Star Trek Discovery: Trek is Back on TV!! (kinda)

So for once being in the UK has actually been beneficial for TV as the new Star Trek Discovery series is being streamed on Netflix. Today I got to watch the first two episodes and I have to say that I liked what I saw. I won't be doing a scene by scene breakdown here but rather address some of the memorable points.

There are spoilers ahead.

The episodes opens with the Klingons, so lets start there. I did't really like the redesigns of the Klingons, the same way I found the Kelvin-Verse redesigns unnecessary. They did grow on me as the episodes progressed. There is one Klingon. Voq, who is houseless because he has been abandoned seemingly for being paler than his Klingon brethren and this coupled with the main bad guy T'Kuvma seems to be bringing the Klingons together for fear that they will be tainted by the Federation races. Is this a cultural taint he is talking about or is he actually meaning a alteration to the Klingon race? We've already seen some Klingon genetic manipulation in Enterprise in order to explain the TOS and other Klingons is this going to be something similar?

Another piece of Klingon-ness is their cloaking technology. Discovery seems to suggest that this is the first time they have seen the Klingon ship cloak so did they do their deal with the Romulans between the Enterprise-era and now?

We also see a redesign of the Bat'leth that seems to stay similar to the original but with more fancy twiddly bits, but this seems to be the thing with all modern day movies and TV where "flat" is a bad word because of HD tv.  Just look at all the texture added to superhero costumes in the movies rather than flat colors. The Klingon space suit did look great though. A first of it's kind here?

Oh and they spelled Qo'noS correctly here!

So to the credits. A nice no here to the TOS credits, so much so that I thought they were going to use the thing in it's entirety.

Now onto the federation characters. Michelle Yeoh is a great Captain Phillipa Georgiou. I've been a Michelle Yeoh fan for a while so was really happy to see her in Star Trek.

Saru: Played by Doug Jones Saru is going to become the Data, Doctor and Phlox character of Discovery. The alien race he plays, a Kelpien, is the first time we've seen them and they look good, not going down the traditional Trek route of slightly knobbly facial features. Even over the course of just these two episodes I hope we see more from him, maybe his own episode, although I'm not sure Discovery's story structure is going to be handled the same way as the older series.

Michael Burnham: So Sonequa Martin-Green plays the main focus of Discovery and she does it excellently. She was a favourite in Walking Dead (while I was watching it) and once again, when I heard that she had been cast in Discovery I had high hopes. Once again i just a few flashbacks we see an evolution of her from a Human attempting to mimic her Vulcan peers to a Human with a logical approach to problems, taints by her own emotions. We may see more of Burnham's outbursts as she struggles with the suppressed emotions during her time on Vulcan.

My only fear with Burnham is that the whole "caught between two worlds" thing was already done with a few characters, most notably with Spock and this one even has Sarek and his family as well. I'm not sure this was a great idea, but it may prove to be the opposite of Spock's story as Spock struggled to be more Vulcan, Whereas Burnham seems to be more Human.

I like the character and look forward to seeing how she develops over the series. I love how she was taught the Vulcan Nerve Pinch!

Other stuff: We have Phase Cannons rather than Phasers in another call back to Enterprise with a mention of transporter technology development.

Hologram communication seems to be included here so that the characters can march around and react rather than be stuck on a static screen.

The flashback to Burnham's arrival on the ship had lots of classic Trek noises on the bridge which was great.

There are a lot of slanted shots here mimicking the Kelvin-verse movies rather than the original series. I suppose this is just modern TV now....

Why did they not send a security team when Burnham and Georgiou boarded the Klingon ship? I know Kirk was always beaming down to danger but they had plenty of time to gather a few "red shirts" and help out. Maybe this is the reason, as they didn't want to go the whole "Red Means Dead" route and maybe killing a number of them during this scene would just reinforce that.

All in all, I liked Discovery and am looking forward to seeing a lot more, especially Harry Mudd!! Finally a good reason for Monday.

New BAMF Podcast. Talking to Dan Abnett about the 13th Doctor, Aquaman and Captain Chronos (among other things)

Here is the link to the new BAMF podcast

https://mikelaff.podbean.com/e/dan-abnett-talks-dr-who-aquaman-captain-kronos/

and the YouTube video can be found here

https://youtu.be/KV64__Q4xjo

An Interesting thing came up during this discussion. I said that it would be interesting to see if the new Doctor being a woman will steer more girls into watching the show, but steer more boys away from it. Dan Disagreed and said that he thinks the will be virtually no loss.

