Tag: Humor

The TARDIS is everywhere

On By Keith ParkerIn Doctor Who, Fantasy, Humor, Pathfinder, RPGs, Science Fiction, Time Travel3 Comments

tardis-doctor_00370843-1My son recently told me that he’d placed everybody’s favorite box — Doctor Who’s TARDIS — on the fictional planet of Golarion that was developed by Paizo for their Pathfinder role-playing game.  If you’re not familiar with it, Pathfinder (3.75E) is one of the wildly popular successors to the original Dungeons & Dragons game system, which enables you to develop characters and settings to challenge players.  I’ve always loved geography, cartography, etc, so when my son told me about Golarion I was fascinated despite the fact that the planet doesn’t, um, exist.

He did not allow specifically why he chose to add a TARDIS — or the TARDIS, if you will — to the Pathfinder world, and I didn’t ask for fear I’d stymy his creativity.  For what it’s worth, I have tried to play Pathfinder, but I find its rules — skills, feats, AoAs, DCs — a tad overwhelming, particularly since I’m a buttondown-type (see: Raising Arizona).  But he seemed to have the same enthusiasm about Golarion that he has had about Minecraft for the last 2,387 years.  Also for what it’s worth I don’t “get” Minecraft either, but that’s okay; games are for fun.  And he is having fun.

I did ask him, though, where on Golarion he placed the TARDIS.  The setting has many earth-like analogs, and I was curious.  His answer?  “Dad, the TARDIS is everywhere!”

And isn’t that just like a kid?  Obviously it’d be everywhere; it’s a time machine.  In his mind, the entire surface of Golarion — and Earth, and Mars, and his Minecraft world — is covered with blue boxes, shoulder-to-shoulder.  Kinda like dancing cheek-to-cheek, isn’t it?

Until next time, peace,

Keith

Copyright (c) 2013 Keith Parker. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners and are used for entertainment purposes only and as provided for by the “Fair Use” copyright clause

CTTO

On By Keith ParkerIn 1960s, Battlestar Galactica, Clocks, Doctor Who, Emotion, Fantasy, Hooks, Horror, Science Fiction, Space: 1999, Star Trek, Television, The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, Time Travel, TV12 Comments

KateThis week, The Parker Institute for Time Travel Studies (The PITTS) has asked our Chief Time Travel Officer (CTTO) to look back at his favorite science fiction shows over the years, to include more than just Doctor Who. He was given the choice of time travel devices for this effort, including a TARDIS, a Delorean, a stopwatch, and a hot tub.  Being a button-down preppie type, Parker asked for a BMZ Z4, as we expected. He was dismayed that we had not tailored the Z4 with a flux capacitor, and the weather hasn’t been stormy anyway, so he chose the stopwatch, thinking it looked good with his summer wool trousers (it doesn’t). So, without further ado, our CTTO’s list:

The Twilight Zone:

My favorite episodes are two of the show’s creepiest, “The Hitchhiker” and “Long Distance Call.” I don’t know why I keep one foot in the horror camp, considering how horrible it is there, but since it’s in my tagline (“science fiction, fantasy, horror, history, mystery, whiskey”) I figure I best get with the program, as it were.

Star Trek: The Original Series

This one’s easy. There are three episodes I could watch anytime, anywhere. The original pilot (“The Cage”) with its mysterious cast that wasn’t; Harlan Ellison’s incomparable “City on the Edge of Forever”, which is one of the best romances ever put on the broadcast TV; and the truly testosterone-driven guy episode (“The Doomsday Machine”). “They say there’s no devil, Jim …”

The Outer Limits

“Demon with a Glass Hand” because anything written by Harlan Ellison is superb, and “It Came Out of the Woodwork” because of that one foot in the horror camp thingie (yep, I said thingie … comfortable in my own skin).

Space: 1999

Keeping with the foot-in-horror one more time, this absurdly stupid TV series produced one of the scariest hours of programming ever with “Dragon’s Domain.” It’s the kind of thing that’d keep me up at night if it weren’t for the whole whiskey thing (see tagline, above).  Tentacles. Lots of slimy tentacles.

The X-Files

Gotta go with “Paper Clip” here for its incredible kitchen-sink mix of conspiracies and contemporary mythologies. I need to visit the grassy knoll one day.

The NEW Battlestar Galactica

Did you notice I said new? I’m referring, of course, to the re-imagined series that began in 2003, and not the commode-ringed insult to our intelligence and eyes that came out in the late 70s. Anyway, fave episode? The one titled “33”, hands-down. The whole concept could be made into a novel (note to self).  An attack coming every 33 minutes?  No time to sleep.  No way to even think.  Oh, hell, yes.  Great show!  The original Battlestar Galaxative?  Makes me wanna pour bleach in my eyes.

