Beware, Daleks, Cybermen, Slitheen! I have a sonic ice cream cone!
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OK, it’s actually a Dairy Queen soft-serve thingy, but it was still good. And I know how to use it.
And yeah, I know that’s supposed to be Donna and not Rose, but you do what you have to. Photo courtesy Podblackcat. Click it!
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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September 12th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
It’s your blog and you’ll post what you want to. I, however, will continue to despise this utterly awful show and roll my eyes whenever there is a post regarding it. Carry on.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I have only seen a few episodes of the new series, and I loved what I saw. I have to buy the DVD’s. However, it doesn’t even come close to touching the quality of Battlestar Galactica! I’ll lay a smack down on anyone that disagrees with me…
September 12th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Michael L, I say ……
Darn, I must agree.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Meanwhile… At DragonCon, our intrepid astronomer meets up with Dharma and Greg.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Shouldn’t it be ‘Beware, Daleks, Cybermen, Gryffindor!’ or muggles? Barty Crouch, Jr was a Slitheen. Which-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other, I know, but that’s why it’s called acting.
September 12th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I suppose it depends on how you define “quality”. I stopped watching Battlestar Galactica after two seasons because I was bored and depressed by it, and if I wanted that, I could watch cable news. Doctor Who is certainly more fluffy than Battlestar Galactica, but it maintains high production values and has a decent mix of drama and humor, and that’s what I want in my escapism.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
I never thought I’d hear “high production value” and “Doctor Who” in the same sentence.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Okay, I’ll give you that one… I just can’t bring myself to lay a smack down on someone that goes by the name “Naked Bunny With a Whip”, although I’m guessing Naked Bunny With a Whip may not mind…
September 12th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Dr. Who is fluffy tosh, but it’s _entertaining_ fluffy tosh. Dr. Plait’s appearance on AstonomyCast 104 (Live! from DragonCon) had him admitting that, despite the lousy science, lack of consistency, and general all-purpose plot devices, it’s a guilty pleasure.
And even for fluffy tosh, it has some stand-out moments. “Blink”, for example.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I enjoy both BSG and Doctor Who, but you just can’t compare them. It’s like apples and oranges. BSG has a much more realistic and believable look. Doctor Who is verry silly at times. The way some aliens look makes me laugh. Sometimes they’re really ridiculous. And the Darleks sound very irritating.
But I’ll keep watching Doctor Who. I started watching it when Tom Baker had the lead role, haven’t watched the other doctors, and started watching it again when the series was relaunched in 2005.
September 12th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Doctor Who is a rollicking good time. I am hoping to have my own Tenth Doctor costume ready by Halloween, complete with sonic screwdriver of course!
September 12th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
I’ll say one thing about Doctor Who that cannot be said about BSG — it’s family entertainment. It’s really the only family science fiction show on right now. The vast majority are aimed at adults, and a few rather silly ones are aimed at very small children. But only “Doctor Who” is aimed at all of them. That alone makes it worthy, in my opinion.
September 12th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I liked Dr Who before i had ever heard of Bad Astronomy, but thx to all this positive re-enforcement i believe i feel the stirrings of a man crush now too. ^^;.
September 12th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
That Doctor looks a lot more like Captain Jack, if you ask me…
September 12th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I carry a purple anodized Mini-Maglite flashlight with a triple LED replacement for the bulb, so it gives off a slightly bluish hue. My friend calls it my Sonic Screwdriver.
I also knitted a 12th season DW scarf: http://pics.livejournal.com/mandydax/pic/000eytrx
It will be hanging out at our second annual time-travelers’ convention that’s coming up in July of this year.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Doctor Who has always embraced the dark side of scifi: cheesiness. In my opinion there is no excuse for cheesiness. It is entirely possible to have a goofy-leaning family-oriented scifi show without it being cheesy. I really wish someone would do that. Star Trek and Firefly are the two closest things that I’ve seen. But while Star Trek has had a few good moments over the years, most of it is garbage (2/3 bad, 1/4 fair, and a bit less than 1 in 10 excellent). And Firefly… well, besides being slightly too mature for kids to handle (on occasion anyway), it wasn’t here for very long:(.
As for BSG, I wouldn’t mind the darkness the writers knew where they were going. Unfortunately RDM thinks that (paraphrased), “character drama comes first, and plot should be written around it”. I think he went off the deep end cause when he wrote for Star Trek it was “Plot first, with the characters completely removed from the situations they are in, giving mechanical responses”, and he hated that.
But in reality ALL good television has done it the other way around from what he thinks (like for instance, B5). Create your plot, then throw the characters into it. The drama will come from the reactions of the characters to the plot. This is coherent storytelling, and THAT is how good stories are told, not by seat-of-your-pants writing like RDM does (ie, writing a cliffhanger, airing it, and still not having any idea what was going to happen on the other side of the cliffhanger. The Stargate writers started doing this a few years ago as well, and man did the quality of their shows ever drop like a stone).
September 12th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Y’welcome.
‘The Podblack Cat’ (uh, that’s http://www.podblack.com and yes, there’s more pics there – including a nice one with Michael Stackpole admiring the soon-to-be-published ‘Death From The Skies’).
September 12th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
You go to cons with the ice cream you have – not the ice cream you’d like to have.
September 13th, 2008 at 7:15 am
one complaint, phil:
you really need to practice your sonic stance. i mean, tennant looks like he’s all coiled up and ready to spring into action…you’re just sort of standing there (albeit with a sufficiently intent look on your face).
get in front of that bathroom mirror and work on it! :p
September 13th, 2008 at 8:09 am
That blonde chick, she’s hot
September 13th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Hi Phil! I had the pleasure of meeting you at Dragon*Con; we spoke briefly about “Doctor Who” and the annual Gallifrey One convention in Los Angeles. (http://www.gallifreyone.com/gallifrey.php)
While at D*C, my husband and I picked up a DVD set (of *ahem* questionable legality) featuring a fondly remembered cartoon from the ’80s: “Thundarr the Barbarian”. It struck me that the title sequence would make a nice addition to your “Death from the Skies” presentation. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvUwYh1hH38)
September 13th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
The image I got of the Tenth Doctor with Rose was one where “Rose” was carrying a custom made duplicate of the large gun she halls around in the final two parter of season four.
September 14th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Does your Ice Cream cone have TARDIS technology? You know, far more ice cream on the inside than external dimensions would suggest.