherwise an inferior story to “Vice Versa”), it doesn’t work so well now in the second series. The show has reached a point where it can no longer ignore the consequences of actions and events that take place. For it to progress believably, its characters need to respond organically, which they’re just not doing.

That said, “Vice Versa” is a great deal of fun, and I love it to bits. It makes for a frustrating dichotomy.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Wizards Vs Aliens - 100 Wizards

When Wizards Vs Aliens first premièred last year, I was eager to see it, coming as it did from the same people responsible for The Sarah Jane Adventures. There was good reason to believe it would be good. And it was, albeit not as good as I’d hoped it might be. Nevertheless, it was good enough to keep me eager for the second series. I saw a lot of potential in the series, even if many of its characters only occasionally rose above the stereotypes they were based on. So I was quite glad to learn that there would, indeed, be a second series. The first year of a show is often a time of figuring out what it can do and what its overall direction will be; the second year is often the year when the show demonstrates whether it will sink or swim.

Like last year (and like The Sarah Jane Adventures before it), this new series of Wizards Vs Aliens is made of two-episode stories. There are fourteen episodes this year instead of twelve, airing two per week over seven weeks. One of the forthcoming stories this year was originally written for the fifth series of Sarah Jane, but was one of the ones not filmed before Elisabeth Sladen’s untimely passing. The fact that it has been rewritten as a Wizards Vs Aliens story kind of shows the spiritual connectedness between the two shows and I’m eager to see how it works. The final story of this year is written by Russell T Davies (his first script for the show he co-created) and I’m also eager to see that one.

The second series première, “100 Wizards” by Phil Ford does not yet achieve the potential I’d like to see from the show. It’s very much a re-establishing of the premise after nearly a year off the air. But I certainly haven’t given up hope. I still see the potential and still hope that this season, Wizards Vs Aliens will significantly “up its game”. Indeed, “100 Wizards” is a great deal of fun overall, and fun is a great deal of what the show is about. It took me a little while to get into the story, but by the end of the second episode, I was fully engaged in what was going on. So in that respect, “100 Wizards” succeeds admirably.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

October Round-Up - A Great Month for Doctor Who!

This was quite the month for Doctor Who fans! And there’s still nearly a month until the 50th anniversary. Build-up to the anniversary certainly has begun in earnest though. The month opened with further information on the anniversary simulcast. Specific information on the theatre venues came later in the month, although I didn’t specifically report on that. Tickets for the simulcast went on sale on October 25th, and I’m pretty sure they all sold out quite quickly. They certainly did in Toronto.

The tickets were scheduled to go on sale at 9 a.m. eastern time. I was ready and waiting to get mine. The option to purchase tickets for the Toronto location (Scotiabank Theatre) didn’t go live until nearly quarter past nine. I immediately clicked to purchase and went through the whole process, confirmed all my information for payment, and so on. Then I got the following message: “We cannot finalize your payment due to a technical error. Please try again later.” I tried again immediately, only to find that the tickets were sold out. I was very unimpressed. Oh well. I purchased tickets for November 25th instead and encountered the same problem a couple more times before I decided to try a different payment option. That finally worked, so hooray! I hope the 3D doesn’t give me too much of a headache.

The first trailer for the 50th anniversary episode (not including the Comic-Con trailer from several months ago) was released this month. It was specially recorded and does not contain any actual scenes from the episode. Instead, it’s a bit of a tribute to the full 50 years of Doctor Who history, with a narration by Matt Smith to whet viewers’ appetites for the special. Visually, it’s really quite stunning, and if you look carefully, you can see a lot of images from across Doctor Who’s history, both the classic series and the new. Apart from being a nostalgia-fest, however, there’s not much of what one could actually consider content in it, but it is just a trailer. I do wish, though, that Doctor Who would lighten up on the superlative adjectives for a while. “One impossible day”, “the Impossible Girl”, “the Doctor’s darkest hour”—lines like these show up not just in trailers, but in the programme itself, and after a while, they start to lose their meaning. When impossible things keep happening, they’re just not impossible anymore. At any rate, here’s the trailer:

The 50th anniversary, however, was not the biggest news of the month. That honour definitely goes to the recovery of missing episodes! Nine previously missing Doctor Who episodes from the sixties have been discovered and are now available for download purchase. I wrote a review of one of the newly recovered stories, “The Enemy of the World”, something I never imagined I’d get to do a couple years ago when I started this blog. I’ve not actually had a chance to watch “The Web of Fear” yet, but I’ll hopefully get to it soon. Expect a review of it shortly after.