LOST

There are almost too many to list here, considering it’s one of my favorite shows EVER, but I think I’ll give the nod to “The Constant” when Desmond is jumping back-and-forth between his Army service and modern day, including finding Penny. Another gem is “Through the Looking Glass,” and it’s damn hard to discount the Pilot. There’s something about pilots (which means Jules Winfield and I are on the same page).  There’s a picture of Kate in her underwear above; the purpose of that is eye candy (#shameless #lech).

Firefly

All. Of. Them.  Every damn episode.  “Well, my time of not taking you seriously is coming to a middle.”

Classic Doctor Who

I haven’t seen as many as I’d like, but for now “City of Death”, penned by the best science fiction humorist ever, Douglas Adams, is never going to be far from the top in my book. Have I ever mentioned just how CUTE Romana is? Oh, yeah, I did. But it’s worth repeating. Also, since she’s not so terribly much older than I perhaps my crush on her is a good bit more acceptable than a crush might be on, say, Jenna-Louise Coleman, who’s probably young enough to be my daughter. I really need to look into using time travel to age backwards.

New Doctor Who

“The Name of the Doctor”.  Despite my sister-in-law’s (sister’s-in-law?) insistence that there’s only one Doctor (David Tennant) the seventh series finale of Doctor Who is a masterpiece of humor, horror, sentimentality, action, adventure and mystery. If the series had never hit a homerun before (it had) they certainly did with this.

And so, back to you …

The PITTS would like to tolerate thank Parker for his insight. His essay has been logged and filed in its proper location: the circular cabinet.

Peace.

Copyright (c) 2013 Keith Parker. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks and copyrights are the property of their respective owners and are used for entertainment purposes only and as provided for by the “Fair Use” copyright clause.

Bummed

On By Keith ParkerIn Creative Writing, Depression, Doctor Who, Emotion, Fantasy, Fiction, Satire, Science Fiction, Television, Time Travel, TV3 Comments

PRESS RELEASE, Trenzalore (14th August) — The Parker Institute for Time Travel Studies (The PITTS) has annouced that it will delay publication of the next issue of its popular Fish and TARDIS Sauce (FATS) newsletter until the staff’s mass lethargy has worn off.  The sadness, first reported in the month following Matt Smith’s retirement from the BBC’s Doctor Who, seems to have become a deep-seated melancholy that has caused FATS employees to seek solace by playing music of Karen Carpenter while sharing Grumpy Cat photos on Facebook.  The PITTS seeks to reassure all employees of its sister organization, and let them know the company’s health care plan will provide counseling, doctor recommendations, and whiskey as needed for self-medication.

Placid Savage, spokeswoman for The PITTS, said the current sadness is not unlike the anguish, grief, and heartache that can be seen on any sensible synonym search for words like sadness.  Savage, in a moment of unusual candor, rebuffed a reporter’s suggestion that running her operation from a graveyard at the end of time might be contributing to low employee morale.  She shrugged. “I don’t know.  Who give a shit?”

This prompted Herb Wells, Chief Technology Officer for Steampunk Technology, to later tweet:

  • The fucking 70s were happier than this! #disco #MoralEquivalentofWar

Wells has been suspended without pay pending a formal review of his communication skills.  He was last seen in College Station, Texas.

Meanwhile, The PITTS cancelled its 2014 plans to test the grandfather paradox and Shrödinger’s Cat experiment until the Institute has had time to consult with Peter Capaldi and Stephen Moffat.

At the time they went to press The PITTS’ calls to Kurt Cobain had gone unanswered.  The PITTS also reached out to Joplain and Morrison, but results have been a real letdown.

Until next time … if there is a next time … peace from Eeyore Keith

Copyright © 2013 Keith Parker.

Humour

On By Keith ParkerIn Doctor Who, Emotion, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor, Science Fiction, Suffering, Television, Time Travel, TV, World War IILeave a comment

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EDIT: The BBC announced today that Peter Capaldi will play the twelfth Doctor.  We, of course, knew this beforehand and after-hand and simultaneous-hand.  It’s really hard to surprise time travelers.  Now, on with the post …

This week’s Fish and TARDIS Sauce newsletter will look at the use of humor in Doctor Who, and ways that you might be able to apply this technique in your everyday life.

