TV Review: Classic Doctor Who: The Three Doctors (to mmvoe)

This is a 1972 opening series of the tenth season of Doctor Who, and is the first in which a prior Doctor comes back.  It features the first three Doctors, who are brought together by the Time Lords as the home world of the Time Lords is under attack, and their energy is being sapped into a black hole. Because of this attack, the Time Lords go against their own rules, and put the three Doctors together to attack the threat.  The Doctors are played by John Pertwee (third and current to movie Doctor) Patrick Troughton (second) and first William Hartnell (First).  The first Doctor is not able to materialize, due to insufficient energy, but appears on a view screen.  He is often the most level headed, and is sent to calm the other two down.  As the first two get together, they become engaged in a rivalry, which hinders their effectiveness.  The stream in the black whole is sent to find a Time Lord.  The Doctors eventually discern that they need to follow the stream, and so they do so.  There the find an old Time Lord Omega, who helped establish the Time Lord realm to begin with, but all thought he had sacrificed himself in an explosion.  His "will" has allowed him to exist where nothing should exist, in a black whole which is made of antimatter.  However as his "will" is what allows him to exist, he cannot leave.  He has brought the Time Lord to force them to use their will so he can leave.  However he has gone made, and actually the particles have destroyed his body, so he is an empty suit of armor.  Omega has accidentally brought many friends and others from Earth to the black whole, in his attempts to find a Time Lord.  He agrees to send them back, if the two Doctor Who's stay.  They agree.  However the use Omega's insanity and anger against him, and are realized, and restored to their natural spot, when Omega is set free through death.  The black hole becomes a star.
I found this entertaining.  The soldiers of the world created have interesting weapons, but they seem to always miss.   Their appearance is somewhat grotesque.  They energy being which is sending everyone to the black hole is a interesting special effect. 

TV Review: ****It's an Adventure Charlie Brown

This is a delightful little bit available through Instant Netflix. It doesn't have any real plot, but shows numerous humorous short stories.  Reminds me of when we were younger, my friends and I would get a Peanuts book and read it together on the stair landing at South Cache Junior High School.  This reminds me of those times, and it is very fun.  Charlie Brown coaches a younger team, he is elected president at summer camp, Lucy tries to get rid of Linus' blanket, but Snoopy keeps bringing it back.  There are numerous other funny bits.  It made me smile.

TV Review: ***^Rosemary and Thyme Season 1

I have found a wonderful British detective series on Netflix Instant.  It ran from 2003-2006 and starred Felicity Kendal as Rosemary Boxer and Pam Ferris as Laura Thyme.  This is a couple elderly women, in the case of Laura Thyme, recently separated, and Rosemary is recently laid off from her job for a university.  Rosemary is a doctor of plant science, and they set up as private gardeners and expert gardening problem solvers.

They are good at their job, however their only problem is death seems to follow them.  The first couple episodes, people were uncovered.  One episode even a horse was unburied, and then later a woman.  Lucky they are very curious.  Laura is an ex cop and her son is a current cop who sometimes helps them secure information.

My favorite episode was "The language of Love."  A man had planted flowers with specific meanings, which his wife finds out to discover that he had an illegitimate daughter, whose mother then committed suicide because of the way she was treated.  His wife only discovered this after he had died, and a book was published about the language of flowers.  It is the daughter who went about killing the family members. 