I also continued my own reflections on the impact of Doctor Who on my own life, looking at the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth Doctors. The last couple were published a bit late (I’ve been trying to work to a schedule of one each weekend), but I hope to be back on schedule with the tenth Doctor this weekend.

In other Doctor Who news, the TARDIS in Orbit project has another update:

With the heavy emphasis on Doctor Who this month, one might start to think this is a Doctor Who blog, but it’s really quite a bit more than that! There were only three non-Doctor Who posts this month, all of them Pathfinder. With my reviews of Mythic Realms, Mythic Origins, and Sword of Valor, I finally got caught up on Pathfinder reviews. When I posted the review of Sword of Valor, I had not yet received any new products. Of course, that’s changed in the last couple of days, so expect some more Pathfinder reviews soon.

Since November is the 50th anniversary month, there will likely be lots more Doctor Who stuff to come this month (including my remaining reflection posts on the tenth and eleventh Doctors, as well as one on the spin-off series), but I’ll be looking at other stuff too. A new season of Wizards Vs Aliens began this week, so I’ll be reviewing that. Plus, I have a couple of other things I hope to get to as well.

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone, and have a great November!

Wizards Vs Aliens - The Last Day

The first series of Wizards Vs Aliens has had its ups and downs, but on the whole, has trended more towards the ups. In the final two episodes, “The Last Day” by Phil Ford, it reaches a new height by providing the most emotional story yet and resolving a couple of mysteries that have carried through the whole series so far. The story manages to combine a little bit of spookiness, great atmosphere, action, excitement, and good character development all into one compelling tale. Yes, it does overdo it at times with the sentimentality, but not egregiously so, and as that sentimentality does play into the triumphant and uplifting ending, I’m willing to forgive it for going just a little over the top. Overall, it’s a delightful and fitting finale for the first series and paves the way for the second series to come.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Wizards Vs Aliens - Fall of the Nekross

The two episodes of “Fall of the Nekross” by Gareth Roberts, are perhaps the two most event-packed episodes of Wizards Vs Aliens so far. A lot happens in these two episodes, and they move along at quite a break-neck pace right from the opening moments of Part One. Overall, they form an excellent story: exciting with good character moments, a few revelations, and some seriously dark moments. Unfortunately, “Fall of the Nekross” does have some significant flaws to it, but despite these flaws, it manages to remain highly entertaining, and that, in the end, is the most important thing.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Wizards Vs Aliens - Friend or Foe

In my reviews of Wizards Vs Aliens, I’ve commented on potential. In a young show, this is perhaps one of the most important things, as it’s that potential which might allow it to go on to do great things. In “Rebel Magic”, I felt the show was starting to realize some of its potential, as it started to develop the characters a little and build a bit on its own mythology. In the fourth story (seventh and eighth episodes), “Friend or Foe” by Clayton Hickman, this definitely continues. The story is really quite a delight with real character and story progression, and some truly heartwarming scenes. It’s still bombastic and fun with some nice touches of comedy, and it still has its over-the-top performances from Brian Blessed, joined this time by guest-star Ruthie Henshall. However, the show is starting to elevate beyond that without losing those qualities. It’s starting to change from a show to watch for mindless entertainment into one where you actually start to care about its characters. Perhaps the best thing about “Friend or Foe” is that you also start to care about one of the Nekross.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Wizards Vs Aliens - Rebel Magic