In “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe” (s06e24), Doctor Who travels back to 1940s London, where he meets Madge Ardwell, her son Cyril, and daughter Lily.   Madge comes home to tell the kids that she is going to help The Doctor return to his time machine, as if this happened every day (who knows, maybe it does).  While there at home, Madge asks Cyril what he’s is doing up so late looking through his telescope.  When Lily makes a snide comment it begins this brief but quite funny exchange among the characters.

  • Cyril — It’s astronomy.
  • Lily — Don’t make up words.  He’s always making up things … and breathing.
  • Madge — Where’s your father?
  • Cyril — In the garden.
  • Madge — What’s he doing in the garden?
  • Cyril — Agriculture.
  • Lily [off-camera] — You’re not fooling anyone.

And you see?  Like that.  Or three scenes later, which is also three years later, the family is standing in front of an ancient house somewhere in the English countryside, and the kids say —

  • Cyril — Is it haunted?
  • Lily — Is it drafty?

Another sharp, understated exchange.

But if you’ve seen this episode you know this episode is not all fun and games. The kids’ father is killed when his bomber goes down over the English Channel (although that’s not quite the whole story), leading to nightmarish grief and stress for Madge.   This leads to a poignant scene where Madge admits this to The Doctor and reflects on her short temper around her children.

  • Madge — I don’t know why I keep shouting at them.
  • The Doctor — Because every time you see them happy you remember how sad they’re going to be.  And it breaks your heart.

What we see here is a dramatic turn, where the dry wit of British comedy gives way to the realities of life during World War II (or anytime for that matter).  And once again, Doctor Who, the show, and Doctor Who, the character, offer us a glimpse into the human condition.  After all, why do we love a rose?  Because it’s blooming but will not do so forever.  Why does it smell so divine?  Because its thorns are so sharp.

It’s always been my opinion that humor for the sake of humor gets stale after a while.  Even the best comedians — the Steve Martins and  Richard Pryors and George Carlins — cannot sustain me for long unless I have a break.  It doesn’t have to be something morbid or maudlin, but it does have to be balanced.   And I love humor.   In fact, I was once asked why I don’t watch Comedy Central all the time.  The answer is simple, really.  I don’t watch Comedy Central, or any other 24/7 source of laughter, because I don’t usually turn to comedians for jokes.  The best humor grows out of drama, to relieve the tension, or out of horror, to dispel the terror.  That’s why, in that famous line from Steel Magnolias, the characters reflect on the wonder of laughter through tears.

Which brings us back to “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe.”  Doctor Who, the character, looks at Madge thoughtfully in this episode, and finally offers his advice.  And this is one of the many reasons I love this show.  The characters get to the heart of the matter so damn well.  In the scene I’ve described above, Madge is momentarily distracted by the distant sounds of the children’s glee, leading Doctor Who to say this:

  • The Doctor — What’s the point of them being happy now if they’re going to be sad later?  The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.

Pretty good stuff for science fiction, eh?

Until next time, remember: Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can procrastinate about today.

Years truly,

Keith Parker, CEO, COO, CTO, CCO, CAC, COCOA of The PITTS*

Please visit my hometown bloggers at our Rocket City Bloggers website!

* The Parker Institute for Time Travel Studies.

Copyright © 2013 Keith Parker

Doctor Who is copyright © 2013 BBC

Bootstrap

On By Keith ParkerIn Creative Writing, Doctor Who, Emotion, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Humor, Science Fiction, Short Story, Star Trek, Television, The Twilight Zone, Time Travel, TV8 Comments

Sally SparrowThis week, The Parker Institute of Time Travel Studies (The PITTS) — in conjunction with State and Local Officials — has devised this warning for all time travelers and others involved in temporal excursions: Do not employ bootstrap time travel.

  • Bootstrap Time Travel (Encyclopedia Galactica*) — The bootstrap paradox is a paradox of time travel in which information or objects can exist without having been created. After information or an object is sent back in time, it is recovered in the present and becomes the very object/information that was initially brought back in time in the first place.

