Category Archives: Things I Like

For this week’s character of the week we’ll take a look at Torog’s Brain-Bot-3.0.

The thing that attracted me to this is the attention to detail used when constructing the subject. This is especially prevalent around the centre of the picture, the rocket mechanism made from the glove and shoulder items. The masking here really works, sometimes masking to join two items together can leave a mismatched line along the join, but here there doesn’t appear to be one.

Also, the design is very well thought out, it looks like it could conceivably be used in either a comic or a sci-fi movie. The item choices work well together and nothing seems out of place. There is also a menacing quality to the machine, having no face (the essential part of the anatomy for human interaction, without it there is no emotion, something which is inherently unnerving to us) as well as the large, fearsome looking claws, which, coupled with the non-humanoid body structure, suggests something alien and antagonistic.

The final thing I like about this piece is how it is finished. The colour choices for the body  help the menacing aura, being dark and dingy. This is nicely juxtaposed against the bright and brilliant flame from the booster, although this may have been enhanced if there was some sort of reflective glow on the adjacent bodywork. Finally, the shading is very effective, especially on the claws and head. There are still some bits that could have been shaded where they aren’t, but there is a very good contrast between light and dark, especially as the dark seems to be more prevalent on the main body whilst the light is more noticeable on the extremities, such as the head, booster and claws.

As this season of Doctor Who has now finished, I thought I might as well run down what I thought of the series and then you guys can have your say. Beware, there may be some slight spoilers, so unless you are River Song, or you don’t mind getting slight hints, don’t read.

I’d like to start off by saying I’m not a fan of the new format of splitting the series in two. Less episodes means less tension build up over the series. I miss trying to spot the little clues that they used to scatter around to hint at the final episode. And it means we seem to have lost the two parters, which are often the best episodes of the series (Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances, Impossible Planet/ The Satan Pit, Silence In The Library/ Forests Of The Dead, Time Of Angels/ Flesh and Stone; to name but a few). The stories seem to be a bit too condensed this series (i.e. from The Dalek Asylum onwards), but it has been especially noticeable in this half.

However, having said all that, I have quite enjoyed this half of the season. Journey To The Centre Of The Tardis was a very good episode, even if the ending was a bit meh, I loved all of the references to Old Who that they put in there and it was nice to see a bit more of the Tardis interior other than the control room. Hide and The Crimson Horror where probably my favourite episodes, Hide was nicely scary at some points and Diana Rigg was brilliantly nutty in The Crimson Horror. It was good to see them bring back some of the old foes, which was what really excited me about this season, and they didn’t let me down. The Ice Warrior episode was as good as should be expected from Mark Gatiss, a man who certainly knows his Who, and I love the retro redesign they’ve given the Cybermen. I’m also glad they brought back the Great Intelligence as the big bad guy, shame they couldn’t have given him some yeti, but evil snowmen and the Whisper Men will have to do. On the subject of the Whisper Men, with all of that stuff at the start of the final episode, the rhyme about them and all that, I was expecting them to be more intimidating, have more substance, but instead a good metaphor for their impact would be when Strax tries to kill one and it just goes straight through it, they were a nothing villain. However, I’m not saying that the final episode was bad in any way, it was an excellent finale for the season in my opinion, I had a veritable Whogasm at the end. It leads on to the 50th anniversary episode very nicely, they explained Clara’s role in a way that was very satisfying and didn’t give her some massive cosmic meaning like Rose, Donna or Wilf and thankfully it didn’t try to answer the big question that they had almost been threatening to answer.

However, this does lead me onto the weak links, the first two episodes of the half. The Bells Of Saint John started out good but as soon as you thought you knew what was going on it jumped to another place and left the whole episode feeling quite empty. However, it was miles better than The Rings Of Akhaten. Now, great old Who reference at the start aside, this was possibly the worst episode since the Absorbalov waddled onto our screens. Unthreatening bad guy overload. The weird masked guys could have worked out quite well as the villain, or even the henchmen to the mummified alarm clock thing, but no, we have to have another sentient sun, lots of meaningless babble and the corniest mass sing-along this side of Disney. This episode could easily have made way for any one of the other episodes to be stretched into a two parter, or it could have just been chucked completely and another episode could have been filmed instead. It’s such a shame that the only alien planet episode of this series had to be the worst.

Anyway, that’s my opinion, now lets hear yours.

Today’s topic is “Dungeons and Dragons“, the show originally ran from 1983 through 1985 for three seasons. Hank, the Ranger, Eric, the Cavalier, Diana, the Acrobat, Presto, the Magician, Sheila, the Thief, and Bobby, the Barbarian, along with Uni and the Dungeon Master take on Venger, Shadow Demon, and  Tiamat the Dragon. Let’s hear what you have to say.

The Super Friends, the most awesome cartoon ever. If I missed it when I was a kid, my whole day was shoot. One thing you have to ask is who was better, Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog, or the Wonder Twins and Gleek? The name changed over the years, but it was still a great show. Let’s hear what you have to say.

Let’s talk “Jetsons” this morning. A look into the future, just think about how many things we have today that we only dreamed of having when we watched the Jetsons. A nagging boss, traffic jams, thread mills for dogs, no wait, I don’t mean this things. All and all it was a great cartoon. I didn’t care all that much for the movie. Let’s hear what you have to say about the Jetsons.

Let’s talk Speedy Buggy. I loved this show, it was great. So say it was just a Scooby Doo remake, but I think it held it’s own. I remember when I was almost sixteen my cousin had a dune buggy that looked just like Speedy, but it was black. I wanted to buy it from he so bad, it was street legal, but I didn’t have a job so I didn’t have the money to buy it. I would still love to have one. Let’s hear your memories of Speedy. Happy tooning.

G.I Joe is today’s topic at hand. I loved watching it, the characters were great. I have to say I was not to happy with some of the changes they made for the live action movie. I am happy that Road Block will be in the next movie with the Rock playing him. But back to the cartoon. Let’s hear what you have to say about G.I. Joe.

It is Saturday morning here so let’s talk toons. When I was young Saturday morning cartoons were what I lived for. It was something I waited for all week. To tell you the truth I still love my cartoons. I just don’t think that the shows they have on today are cartoons. The artwork is very low rate. The story lines are all the same (bad) and I don’t think that kids should be watching some of them. Most of the cartoons when I was a kid taught you something each week, to quote “G.I. Joe” “Knowing is half the battle.” They showed you the difference between right and wrong and a lot more. For the topic today let’s talk about “Scooby Doo”, it is fresh on my mine because I started watching the 2011(?) “Scooby Doo” on Netflix this week. What do you think, like, dislike, about Scooby and the Gang?

P.S. We are redoing the weekly line up and “Saturday Morning Cartoons” will be the new morning post.