Now I'm getting old, back when I was a kid it seemed to me that boys were marketed He-Man and Transformers and girls were marketed My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake. I never even considered that because Doctor Who was a sci-fi "boys show" that girls would even be interested in it, but we didn't have the internet back then and pretty much your whole observation of a shows fandom was "if your friend liked it".

This changed throughout my life when I started to meet women who loved Farscape or Buffy or anime with as much passion as I did for Doctor Who but even now I'm still only learning 24 years after leaving school that there were girls that loved Star Trek: the Next Generation as much as I did.

So now I'm hoping I'm wrong. I'm hoping that kids these days just see that the Doctor offers them adventure and excitement and tells them about understanding and tolerance and everything else the Doctor stands for whether he is currently in the form of a male or female.

The New Doctor is...a woman??

So today we just had the reveal that Jodie Whittaker is going to be the 13th Doctor and my initial reaction was...hmmm. I'd seen the shortlist and no one on it jumped out as being particularly favorable but then I had no particular opinion about Eccleston, Tennant, Smith or Capaldi when they were cast because I'd not seen them in anything else. Whittaker is a regular in Broadchurch but I avoid crime series like the plague so I have no preconceived idea of just what she is like. Fundamentally anyone playing the Doctor has to have good stories and I'm hoping that Whittaker has the Matt Smith effect of immediately winning me over before the last episode was over.

In universe the idea that the Doctor could be a woman has obviously been touched on before. The Corsair had female regenerations, Missy was the last iteration of the Master and Romana effectively got to "try on" here regeneration before settling on the one she stayed with. My take is that when the 12th Doctor said at the end of episode 10 that if he couldn't be himself he didn't want to be anyone he effectively let go and allowed for the significant change as if starting again from scratch.

In the real world we have a bigger problem, anyone not liking the casting is immediately framed as being sexist or worse still misogynistic when maybe all they thought was that they didn't like her in Broadchurch. Women viewers are being told that they should be grateful that finally they have a female Doctor in some bizarre reverse sexism that just because she's a woman it guarantees that the show will be any good. I'm sure the argument that all women should like Theresa May or Thatcher just because she's a woman would work just as well.

What Whittaker needs is some bloody good stories that can prove that the show can be great whether the Doctor is male or female because if that's not there and viewing figures drop off the BBC are going to get he "I told you it wouldn't work" message when her casting may not be anything to do with the problem.

So here it is. I'm going to stay as balanced as I can be. If you've decided that the Doctor being a woman is not for you then I'm not going to rant, you have every right to have that opinion just as the casting of Capaldi or whoever may have put some people off. Just as I'm going to say that just because the Doctor is now a woman that the series is going to be the best thing ever,  because for as much as I've liked ever Doctor there have been some horse shit episodes in there that makes their runs imperfect.

All I know is that I'm as willing to give Whittaker a try as much as I did Tennant, Smith and Capaldi and I hope that the show flourishes and we get some great sci-fi tv out of it.

Star Trek Adventures has arrived!!

The new Star Trek Adventures RPG, of which I made a small contribution to, is now available. The book looks gorgeous and should easily be able to fulfil your 24th century adventure needs. The PDF can be found at RPGNow and the book for pre-order at Modiphius' own site.

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/214552/Star-Trek-Adventures-Core-Rulebook

https://www.modiphius.net/collections/star-trek-adventures

First page of a so far un-named manga-esq fantasy comic.

Here is the first page of a new fantasy comic book that I've been working on. I plan on releasing stats and background material for M&M as it progresses. 

Doctor Who Series 10 so far...Smile

So on to episode two. We open with the a standard explanation to Bill about the TARDIS, Timelords etc including a reference to Mr. Fantastic and seats that ends on Nardole reminding the Doctor that he is not supposed to leave Earth because he is charged with overlooking the vault,  this seasons big mystery object. The Doctor mentions here that he is over 2000 years old which is  considerably older than the 11th Doctor mentioning he's 940 odd in the Impossible Astronaut. Even taking into consideration the time spent with River Song at the end of the Xmas episode and the 50 years he's been at the university it still means that the Doctor has been busy since we last saw him. some of this time may well have been saving and finding a new body for Nardole. Explanations done and we are off  to another adventure while Nardole makes the tea.

We cut to an establishing shot of a distant planet that really does looks great, even though it's fundamentally a wheatfield, the open space all around does suggest an off world location, Long gone are the "good old days" of every planet being a quarry somewhere in Britain. We follow a colonist and her Vardi robot to the city and a second colonists, one instantly recognisable to me as Mina Anwar, an actress in numerous UK shows but more relevant to Who as the mum on Rani Chandra in the Sarah jane Adventures. My immediate thought was that they are expanding on the Indian Space Agency from Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, but while it isn't stated as such it may be a possibility.