A recent examination by investigators — hired by the autonomous Fish and #TARDIS Sauce Group — indicate that there is an alarming rise of bootstrapped articles appearing throughout the timeline. The genesis of this “fad” seems to have been the airing of the Doctor Who episode, “Blink.” The PITTS, therefore, has been forced to implement emergency and draconian measures to staunch the flow of now-uncreated objects and information. Recent examples of bootstrap incursions include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • A man from Nantucket took a freeze-dried lizard back to his childhood, gave the lizard to himself, which he (the younger) then kept until he was a grown man with a chance to travel back in time … the situation was frustrated by teaching his younger self a limirick.
  • A husky Russian émigré, intent on playing football for Vince Lombardi, recently overshot his mark and took his time vehicle to 1947 New Mexico instead of 1967 Wisconsin, ruining our research and playoff hopes in one selfish move.
  • An English woman, home from the laundry mat and feeling adventuresome, took the family Wellsian for a spin to Victorian England with a basket full of extra footwear, creating an impossible temporal vortex of missing socks that will confound 20th– and 21st-century men for eternity.
  • An Alabama man took an egg (cage-free, organic, with Omega-3s) to China, circa 6000 BC, to the very day that the first chicken became domesticated and, as a result of self-indulgent selfish motives, removed the chicken-egg paradox from modern thought.
  • A Jaffa woman recently returned The Holy Grail to its shelf at The Cenacle, thereby eliminating any possibility we could determine the origin of said graal.
  • And in 2007/1969 Doctor Who told Sally Sparrow, “Blink and you’re dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t blink. Good luck.” The Doctor has been unavailable for comment.

These are but a few examples of what has become a worldwide epidemic. At this rate, all material objects, articles, matter, data, information, and salmon will not have a place of origin. The effects of this activity on the eco-military-industrial-climatic-god complex cannot not be overstated without embellishment. Please stay tuned to this channel for further updates.

The past is prologue; so is the future.

Years truly,

Keith

* All entries from Encyclopedia Galactica are, in fact, plagiarized liberated from Wikipedia.org (English version).

Copyright © 2013 Keith Parker

Change

On By Keith ParkerIn A Game of Thrones, Buddha, Doctor Who, Fantasy, Fiction, HBO, Jack Vance, Science Fiction, Television, Time Travel, TV2 Comments

Smith_2578796bThis week The Parker Institute for Time Travel Studies (The PITTS) takes a hard look at three major changes that rocked the science fiction and fantasy world this past week.  And when we say “hard look” we’d like to make sure you understand that this is serious.  And by “serious” we mean sober.  Except that it’s not really healthy to be too sober, so maybe we’ll have a cocktail to cut through the pressure.  And if we’re going to have a cocktail, then we might as well have a glass of wine with our dinner, and if we’re going to have a glass of wine with dinner then there’s really no reason we can’t have an after-dinner cognac.  And that’ll pretty much mean that we aren’t taking a “hard look” at anything at all.  Instead, these are simply post-buzz ramblings devoid of emotional or intellectual depth …

So, without further ado, what happened?  Well, primary to this blog is that Matt Smith is leaving Doctor Who, creating a vacuum in the incredibly rich story that’s developed over the past four years, with an intense, mysterious chemistry between The Doctor and Clara Oswald, and a parallel mystery about the doctor’s name and (eventual) demise.  agotAnother occurrence in speculative fiction circles was the passing (read: violent, bloody death) of certain character(s) in A Game of Thrones.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that we lost one of the true giants of fantasy literature recently.  One of the last of the Golden Age Science Fiction writers, Jack Vance, died on May 26th.  If you’ve never read Vance, you need to run — not walk — to your nearest e-book reader and devour his writing.  You can find his catalog here: http://www.jackvance.com/ebooks/shop/?q22_category_filter=dying

Bad things come, they say, in threes.

Is that the case here?  It seems like it.  Which makes me wonder about one of the main reasons I write this blog: time travel.  What would happen if I went back in time to May 25th?  If I were to do this, what could I possibly do to change these three events?  Nothing.  I desperately wish Matt Smith were not leaving Doctor Who, but even if I were to go back prior to his announcement, and if I cashed out my retirement and bought a plane ticket to the UK, and if I were to successfully track him down, what good would it do?  Odds are, he made his decision weeks, if not months, ago.  Or what if I went a different direction and landed my steam-punk Wellsian on the set of HBO?  Could I actually do anything about the second season finale of AGOT?  And then what about Mr. Vance?  I do not know the circumstances surrounding Mr. Vance’s death, but he was 96-years-old, and had achieved status as one of the greatest science fiction and fantasy authors of the 20th Century.  What exactly needs to be changed?

