Year: 2006

US TV

Sci-Fi downloads on Amazon.com

13 November 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

The Curse of FenricNot sure if US readers have noticed or not, but Amazon’s Unbox video downloads service is now offering you the chance to rent episodes of sci-fi series. Compared to iTunes, it’s pretty rubbish, given you can only watch the episodes for seven days before they self-destruct, but I’d thought I’d point it out anyway. Shows available include Star Trek, Stargate SG-1, Firefly, Babylon 5 and Doctor Who. Technical requirements are similar to the equally rubbish Five VoD service.

There are some interesting choices for Doctor Who, with old school stories such as The Aztecs, The Seeds of Death and The Mind Robber mixing it up with later stories (none of the new Who stories available). It’s worth noting that $1.99 will only get you an episode of Doctor Who, not a complete story, so you’ll have to pay $8 or so to rent all of The Curse of Fenric, for instance. You’d be mad to, but the option’s there.

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – Memory Lane

10 November 2006 Rob Buckley 6 Comments

The front cover to Memory LaneIf there’s a Doctor synonymous with Big Finish’s range of Doctor Who audio plays, it’s Paul McGann. Doctor number eight has appeared in books, comics and countless other media since his appearance in the TV movie of 1996. But it wasn’t until 2001 that McGann was to appear again as the Doctor and show us how he would have portrayed that wanderer in time and space if he’d been given the chance.

It was Big Finish who gave him that chance. Together with the producers, he’s crafted a fun-loving, slightly comedic, sports-worshipping, Peter Pan of a Time Lord that anticipated the lonelier, romantic and pop culture-friendly tendencies of David Tennant’s tenth Doctor – he does, perhaps, encapsulate best the various themes of Big Finish’s disparate writing styles.

Now several ‘seasons’ in, with 1930s adventuress Charley Pollard by his side, he’s encountered Daleks, Cybermen, the Brigadier, the Time Lords and dozens of new enemies, forever dispelling the “George Lazenby” jibe that he’s endured over the years. He’s not had the best of stories, with a few notable exceptions, but he’s had some of the best of the Big Finish ‘atmosphere’ in his time.

Now, we have Memory Lane, perhaps the most Eighth Doctor-ish story of his adventures so far.

Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who – Memory Lane”

Find out what would have happened in Smith

10 November 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Smith may have gone from US TV screens, but it lives on online. CBS is going to sell all seven completed episodes via iTunes, AOL and Amazon.com and show them free for a month on its Innertube service. All of those are US only. Sorry.

UPDATE: Ooh, ooh! Innertube works in the UK for once! UK viewers can watch all those Smith episodes right now. Or they can wait till ITV airs them. I also forgot to mention that there are copious production notes on the CBS site that explain what would have happened in the subsequent episodes that didn’t get filmed.

UPDATE 2: Actually, only episode 4 is viewable in the UK. Maybe the earlier ones are, too, but 5 and 6 aren’t. Bugger.