Time flies, hope I was having fun.

I honestly don't know where the last few days have gone, I have been doing some work for my grandfather and that has taken a decent chunk of time and as usual I've watched a few things and played a bit more of the original Assassin's Creed on X-Box 360 ( which strangely enough I think I actually like better than the second game in the series ) but at the moment the days seem to be passing by extremely quickly.

Over the last few days I've watched the first 5 episodes from the second season of Fringe and so far I'm really enjoying the show, what I've seen so far seems to me to be a major improvement in quality over most of the first season.

I've also watched a few classic Doctor Who DVDs lately which has been fun, well it's been fun for me, the wife isn't a fan, there have been a few releases recently and the upcoming months seem to have plenty more new Doctor Who DVDs on the way.

Today I watched Ghost In The Shell - Individual 11 which seems to be a re-edited version of the second season of Ghost In The Shell - Stand Alone Complex so that it works as a movie, a long movie but a movie, I only ever saw the first series and maybe the first two or three episodes of the second series, I know the show has been released as season box sets so it would be interesting to watch it at some point and see how much the story was changed.

Doctor Who Soundtracks

I'm sitting here listening one of the three Doctor Who soundtracks that arrived in the mail today ( Series 4: The Specials ), since Doctor Who has been back in production I've bought each one of Murry Gold's soundtrack albums for both Doctor Who and Torchwood, as a composer I find Murry Gold very uneven in terms of quality, some of his work is amazing and some if it in my opinion is pretty bland which is why I waited until Series 4: The Specials, Series 5 and Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol were on sale.

There's some great stuff on these albums but there is also a lot of elevator muzak, is that too harsh ? but for me apart from the stronger tracks it's all forgotten as soon as it's finished playing.

One of these days I'm going to make myself a compilation CD of the better music from these soundtrack albums.

A Funny Thing Happened.......

Yesterday I found myself browsing the shelves of a used book store, I was determined I was going to buy something although I don't know why considering the amount of unread books I already have.

I was ready to leave when I spotted a novel crammed between two much larger books, I picked it up and flipped it over so that I could read the back cover, I must have had a puzzled look on my face because the owner of the store suddenly said that's exactly what I thought.

The Book in question was Fathom: The World Below by Kevin Andrew Murphy based on the comic series by the late Micheal Turner.

He went on to say he thought that Fathom was about scantily clad women and really had nothing much in the way of story going for it, I have to admit I thought pretty much the same thing, Micheal Turner may not have been the greatest comic writer out there but he sure was a talented artist.

I was amused enough by the idea of a Fathom novel ( the first book in a series apparently ) that I bought it and honestly I don't have high hopes for the book but who knows, it might contain some interesting ideas and I may well find myself hunting down the back issues of the comic.

The State of TV.

For some time now I've been saying that I'd virtually abandoned broadcast television, the Australian networks ( and I imagine it's the same across the world ) just don't carry much in the way of programming that I'm actually interested in or it's so full of advertising that I don't bother turning it on, well I guess that's not true, I watch lost of DVDs and Blu-ray movies I just don't watch any broadcast content.

As near as I can remember it's been about 5 weeks since I sat down and watched any content that provided by any of my local broadcasters and that was a tail end of a documentary, my wife and daughter watch a lot of reality TV and stupid sitcoms and as they are on I do suppose see tiny segments here and there but what I'm talking about is actually sitting down and watching a show on TV, the funny thing is until today I didn't realise what I was doing or not doing as the case may be.

In Australia program streaming over the Internet is fairly limited at the moment, I have watched a few things that way and while I'm not thrilled by the picture quality it works, I have no idea when I last rented anything but I have a feeling it was at least a couple of years ago, my wife and daughter rent a few movies here and there but even they seem to be losing interest in that, the Australian version of Netflix sucks or at least it did when I tried it so that's not really an option either.

You've probably guessed by now that I buy a LOT of DVDs and Blu-ray discs and compared to a lot of people that's true but it's nowhere as expensive as you might think and I can watch what I want when ever I want, some things I keep ( well most things actually ) and some I give away or sell on eBay, this is something that might not work for everyone but it really suits me and my viewing patterns.

I find it funny that it's taken me nearly 5 weeks to notice I'd stopped watching broadcast television and I tend to be a little behind the times so I'm sure there are many other people this applies to as well, I wonder how long it takes for the networks to notice people have stopped watching them ?

Does whatever a spider can.

Well I've just finished watching the first season of the 60's Spider-Man animated series, I used to love that show as a kid and I was looking forward to seeing it again.


I really enjoyed the first half of the season, sure the animation is primitive by today's standards but the show was fun, well at least it was until I got to the second DVD where the format of the show changed along with the quality and style of the animation which was now cheaper and often ugly, the stories became weird fantasy based episodes that really had nothing to do with Spider-Man which was rather disappointing.

I bought all three seasons of this show but now I'm not at all confident that I'll enjoy the rest of the show if it continues in this rather bland fantasy direction.

Pilot Highlights

I consider myself t be a major science fiction, fantasy and horror fan but I was just voting in a poll on the SFX website where they were asking people to vote on 15 pilots and how interested they were in seeing them go to series, the poll included information on the creators, cast and the basic premise of the show, of those 15 potential series I thought just 2 of them sounded like something I might check out.

Honestly I was shocked and disappointed by how bad most of those potential series sounded, of course it's rather unlikely that all 15 shows will be commissioned, honestly it really does seem like the only TV shows worth watching are either made in the United Kingdom or produced for the American cable television networks these days.

While I think it will probably be terrible I'll have to check out an episode or two of the upcoming Wonder Woman TV series, everything I've heard about this show is bad but just like a car wreck on the side of the road even though you know it's going to be bad you still can't look away.


Here's a link to that SFX poll, check it out and see what you think of these potential series.

Hey... you wanna see something really scary?

The weather here is slowly turning to crap as what passed for summer this year disappears but the one good thing about all the wind and rain is that it's been a good excuse to ignore that lawns and watch some movies.

Two of the movies I've watched recently were Poltergeist and Twilight Zone: The Movie on Blu-ray, I have to admit I was a little unsure of how these movies would hold up in high definition being older movies but I have to say they both looked great especially when you consider their age.

I'm a big fan of the original Twilight Zone TV series but I've always had mixed feelings about the movie, basically I've always really liked two of the segments but thought the other two were only OK, given how much I enjoyed the movie when I watched it yesterday I wonder if I wasn't the right age to fully appreciate it until now especially "Kick the Can" .

I found it hard to believe the "Time Out" segment could be produced intact today with the racist character played by the late Vic Morrow and his many racist insults which is a shame, while I don't agree with the characters comments it did properly set him up as a bitter and unlikable man in a short amount of time.

I'm really glad I picked up Twilight Zone: The Movie and I think I appreciate it more now than I ever did previously, it's a shame they never produced more Twilight Zone movies.