My Review of Obi_Wan Kenobi

Star Wars has always been a big part of my life, I cant remember exactly how and when I first saw it but I do know that it was very early and it made a big impression, I think I can limit the way I first saw it down to one of two scenarios I am just not sure which came first. Ok one way I saw them was on TV. When I was young the original 3 Star Wars films were always on the TV around the Christmas Holidays, it would be something like Star Wars would be on at some point on Christmas day and then you'd get Empire on Boxing Day and Return of the Jedi on new years eve or some variation on this theme.  So watching it in this sort of way might have been my first experience of Star Wars but I also remember my Dad owning a Super 8 cine film 42.5m film reel which showed a sort of condensed around 8 minutes version of Star Wars which my Dad would show me by using his Super 8 projector to project this on to a small roll away cinema screen. This wasn't the only film my Dad would show me he would show me all kinds of cartoons and Black and White horror films via projector, it really is something which helped a real love of film to grow within me, from a young age I was able to set up a cine film projector and screen and thread the films into the projector and play them. I must have watched this 8 minute version of Star Wars thousands of times, my Dad has given it me and I still own it to this very day. My dad was my big introduction to the world of Science Fiction and to this day I still love watching stuff with him. Every time a new Star Wars film has come out I have had to run out and see it as quickly as possible. 

So with this in mind I had to watch Obi-Wan Kenobi and I had to make a video giving my thoughts on it.

A no Spoilers review of the first episode of Seth MacFarlane's The Orville.

So first I need to say I am a massive massive fan of Seth MacFarlane, I like family guy, I am a huge fan of TED, a massive fan of his work in general. Take that on board and then take on board the fact that I grew up watching Star Trek with my dad. I have seen all of the original series of Trek all of the Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager and Enterprise, I have read books both stories and tech manuals so yeah I am a Seth MacFarlane loving Trek loving Geek.

 So I just watched the first Episode of Seth MacFarlane's new show The Orville. Seth is a fan of Star Trek in fact he appeared in Enterprise in a short cameo and what he has made here is pretty much his own version of Star Trek a version with a comedic flair to it. Its not just a funny rip off though, its made with such love that you can tell that it is made with the deepest affectionate for Star Trek, its full of little head nods and well it basically felt to me like it was a Trek show just a Trek show with more realistic dialogue, more realistic people and well humour. As a kid you watch Trek and you take it for normal that these crew members all just sort of do there jobs and are largely happy with it, that everyone turns up on time and does what there supposed to do but once you have worked in a few different jobs you realise that works not like that at all, when your at work people chit chat, people talk shit about each other, pass rumours on, there is that person who is always late, that person who got suspended for doing some dumb shit, if you watch this opening episode of The Orville you will see that in some ways I think it shows a more realistic view of what that kind of work in space would be like. If your in to Trek this show so far has the same kind of action the same kind of technobable, the pilot episode with a few little changes very much could be used as a Trek script, so even if your not usually in to comedic stuff I would still say to give this show a go.

I found this opening episode a pleasure from start to finish, I think that it felt very much like Trek, it was funny at times but I do think that MacFarlane really reined in his comedic skills, he made sure that the jokes did not come at the expense of the story or the character development, they just served as the chocolate powder on top of the cappuccino. The show is a sci fi drama with comedic trimmings or at least that's the way I would describe this pilot episode. I think as a first episode it did a really good job of setting up the world and beginning to let you get to know the characters to show some of there traits. I found that at the end of the episode I wanted to know not only what they would get up to next but I wanted to see more of these people, I wanted to know more about the, I had questions, questions that I know will bring me back to the show. So far critics don't seem to have been very kind to this show but I totally disagree with them and I would have to say that I think this could be the start of something wonderful.

My opinion on a female Doctor, the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special and The fate of The Master.

OK so I thought I would do a quick post about Dr Who. There has been quiet a few bits and pieces that I have wanted to post about when it comes to Dr Who but I figured instead of doing a bunch of short posts I would wait till I had enough stuff to really talk about. There will be a few spoilers in here but I will write that its going to get spoilery before it does, there will also be a lot of opinion and conjecture, if you want to comment on this or ask what I think or feel about something Who related then please feel free.
 