TV Review: Doctor Who: ***^The Pyramids of Mars

This is from the Tom Baker (1975) era as The Doctor with Sarah Jane (Elizabeth Sladen) as his companion.  It is available through instant Netflix.  I remember this show from when I use to stay up late and watch it on PBS in Utah--television style.  You had to stay up late sometimes to catch all the episodes in a series.  This has four episodes.  The Doctor lands on Earth in the past because of a temporal shift.  This shift is caused by an ancient monster/god of some power named Sutekh who was imprisoned by the other gods of the time on Mars.  There is somehow a connection between Sutekh and and Egyptian pyramid.  He inhabits an archaeologist, at least mentally, when he discovers the ancient tomb in Egypt.  This puts in motion a series of events in which Sutekh plans to fee himself by firing from Earth a rock at Mars to destroy the mechanism which is keeping him captive.  The doctor has to thwart this plan as Sutekh hopes to enslave everyone and take over the universe.  He apparently has power to do so if he were free.  The Doctor is able to destroy the rocket, but only by confronted Sutekh directly, who takes him prisoner and discovers he has a TARDIS which will easily help him in escape.  However the Doctor thwarts him with the control mechanism to the TARDIS which he attaches to the temporal shift machine Sutekh is using to travel to Earth to take control of the TARDIS.  An intriguing story.  Sutekh has some mean robot mummies, and the original archaeologist makes a good monster, looking like Boris Karloff. 

TV Review: *** Doctor Who: The Aztecs

This four part episode stars William Hartnell as The Doctor.  This Doctor Who series is different, as they do not face aliens or any type of monster.  However in this case it is dealing with different customs, as they visit the ancient Aztec civilization, which is built upon superstition, and human sacrifice to appease the sun god.  The Doctor is traveling with his granddaughter and two friends.  One of the friends is mistaken as the reincarnation of an former prophet/god.  She tries to change the custom, and gets the group in trouble with the current priests.
The group is trapped away from the TARDIS which is in the tomb, with a one-way door.  They have to devise a way to get out, while keeping out of trouble dealing with the new laws and customs.  At the same time the priest of sacrifice is pushing for more power, and suspects the reincarnation is a false god.  None of the science fiction stuff, other than traveling through time, but an enjoyable story.

*****Doctor Who Season Five

This is another wild ride, and the shows seem to keep getting better. This season introduces Matt Smith as the Doctor who loves his bow tie, and Karen Gillam as Amy Pond.  It starts with the Doctor, newly incarnated, coming to help a girl with a crack in her wall.  The crack follows just about every episode this season.  The Doctor says he will be right back, but actually comes back a dozen years later and Amy is now a woman.
My favorite episode included Vincent van Gogh.  I admire his work, and we get to see smatterings of it in the museum, and in Vincent's flat.  Vincent can see a monster others, including the Doctor, cannot see.  The monster has been killing innocents.  In looks like a big chicken.  In the end it is defeated, and they show Vincent his legacy.  However it does not prevent his suicide. 
The weeping angels are back in a two part episode.  Only this time there are hundreds of them, and they are out to get them.  However they are scared of the crack through which if anything passes they are forgotten and never existed.
Rory, played by Arthur Darvill, Amy's fiance, joins her on the Tardis.  They face off against vampires, an evil dream keeper and they have to choose between two dream sets and pick the real one so as to not die. There is a less serious one where The Doctor takes on as a human and rents a room.  He plays soccer and eats biscuits and tries to be human to fool the entity upstairs, where there really is not an upstairs, but through the powers of a space vehicle one was been created in everyone's mind. 
The show then turns serious as the Tardis blows up, and it is actually this event seeping through time and universes, which has caused the crack. The Doctor has to close the crack, leaving himself on the other side, and can only be brought back if someone remembers him.  This happens at Rory's and Amy's wedding when remembers something blue.