If you’re wondering who, as it were, I think the new Doctor should be, the thought that keeps circling back to me is that we need another Tom Baker; we need an actor or actress who is, in essence, the embodiment of the Doctor the way that Baker was.  More than any other Doctor, the line between the character and the actor was very fine in those days.  Beyond that, I don’t have a strong opinion on the matter.  And I’m not sure it’d matter if I did …

And that is a segue into my closing thoughts: I’ve often said time travel is a form of wish fulfillment, but in this case the wishes don’t come true, do they?  And maybe that’s a good thing, because I’ve developed a quasi-Buddhist attitude toward life in recent years and putting myself in a state of angst really does no good.  The reason we suffer is because we try to control those things that are out of our control.  I do not know if this is truly “Buddhist” but it was the best that my Western mind could come up with as I studied that beautiful philosophy.  As the author of Elephant Journal put it:

And, of course, if you’re looking for a more “Western” approach, there was a Galilean who said something similar:

  • 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
    • The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Chapter 6, Verses 25:34

happy buddhaMy goal is not to preach.  My goal is to espouse optimism, to let you know it’ll all be okay.  And to let you know that I think we all need to laugh more.  Along those lines, let me redirect you to one of the funniest authors in the blogosphere.  He goes by the pseudonym Mirkin Firkin, and writes some of the most outrageous and hilarious blog posts I’ve ever read.  You can find his blog here: http://justjigglethehandle.wordpress.com.

Until next time, “Don’t Panic!”

Years truly,

Keith Parker

Owner, Fish and #TARDIS Sauce

Copyright © 2013

Backward

On By Keith ParkerIn Dan Simmons, Doctor Who, Fantasy, Hyperion, Science Fiction, Television, Time Travel, TV2 Comments

doctor and amy

“Never cry over spilt milk, because it may have been poisoned.” ~ W.C. Fields

This week on Fish and TARDIS Sauce we look at the relationship among three things that were never meant to be related: Time Tombs, Merlin’s Sickness, and spoiled milk.

The first two are easy.  The third, not so much.

You see, in Dan Simmons’ science fiction masterpiece, The Hyperion Cantos, the enigmatic Time Tombs move backward through time, coming from that planet’s future, essentially getter “newer” as the story moves along, making life a royal bitch for the characters.   Meanwhile, in Doctor Who‘s two-episode arc “A Time of Angels” and “Flesh and Stone”, the character River Song appears from The Doctor’s future, apparently moving backward through time herself.

So here are two examples from SF that describe things going the WRONG WAY.   I suppose we could wax philosophic, evoking notions of entropy and dimensions and all that happy crappy, but it’s really easier if you think about all this in terms of spoiled milk.

  • FADE IN

A forty-something man falls out of bed on a stormy Monday morning and shuffles to the kitchen, bleary eyed, his face an old-growth beard, his tongue the texture of cardboard.  With half-lidded eyes he gazes with mouth hanging open at the coffee maker that has overflowed onto countertop … and onto the cabinets … and onto the floor.  He sighs heavily.  Glancing at his watch he sees it’s already 7:00 AM, on May 23rd, and he simply doesn’t have time to clean all this up and get to the office on time.  But there is perhaps one meager cup of coffee left in the Mr. Coffee decanter, and knowing — just knowing — that his morning can’t get any worse, he pulls a mug from the cabinet and pours.  He turns to the refrigerator, and when he opens the  door the ketchup (Heinz, glass bottle) falls out and shatters, blending with the black coffee into a nauseating mix of fluids straight of an H.P. Lovecraft story.  Wading through this unholy pool the man pours the milk into his coffee mug.  It glugs into the mug.  It doesn’t so much pour as it falls in there, in lumps.  He takes a sip of coffee and spews the whole mess into the sink.  He then takes a whiff of the milk carton itself and yells, “Wooooo-Weeeee!”.  He waves his hand in front of his nose.  The use-by date on the milk carton is May 13th, stamped at a cockeyed angle in red ink.

The reason he says “Wooooo-Weeeee” is a psychological holdover from his youth.  You see, one similarly rainy day at school his bowels had erupted in the Boys’ Restroom, which prompted his classmates — who were lighting up a couple of coffin nails before algebra — to hoot and holler: “Wooooo-Weeeee!  Smells like something crawled up inside a’you and died, boy!”

  • FADE OUT

So right now you might be wondering what exactly that little vignette has to do with Hyperion or Doctor Who.  (So am I.)

  • FADE IN

Same man, ten hours later, returns home.  His day has gone something like this: His car is pummeled by hail. He is flipped off at a traffic light because he couldn’t get his car into gear.  He hikes three blocks to the office.  He gets yelled at by his boss for not meeting “expectations” (whatever those are).  He eats his soup cold because the office microwave broke over the weekend.  He gets told by his secretary, “You see this?  This is my ‘trying-to-look-like-I give-a-shit’ face.”  He runs out of gas on the way home.  When he finally does get back home he notices something as he’s rummaging around in the fridge for a beer to take the edge off the day.  That’s when he sees the milk.  The carton is unopened.  It looks …. new.  He stares at it.  Did he buy milk on the way home?  No.  It’s the same carton.  How does he know?  Because the date printed on the side is May 13th, stamped at a cockeyed angle in red ink.  He closes the door, looks at his wristwatch.  The date — his date — is still May 23rd.  The man opens the milks and sniffs.  It’s as fresh as the day it came from the cow’s udder.