So to hit the obvious elephant in the room, Yes the new Doctor has been cast and its a woman. So do I think this is the end of Dr Who? No not at all, lets face it the character is an alien who can regenerate and change his appearance when killed or to be more accurate when either the actor has gotten fed up or the viewing figures are down or the producer is annoyed or well whatever. So lets put it this way if the actress is doing a bad job (not that I think she will) or if the viewing figures drop dangerously low for any reason be it the fact the show actually gets bad or even just too many people find they cant get behind a female Doctor then bang she can just go. She can get exterminated or get poisoned or crash the Tardis or otherwise get badly injured and then boom artron energy shoots from her and new new Doctor. New New Doctor complete with new testicles and instant support from those who were anti female Doctor in the first place. If a female Doctor works it could bring more attention to the show and could have a positive effect on the show and if it doesn't then the show already has a system in place to return things to the original status Que. Do I think Jodie Whittaker is the right Woman for the job? To be fair shes not actually the person I would have picked, I am not anti female Doctor, I just personally would have liked to see someone a little older and well I guess the right word is distinguished as the first female Doctor. I have to admit that despite having people in my head like Judi Dench I cant come up with someone who really fits the bill and would realistically want and be able to do it.

OK so next I want to talk about the upcoming Doctor Who Christmas special (2017). In this episode is that Peter Capaldi’s Doctor meets the first Doctor. Obviously William Hartnell passed away a long time ago, and even if he hadn't then he wouldn't still look the same so how have they gotten around this? Well they have cast David Bradley to take William Hartnell’s part. David Bradly played the part of William Hartnell in the BBC docudrama An Adventure in Space and Time, which told the story of Doctor Who’s creation, this film included scenes in which David Bradly played William Hartnell playing the Doctor so if you have seen this you will have seen little bits of how David Bradly would handle the role of the doctor and in my opinion he was very impressive.

Steven Moffat has said that Bradley’s recreation “is so eerily perfect, it could fool you” and having watched the Christmas trailer I can see why he would say this. I have heard some people grumble about someone else playing the first Doctor but its not the first time this has happened in the 5 Doctors the role was filled by Richard Hurndall who in my opinion did a pretty fine job. From what I have seen I think David Bradley is going to do an even better job I really feel that he is going to knock it right out of the park. So I am fully supportive of David Bradley being used to play this role and the idea of the story itself.

OK so the following bit is potentially full of spoilers and my thoughts on them, if you want to avoid this kind of thing then I would say pretty much stop reading now. It has been teased that viewers will get to see the First Doctor’s TARDIS, which has been “beautifully recreated” now if this is true then all I can say is wonderful, I love things like this, I love the idea of there being a new set out there a set which is an early Tardis, I hope it is not smashed up after its use, I am sure there is some museum which would love to display it or failing that heck why not auction it off for a worthy charity?

It has also been suggested that the Christmas special will bring Twelve’s story full circle, showing that his final moments before regenerating were actually the first we ever saw of him, that just before he regenerates he helps to save Gallifrey. I think that seeing Capaldi and the first Doctors involvement in this important moment would actually be really neat. Apparently Bill is going to be making an appearance as well.

In the 1966 serial The Tenth Planet we saw the Doctor come up against the Mondasian Cybermen, for the first time, this episode was set on the Earth's South Pole and if I am not mistaken that is exactly where it appears that Capaldi’s Doctor has landed. Hartnell’s Doctor made his final regular appearance in the serial during this story, but he was absent for most of it. In real-life, Hartnell was suffering from ill health at the time of filming, and didn’t have the energy to deliver his lines however in the story those watching it were led to believe that the Doctor had collapsed and was resting, while his assistants battled the Mondasian Cybermen.

I might be wrong here but I think that this special is going to show that the First Doctor rather than laying down on his behind waiting to regenerate had actually gone off for one last very important another adventure with his future self? An Adventure which shows the two of them and ends first with the part they both played in the events of the 50th Anniversary and finally with Capaldi's Doctor remembering how hard it must have been for the first Doctor to regenerate and to change for the first time and so giving in to it and allowing himself to let the regeneration process start instead of fighting it.


Lastly I just want to quickly say something about Missy well Missy and the Master. In the last episode when Missy killed the Master and then Master killed her I expected to see at least one regeneration. Heck it had been said that Capaldi would regenerate before the Christmas special so I kind of expected to see 3 regenerations and then I didn't see a single one which was a little bit anti-climatic. So obviously we are going to see Capaldi regenerate at Christmas but what about the other two? I was hoping that if it was John Simm's Master's time to die that we would actually get to see him regenerate into Missy, OK we haven't seen it and we probably never will but I can live in hope right? As for Missy well I don't believe that she is dead dead and wont regenerate, the Master is a well Master when it comes to survival, she will have remembered being the previous Master and having shot herself and will from the moment she became Missy have started coming up with some kind of survival plan, maybe she was wearing something which would stop the blast from being fatal I don't know I am just very sure that she or maybe he will be back, I just know that the Master will not be gone for too long.