Anyway, bad things happen and the nanite swarm that helped the Vardi robots build the city sweep and kill the two colonists when their helper droids are alerted to the fact that they are no longer happy due to a small electronic emoji badge on each colonist's back.

Cue the Arrival of the Doctor.

Landing not far from the city the Doctor and Bill investigate their new find, the Doctor berating Bill for her robot discrimination, a common thread that seems to be appearing in this series. They then encounter the Vardi and are issued with their own reactive-emoji badges that are unable to be seen by the wearer, especially when they attach themselves to their backs. The Vari escort the pair to another large room with a small table and blue food cubes placed upon it. Bill is given a single serving while the Doctor is given two, explaining that it's because he has two hearts and not because it's a "bloke-utopia" as Bill suggests.

Again here we are following up on the "Pilot" where fundamental facts about the Doctor are told to the audience again for those not in the know. Is this due to the new TV deal that gives the BBC five more series to make using this one as the starter? Maybe.

As the pair look around the Doctor hypothesizes that the nanites that there are no colonists because they have been sent in advance to prepare for their arrival., unfortunately this is later disproven when he discovers a necklace amongst the plants in a garden quickly backed up by the discovery of the skeletal remains of the preparation team being used as fertilizer, much to Bill's horror.

The pair attempt to leave but they are confronted by the Vardi who seeing that they are no longer happy head them off ready to give them the killer hug that ended the previous colonists lives. Forcing a smile seems to dissuade them and they return to the TARDIS.

Telling Bill to stay put the Doctor heads back to the city in order to destroy it and stop it from becoming a death trap for the main batch of colonists but in classic companion tradition Bill soon follows telling the Doctor that she knows why he keeps the TARDIS as a phone box, it's because of the sign "Advice and assistance obtainable immediately", words that pretty much sum up the Doctor.

The Doctor finally figures out the the Vardi nanites are actually what makes up the city not something they constructed. Figuring that the original ship the colonists arrived on must be somewhere they venture onwards and find a door which opens at a touch into a disappointing interior that pretty much screams factory rather than spaceship. Tis was a letdown after the great opening vistas and city shot but something that's been seen before, recently in the first Star Trek reboot movie where a similar site was used for the engine room due to budgetary constraints.

In my opinion this is where the story starts to fall apart. Even though the Doctor "explains" reason the place looks so industrial it just doesn't feel like a spacecraft and the introduction of a wall map that Bill uses to guide the Doctor enforces this again. Even though its a 2D representation of the ship, she is able to determine where the Doctor should change levels in order to go down.  When the Doctor arrives at the engine room we are given a disappointing "engine" that for some reason sits in the middle of walkways. Another poor design that doesn't even seem to be attached to the rest of the ship it's supposed to power.

Bill soon realises that she is being kept out of danger by the Doctor as he has already memorized the map and taking a photo of it heads on after him. She quickly discovers the body of an elderly woman seemingly in a tomb of some sort and looking at an electronic book (not the Hitchhiker's Guide) she is given a run down of the colonist's history. Bill despairs at the fact that something bad happened on Earth causing the need for the colonist to evacuate but quickly sets off to help the Doctor where she encounters a boy.

During all time the Vardi robot seem to not want the colonists waking up and so they send ONE of their number to stop it, at least this is my assumption as they begin towards the ship when the pair entered, not when the alarms go off as the engine begins to fail.

Aftera quick struggle with the Vardi robot utilising the only possible reason for the walkway design (drama) the rest of the colonists begin to wake up. The Doctor quickly hurries to the engine again which seems to be  right next door to the stasis room and also missing its listing from the map because neither the Doctor or Bill saw "Sleeper Pods" written there!

Cue Ralf Little as Steadfast and as the rest of the colonists wake up Bill takes the Doctor to the tomb.
The pair figure out that the elderly woman dying was the first sign of grief on this new world and the Vardi's attempt to keep people happy meant they killed the grieving which lead onto more etc... Really, I don't buy it. Why does the Vardi's program of keeping the colonists happy mean that those that aren't are killed?  Is death the only cure for unhappiness that the Vardi can see?

The Doctor passes Bill the necklace he found earlier that shows an image of the boy, meaning that friends and family or the awakening colonists were among the starter team and the new grief would cause the Vardi to attack again.