  • FADE OUT

And so it is with time travel.  If objects in our lives come from our future — Time Tombs, Dr. River Song, The Doctor — then why not milk?  Or, whither milk, if you want to sound pseudo-intellectual.  The milk changes.  And for you writers you’ll note the character I created did not; he is, in a sense, not really a character at all.  But right now we’re focused something more important: the future.  The future is the milk’s past.  It makes me wonder: Will the future get fresher, or will it spoil?  I vote for fresher.  Let’s change the direction time flows.  After all, does it really matter whether your past spoils?  I think not.

Until next time: Peace.

Years truly,

Keith

Copyright © 2013 Keith Parker

Lost

On By Keith ParkerIn Doctor Who, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Television, Time Travel, TV3 Comments

clara“I know what I said.  I was the one who said it.” ~ Clara Oswald, Companion of the 11th Doctor

This week on Fish and TARDIS Sauce The Parker Institute of Time Travel Studies (The PITTS) brings you yet another blog post peppered with slightly (read: highly) unorthodox quotes from another brilliant episode of Doctor Who.

Keep in mind that in order to watch this show — or read my blog — you don’t have to know jack-shit about either one.  You don’t even have to know — like I didn’t — that the plural of deus ex machina is dei ex machina or that — like Bug Bunny knows — Carson City is the capital of Nevada.  None of that is a required reading.  But Doctor Who should be required viewing.  And the episode in question, “Journey to the Center of the TARDIS” (s07e10), gives us enough one-liners, head-scratchers, and zingers to make us hungry for more.

  • Clara: “It’s an appliance.  It does a job.”
  • The Doctor: “It’s a pretty cool appliance.  We’re not talking cheese grater here.”
  • Clara: “You’re not getting me to talk to your ship.  That’s properly bonkers.”

When Clara gets lost inside the TARDIS following an accident, she quickly discovers one of the best story lines in all of science fiction: Finding your way out of one big-ass maze that has decided that it (the intelligent big-ass maze) isn’t terribly fond of you.

  • The Doctor: “Ever see a ship get ugly?”

So, like the sprawling metropolis of London or the freeway system of Atlanta at rush hour, Clara finds herself in the seemingly impossible situation of getting out of a seemingly endless situation inside a seemingly endless setting, all within the span of one hour of telly (seemingly to include commercials).

  • Note to aspiring writers: Don’t use adverbs too much.
  • Or, as The Doctor put it: “Don’t get into a ship with a madman.  Didn’t anyone teach you that?”

The episode drips with teases, like Clara looking in the OED-sized History of the Time War, flipping to a random  page, and murmuring, “So that’s who,” when she learns The Doctor’s real name.  Or the tease about the relationship (past, present, and future) between The Doctor and Clara, and why she is who she is.

“It’s spinning a labyrinth?” the Doctor says to the under-developed junk-dealing characters.  That’s what this episode does.  It spins a labyrinth, and dares us to follow the string back out again, especially given the creepy, distorted hallways and ghoul-like monstrosities wandering the “lower decks” of our favorite time machine.

  • Clara: “Why have you got zombie-creatures?  Good guys do not have zombie-creatures.  Rule one, basic storytelling!”
  • The Doctor: “Not in front of the guests.”

And yet, the Doctor knows he has to keep secrets.  Without secrets, he can’t keep his loved-ones safe.

  • Clara: “What aren’t you telling me?”
  • The Doctor: “Trust me.  There are some things you don’t want to know.”

The TARDIS can be both magnificent and malevolent, sublime and ridiculous, jovial and jealous.  With its Star Trek-like corridors and horror movie memes and under-developed side story, there’s plenty of room to criticize the episode, but a couple of lines of dialog really make us sit up and think about why we’re watching and why the BBC is writing and producing this masterpiece.

  • The Doctor to Tricky, the man who was tricked into believing he was artificial: “They changed your identify to provide some inflight entertainment.”

The essence of this episode, the essence of Doctor Who — and if you’ll forgive the conceit — the essence of all speculative fiction is summed up in The Doctor’s fierce reprimand of the brother who tricked Tricky, as it were:

  • Doctor [to Tricky]: “Listen to me.  Ask yourself why he couldn’t cut you up.  He had just one tiny scrap of decency left in him, and you helped him find that.”
  • Doctor to Gregor: “Now, you.  Don’t ever forget this.”