I’ve commented that I see a lot of potential in Wizards Vs Aliens. I enjoyed the opening story, “Dawn of the Nekross” immensely. Despite a few issues, it was fun and imaginative. I had a somewhat lower opinion of the following story, “Grazlax Attacks”. While I could still see the potential, it did a fairly typical second-story thing, which is to do nothing with that potential. I’m glad to say that with the third story, “Rebel Magic”, the show is starting to realize that potential. Oddly enough, the actual plot of “Rebel Magic” is quite unoriginal. It’s a pretty standard tale where the young hero is tempted down the wrong path by an irresponsible new arrival. Nonetheless, it manages to rise beyond this and present its oft-told tale in an engaging and satisfying way. It also looks a little more into the background of the principal characters, including some actual development of the individual Nekross characters, as well as new revelations about the nature of magic itself. There’s even a hint of darkness underlying the general fun style of the series. It’s not a perfect episode by any means, but the good in it certainly outweighs the bad, and it starts to provide the show with a direction as it starts to lay hints of thing to come (both subtle and in-your-face hints).

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Wizards Vs Aliens - Grazlax Attacks

I was quite impressed by “Dawn of the Nekross”, the opening story of the new CBBC series, Wizards Vs Aliens. While I had a few reservations, I felt there was a lot of potential, and it was a great deal of fun. With the second story, “Grazlax Attacks”, I still see that potential. Alas, it has yet to realise itself. In many ways, “Grazlax Attacks” is a typical second episode (technically, it’s the third and fourth episode, but with the two-part structure for each story in the series, it behaves as a second episode), following patterns seen in many, many shows. The second episode is generally a “stand-alone”, light-hearted, doesn’t do a whole lot to advance the show in terms of character development or meta-plot, and pretty much leaves things exactly the way they were after the first episode. To a certain extent, it’s understandable why shows tend to follow this pattern. It allows audiences to become comfortable with the “status quo” of the series before introducing any significant changes or development. Unfortunately, it can also leave audiences with a feeling of, “Well, that was kind of nice, but the first one was better.” This is very much the case with “Grazlax Attacks”. There’s some very minor development of Tom and Benny, and we are introduced to Benny’s parents, but nothing of any real note happens in the story. It’s not bad, but overall, I’m left feeling rather indifferent about it. Like so many second episodes out there, if it had been the first story, I probably wouldn’t have continued watching.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Wizards Vs Aliens - Dawn of the Nekross

Wizards Vs Aliens is a new children’s series from creators Russell T Davies and Phil Ford, the same team behind The Sarah Jane Adventures. And it’s very much in the same vein as Sarah Jane: a small group of characters defend the Earth from evil threats, in this case, the alien Nekross. There are, of course, significant differences between Wizards Vs Aliens and Sarah Jane, notably the titular wizards, but the influence of the earlier series over the newer is quite clear and easily felt. It’s well known that Davies and Ford had plans for more Sarah Jane (at the very least, the remainder of the fifth series; it was only Elisabeth Sladen’s untimely death that ended the show when it did), and I suspect many of those plans have been given a slight facelift and shifted over into Wizards. Indeed, I can totally imagine Sarah Jane Smith delivering the speech that lead character Tom gives at the closing of part two of “Dawn of the Nekross”. It’s completely in the same style as numerous little speeches she gave in her own show. Indeed, the entire show seems at times almost like a tribute to Elisabeth Sladen.

I’m a great fan of The Sarah Jane Adventures—indeed, I think the fourth and fifth series of that show are better than the fifth and sixth series (which aired at roughly the same time) of its parent show, Doctor Who—and the similarities Aliens Vs Wizards has with Sarah Jane mean that I can’t help but like this show a great deal, too. It’s cheesy and over the top (even moreso than Sarah Jane), but it revels in that cheesiness with wonderfully bombastic performances by Brian Blessed and the other Nekross. It knows its premise is silly and absurd, and runs with it. Yet at the same time, it treats that absurdness with just enough seriousness to make it believable, wrapping the viewers in and making them care about the events. The characters might be a bit like caricatures at the moment, but there’s a lot of depth hinted at in the first two episodes that I have no doubt will develop over time.

The premise is simple: Wizards exist and have been secretly coexisting with the rest of humanity throughout all of history. Tom Clarke is a teenage wizard, who hasn’t quite learned responsibility yet (he still sneakily uses spells to do his homework or win football games). He finds himself caught up in an alien invasion. The aliens have come to drain the Earth of all its magic.

SPOILERS FOLLOW