Steadfast goes gung ho, arms himself from an impressive array of weapons for a colony ship and sets off determined to destroy the Vardi and their robots. The group find the boy with two Vardi robots and as he begins to show grief they prepare to attack. One of the robots is shot down, with Steadfast saying its just one robot, Bill says it not just one robot. Surely as a member of the colony Steadfast should know that the Vardi are supposed to be there to make up the city or did he expect one made up of cardboard boxes?

The nanites begin to attack just as the Doctor figures out the Vardi are alive he resets the Vardi returning them to their previous non-homicidal state. The Doctor seems happy enough that after identifying he Vardi as a newly emergent species he quickly whips in and reboots their brains to a less dangerous state. Free will be damned.

The Doctor brokers a deal between the Vardi and the humans that would allow them to stay in the city.  Returning to the TARDIS the pair set out to return to the exact second they left but end up in London in the early 1880s only to be greeted by an elephant....

All in all not a bad episode. Bill continues to shine as a great companion, the settings are largely great looking but some fairly thin reasoning behind the certain plot points.

Next Thin Ice

Doctor Who series 10 so far... Pilot

Ok here is something a little different, let's talk about the newest series of Doctor Who starring Peter Capadi as the 12th Doctor, Pearl Mackie as Bill and Matt Lucas as Nardole.

 A Little History

As listeners to the BAMF podcast may know I'm a huge Doctor Who fan from my earliest introduction to the 5th Doctor, Peter Davison. I watched every episode of his adventures up until his regeneration to Colin Baker when dodgy scheduling and the idea that MY Doctor had changed meant that I didn't see it as often. This continued all the way through to Sylvester McCoy's era where the story Silver Nemesis got me back into the show by featuring my favorite bad guys, the Cybermen, 

When the show was brought back in '96 I was excited to have a new episode and this time a new Doctor and I started to pick up VHS's of past Doctor's adventures that I'd never seen before, Colony in Space, Pyramids of Mars, Revelation of the Daleks, The Tenth Planet and a few others. As the DVDs started to arrive I brought every one and Colin Baker's sixth Doctor, the Doctor that turned me away from the show, quickly became one of my favourites along with the unseen adventures of the second (Patrick Troughton) and third (Jon Pertwee) Doctors.

While filling in the gaps to my Doctor Who collection they actually announced that we were getting a new show, and it would continue the story with the introduction of the ninth Doctor!  This NuWho actually turned out to be pretty good and while there have been some less than successful episodes, each and every Doctor to take up the mantle from those original seven has been great, with Peter Capaldi's Doctor starring in probably my favourite Doctor Who story ever, Heaven Sent. 

So here we are, the latest series of the 12th Doctor, his last before regenerating once more, and so far it's been pretty damn good.

Pilot

It's been said that this episode is exactly what the title means, a pilot into the new status-quo of the show with the Doctor on Earth for, possibly exiled ad the introduction of another new companion. The story does a great job in doing this, the idea of the Doctor being a college professor for the last 50 years aided by the un-aging Nardole is a great one and Pearl Mackie's Bill is another great companion. I found her instantly likeable, a regular every day girl that hopefully was going o stay away from the whole "great destiny" thing of previous companions. (although that had worked at the time but every companion should not be universe shatteringly special.)

My biggest problem was the main plot, a puddle of sentient fuel dropped from aliens and a ship we don't see that becomes fixated on Bill because she uttered a simple phrase. while the plot did give us an excuse to do a quick tour of the universe, even seeing the Dalek-Movellan war where I would have loved to have see the forth Doctor pass by, ultimately it was just an episode when our three heroes just run away, this time through time rather than endless corridors.

The threat of the Oil puddle Heather didn't really seem to be that important but did suggest that whoever had this as their fuel was able to utilise it to also travel across the vastness of time and space as it was able to easily stop off at any location the Doctor  travelled too. 

Ultimately, I felt the core story was a lot less interesting that the background details that were dropped in along the way , but did show a great deal of Bill' personality and her take on the strange way her life had changed.

At the end of the episode I wa left wanting to see more of both Bill and Nardole as they complimented the already great portrayal of the Doctor by Capaldi and I was intrigued to see who or what was inside the vault and just what was going to happen next. 

Next: Smile

Talking Comics on the BAMF podcast

Here is another BAMF podcast where we chat about current comics, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Star Trek : Discovery.

it can be found here

New Bamf Podcast: Comic to Movie Adaptions

The newest Bamf podcast is up talking about comic stories adapted to movies.

It can be found here

Young Heroes Wear MASKS

A new podcast just went up on Youtube with Walt Robillard, Mike Lafferty, Jacob Blackmon, Brendon Conway and myself talk teen hero books and the great Apocalypse Engine RPG, Masks: A New Generation.

It can be found here