Yep.  For me, that is why we have genre; it reminds us that we have tiny bits of decency within us.  That’s why we have science fiction, fantasy, humor, horror, romance, mystery, and their red-headed stepchild known as time travel.  Or maybe I’m just full of it.  Could be.  Like Clara said when looking at the vast cathedral the TARDIS whipped up out of midair: “Now that’s just showing off.”

Maybe I’m showing off.  Or maybe I’m just lost in a maze, too.  In a way I hope that’s true.

Years truly,

Keith

P.S. To all my new blog followers, I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to read and comment.  I hope you’re enjoying this little sliver of cyberspace as much as I’m enjoying weaving it.  Your support is appreciated more than you know!

Copyright © 2013 by Alan Keith Parker

Doctor Who and the quotes reproduced here are copyright © 2013 by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); no infringement upon their intellectual property is intended.

Smith and Jones and AHHHHHH!

On By Keith ParkerIn Doctor Who, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction, Time Travel, TV2 Comments

Smith and JonesCross-genre fiction … ever heard of it?  That’s when a writer mixes a couple of different types of story into a single piece of fiction: a novel, short story, screenplay, etc.  A good example is the science fantasy of the Star Wars movies or the science-fiction-romance of  The Time Traveler’s Wife.

But those are the exceptions.  Believe me.  The last time I tried to publish a short story that overlapped the boundaries of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery and humor, the publisher took one look at the manuscript and said, “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

But evidently the producers at the BBC were a tad more open-minded to this kind of story.

A great example is the Doctor Who episode “Smith and Jones” (s03e02), with David Tennant as the Doctor.

This is the episode where we’re introduced to a delightful new Companion, the staggeringly smart medical school resident Martha Jones.  And we get to meet her in a hospital.   Oh, and on the moon.  And being threatened by an extraterrestrial plasma vampire.  And among a race of humanoid-rhinos.  And … oh, that hospital?  It was on the moon.

No, this episode wasn’t a reject from Space:1999 or a 50s’ schlepp flick. This was the critically-acclaimed 3rd-season opener for a British TV drama that’s been on the air for 9713 years and 5 months.

Since a gazillion words have zigzagged over the globe describing the characters’ chemistry, which is undeniable, I wanted to give my thoughts from a different angle.  I stared with wide-eyed incredulity while a plot unfolded not unlike the story I’d written that caused the publisher to go, “Ahhhhhhhh!”

Every damn rule of fiction was broken in his one, single episode. Every last one of them. The writer, Russell T. Davies, threw the kitchen sink into this flick and … it worked.  I threw the kitchen sink into my own story and it was rejected.
Ahhhhhhh!

Here’s a brief list of things that happen in this show.  I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a second and provide snarky remarks as if I were someone who hated SF and wanted to throw rotten tomatoes at the screen.  But these snarks are not how I really feel, as you shall see.

  • Doctor Who removes his necktie, shows it to Martha, and says, “… like so!”
    • Chekov’s gun disguised as menswear.
  • Doctor Who refers to himself as John Smith, an homage to the very first Doctor Who episode (1963) and his granddaughter.
    • Quiz: Was she a Time Lord also?
  •  The first Doctor’s granddaughter was listening to a rock-n-roll group called “John Smith and the Common Men.”
    • No worse than The Quarrymen, I suppose.
  • Martha is a resident at a London hospital and witnesses rain falling up.
    • At least I didn’t expect that.
  • There’s an alien vampire in the hospital who has body guards dressed in motorcycle gear.  Their helmets make them look like Roswell aliens
    • Shouldn’t people be changing channels about now?  But they’re not.  And neither did I.
  • The Judoon are chasing the  vampire creature because she killed one of their princesses.
    • BLANK STARE
  • Laser beams
    • Ditto
  • To their credit, the characters in the hospital, which is now on the moon, ask how and why they have air.
    • Well, this is science fiction, after all.
  • The Doctor is asked if he has a brother and he says, “Not anymore.”
    • sniff, sniff
  • The hospital is inside a domed force-field
    • No.  No cliches here.
  • The vampire’s victim is a Mr. Stoker
    • BRAVO!
  • The Vampire modifies an MRI machine to destroy all life on the moon.
    • Kinda makes you pine for reverse-tachyon beams, doesn’t it?
  • The Judoon leave, but transport the hospital back to earth before the atmosphere gets too low.
    • Waste not, want not.
  • After a bad fight with her maniacally-dysfunctional family Martha spots the Doctor and the TARDIS.
    • Wonder where this is going?
  • To convince her he is indeed a time traveler the Doctor travels back in time, reappears, and tells Martha that he can’t make a time travel trip into existing timeline …
    • wait for it …
  • “Except for cheap tricks, … like so!”