TV Review: ****^Doctor Who Season Four

Doctor Who Season Four, including “The End of Time”:  I again watched this season on Netflix Instant.  For some reason the last two episodes of this series are not with the rest of the series, but they are on Netflix Instant.  This season has Donna Noble, portrayed by Catherine Tate, as the regular side-kick to The Doctor, David Tenant.  Much of the series deals with how she became the sidekick even though she is just a “regular person.”  However in a later episode we are introduced to Doctor Donna, in which she is melded with the Doctor and takes on his intelligence combined with human instinct.  Episodes that stood out this season are:  "Silence in the Library/Forests of the Dead" in which the shadows are not shadows but creatures that devour anything with meat.  In this episode The Doctor meets his future wife.  We learn the dark is not always just dark and it is important to count your shadows.  "Midnight" in which a creature takes over The Doctor’s speech, and starts saying things before he does.  This is just creepy.  There is a series with all the old side-kicks as well as a few others, who must find the Earth which has been stolen by the Daleks.  "The Stolen Earth/Journey's End"  is a two-part series in which the Earth with several other planets have been put out of sync with time and thus hidden.  The Daleks are using the stolen planets to create a reality bomb and destroy all universes.  This is the episode where Donna saves the day.  There is also created a human Doctor in the same process that melded Donna with the Doctor.  This Doctor is given to Rose to take care of.  “The Next Doctor:” in this episode The Doctor is traveling alone and meets a character in old London who thinks he is The Doctor.  This is a fugue state on his part, and he knows of the Doctor from information tubes the Cyber-men have.  He has made a TARDIS from an air balloon, which in the end the real Doctor uses to save the day.  And finally in “The End of Time” the Doctor is again pitted against The Master in a battle for Earth.  This time the Time Lords are using him to make a return, destroying Earth. This season we also met the Ood, the Doctor's Daughter, and Agatha Christie.  Great fun.

TV Time: *****Doctor Who Season Six

Dr Who Season 6 is now available through Netflix DVD.  The other seasons are on instant Netflix.  This is a terrific ride.  The season starts with Doctor Who's Death, then goes back and explains things on the road to this event.  There are some incredible turns in the general plot, for example we see the Doctor's marriage to River Song, discover who are her parents, and are introduced to the "Silence."  The Silence are evil creatures who you don't remember when you are not looking at them.  They are like a great conspiracy, manipulating things without anyone knowing about them.  They are still around at the end, and it is the Silence who have decided the Doctor must die.

This series has a greater use of poetry which is highly effective.  It also has a way of bringing back old characters.  In this case the characters are often old nemesis who now owe the Doctor.  This is especially true with the kidnapping of Amy and Rorie's baby girl.  She was conceived in the TARDIS which causes her to have time lord characteristics.

This is a show you have to see.  I watched Doctor Who as a youth, staying up late to watch it on PBS.  The plots and stories were fun then, but the special effects were always lacking.  That is no longer a problem, and the stories have just gotten more intriguing.  I LIKE DOCTOR WHO.

TV Time: ****A Dinner of Herbs

This was available on Netflix instaview.  It is British so I assume it is BBC, but I am not sure.  It tells the story of three young people.  Mary Ellen loves Roddy, Roddy loves himself and Hal loves Mary Ellen.  Roddy and Hal share a similar fate in that both their fathers are murdered by the same man.  Roddy was there, but was thrown off a cliff and has amnesia.

This movie shows three time periods, when they are boys of age twelve, later as young men, and then 25 years later.  It is a show about the effect of bitterness and revenge, and coming to terms with the past; which is sometimes hard to do.  This is a very nice story, and the characters are great.  Mary Ellen has a certain spunk, and the actress changes three time, but the spunk is evident with all three.  It is very well done in that regard.

I would recommend this movie to others if you have the chance to see it.  It is a miniseries with 6 almost one hour sections.

Movie Night: *****^Pride and Prejudice

My most favorite movie of all time is the Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, 1995, Pride and Prejudice British Television Drama.  This is a six part portrayal of the Jane Austen classic.  I finished viewing it for the upteenth time this past weekend.  I must admit I prefer it to all other versions of Pride and Prejudice, including the Mormon version, the Keira Knightly version, or older versions I have seen.

As I watched, I tried to figure out why I like this presentation so much.   I think it is the feisty nature of Miss Elizabeth Bennett.  However I must admit, the mother of the family intrigues me as well.  Her attitude I find humorous, and human.  The father also is humorous, but in a different way. 

I am thrilled with the reaction of Elizabeth Bennet to the first marriage proposal from Mr Darcy.  When she reacts to him with a flat refusal and says that nothing would tempt her, even if he had "behaved in a more gentlemanly manner."  And then to watch people change thrills me.  Bot Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy change, and the most beautiful love blossoms in the end.

I think the real reason I like this so much, is because it always leaves me feeling good in the end.  After watching this movie, that happy buzz stays wit me for a few days.