So how’d they do it?   How does really good drama emerge out of that much campiness?  We all know the answer: Character.  But damn, does it really take 49-frakking-years to establish a set of characters so you can write any kind of plot you want?  Maybe so.

What I do know is that I love this episode.  On a scale of 1-to-10, I’d give it a 9.1.  For comparison sake, I’d give Doctor Who’s “Blink” a 9.8, and Star Trek’s “The City on the Edge of Forever” a 10.0.

Once again, I find myself mystified as to exactly why I like it, but if I had to guess it’d be because … oh, yeah!  It’s because Martha Jones is hot!  And I reckon the Doctor is okay, too.

:)

Pax,

Keith

Copyright © 2013

Job Opening: Mad Scientist

On By Keith ParkerIn Creative Writing, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor, mad scientist, Satire, Science Fiction, scientist, Time Travel8 Comments

Job Opening: Mad Scientist

Need Date: Immediate

Salary: Back-adjusted to late 1940s deflation

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Location: Roswell, NM

mad scientist 3The Parker Inverted Time Travel  Syndicate (The PITTS) has an immediate and insatiable need for a senior-level scientist with advanced attention deficit disorder and limited team building skills (hereafter: “Mad Scientist”) to serve as the Chief Chronology Officer (CCO) for development of new time travel technology.  The ideal candidate will have disheveled white hair, a doctorate from a Prussian university, familiarity with the Roswell Army Air Field (frequent travel to 1947 required), and the inability to read key social cues.  He or she must be proficient with the following devices:

  • Rotary telephones
  • Teletype machines
  • Telegraph transmitters
  • Vacuum-tube radios and television sets
  • Slide rules
  • French Curves
  • Jacob’s ladders
  • Test tubes
  • 78 rpm record players
  • Typewriters
  • Reel-to-reel tape recorders
  • Manual homemade ice cream makers (it’s hot in Roswell)
  • Pocket protectors
  • Wellsian time machines

The Mad Scientist’s bona fides must include contributions to one (or more) of the following patented inventions, copyrighted material, or commercial products:

  • Stone-hewn labyrinths
  • Telepathic hair dryers
  • Anti-tornado sprays
  • Cures for nasopharyngitis, rhinopharyngitis, and/or acute coryza
  • Viagra
  • Self-loading dishwashers
  • Toxic boxing gloves
  • Eloi stew
  • Remote control golf balls
  • Corn cob flatteners
  • Butter softeners
  • Stool softeners
  • Cat constipation pills
  • Tin can telephone switchboards
  • Telescoping taco shells
  • Icicle daggers
  • The Time Machine

Mad Scientists will be expected to keep thorough journals (written in mirror-image English), possess numerous housecats, have had one life-threatening experience with explosives, and understand how to pronounce “giga.”  Candidates will supply their own decoder ring, lab coat, FBI case file, ray gun, violin, pipe, tobacco, tin foil hat, and cadaver.  The ideal candidate will also have a granddaughter who’s recently won a statewide or nationally-competitive beauty pageant (Note: Granddaughter may not be the cadaver).

Large, bulging eyes caused by a thyroid disorder are desirable but not required due to 2012 American HiPPA regulations.  The PITTS will work with the candidate to improve eye-bulging techniques as a means to maintain certain levels of morale.  A shaggy dog is desired but not required.

Note: The Mad Scientist should not be able to understand any post-1950s’ technology, meaning that all electronic applications will be rejected forthwith and nevermore.

The PITTS is an equal opportunity employer registered with the American Scientific Society for Hazardous Advanced Time Travel (ASS-HATT).

If interested, please apply via United States Postal Service at this address: _________.

Please note our other current openings.  Full descriptions are available for persons sending a self-addressed stamped envelop, six Kellogg’s Corn Flakes’ box tops and a fifth of whiskey to the address shown above.

  • Laundry Sock Investigator
  • Eyeglasses Windshield Wiper Technician
  • Invisible Man
  • Icicle Dagger Quality Control

Thank you for your interest in The PITTS.

Text copyright © 2012 Alan Keith Parker, All Rights Reserved

Clipart used royalty free Copyright © 2012 Vecto.rs, All Rights Reserved