Doctor Who Is CLASSIC!: Four To Doomsday

Science fiction weekend continues here on the ol' blog thing! 

I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You is ready for another adventure into SPAAAAAAAAACE!!!!!

It's Doctor Who Is CLASSIC as we look back to the winter of 1982 with a tale starring Peter Davison as the Doctor.

Last month I wrote a blog post about Tom Baker's 2nd story as the Doctor, The Ark In Space. The TARDIS lands on an advanced space craft where alien shenanigans threaten humanity.

This post brings us to Peter Davison's 2nd story as the Doctor, Four to Doomsday.  The TARDIS lands on an advanced space craft where alien shenanigans threaten humanity.

Oh the more things change, the more they stay the same.

To be fair, it is not the same story so let's get in the weeds and explore the 5th Doctor's second foray against an alient menace.

Four to Doomsday 

by Terrance Dudley  

The TARDIS appears in a vast and advanced spacecraft.

The Doctor, Nyssa, Adric and Teegan leave the TARDIS to explore this vessel... for reasons. (The plot says they need to.)

Look, Teegan is wondering why they're doing this. The Doctor promised to get her to Heathrow Airport so she can get to her airline attendant job.  

The Doctor sees a strange spaceship and wants to satisfy his curiousity.

• Where did it come from?
• Where is it going?
• What is the purpose of this ship's journey?
• Who is watching them?

A hovering surveillance orb is tracking our curious visitors.

The TARDIS crew become separated with Adric and Nyssa poking around with sciency doo-dads and the Doctor and Tegan reaching the bridge where a rotund green-skinned alien introduces himself as Monarch, ruler of Urbanka, and his associates and fellow Urbankans are the Ministers of Enlightenment and Persuasion. 

Monarch says the ship is heading towards Earth and is most interested in the current state of Earth civilization.  Including what people are wearing.

Teegan sketches up a couple of fashion designs which are quite good. (This will not be the last surprising talent she displays in this story.)

Enlightenment and Persuasion change form to look like Tegan's sketches saving a lot of money on costumes and special effects.

Monarch magnaminously allows the Doctor and Teegan to continue to explore the ship (he's got his spy orb still following them) as they reunite to compare notes.  

The Urbankan shop is home to four distinct human cultures represented on the vessel by a small group of humans:

• Ancient Greeks, the leader of whom is the philosopher Bigon
• Chinese Mandarins and their leader Lin Futu
• Princess Villagra and representatives of the Maya peoples
• Kurkutji and his tribesmen, of a very ancient Australian Aboriginal culture. 

Teegan is able to comunicate with Kurkutji because she is Australian and of course she can speak the language of ancient Australian Aborigines.   

Wait! Why does Teegan need to translate what Kurkutji is saying for the Doctor when the TARDIS translates languages?

Because we need to establish that Teegan is a useful companion with fashion design and language skills and not just a whiny rhymes with witch nagging ceaselessly to get to Heathrow Airport. 

And I would appreciate it if you get off my back about it.

Sorry. Teegan's whining has my nerves kind of shot.

Anyway... where were we? Oh yeah, the plot.  

The Urbankans have made periodic visits to Earth, collecting samples of humanity with each trip.

The Urbankans' homeworld is no longer habitable due to some shit going down with their sun.

With genetic samples of three billion Urbankans are stored on board, Monarch's ship is making it's final trip top Earth where they will arrive in four days to conquer....whoops! I mean, settle on the planet.  

Wait! What was that?

Settle! Peaceful co-existence between the people of Earth and the Urbankans. Monarch sells his pitch that his intent is to help the people of Earth.

Adric buys this line of shit.

I may have been unfair to Teegan about her incessant whining when Adric is also a whiny irritant.  He whines about being ignored, being outsmarted by Nyssa (who is just a girl!), having to put up with Teegan's whining and being dismissed by the Doctor.

Monarch sucks up to Adric, praising his intellect and his wisdom and damn it! That's all Adric needs to hear to think Monarch's a good guy who just wants to help people! 

The Doctor knows better because he learns stuff:

• The humans aboard are not descendants of the original abductees, but are the original people taken from Earth and converted into androids.
• Monarch, Enlightenment and Persuasion are also androids. 
• The Urbankans' homeworld was not destroyed by solar activity but ecological collapse after Monarch strip mined the planet for minerals to power his ship.
• Monarch has a delusion that he can prove he is in fact God.
• Monarch has developed a poison that will shrink organic life and will unleash it on Earth before he conquers the planet. 

Well, that's a lot of bad shit that Monarch is up to.

But the Doctor still faces an uphill battle to convince Adric that Monarch is NOT a good guy. 

Because Adric is an idiot. A whiny, irritating, useless idiot.

Geez! I am so tired.  

Speaking of whiny...

Teegan has had enough of this shit and runs back to the TARDIS where she pounds away at the console, sobbing and screaming for this machine to take her away from all this.

It works... sort of.

The TARDIS materializes outside the Urbankan ship. 

So another damn thing for the Doctor to sort out.

He sorts it out by throwing himself out an airlock and with the help of a cricket ball, he hurls himself towards the floating TARDIS.  It's a cheesy BBC TV special effect but damn it is a bad ass moment for the Doctor.

The Doctor convinces the android humans to revolt against the Urbankans and when exposed to the poison intended for Earth, Monarch is reveal to NOT be an android but is still an organic being. So much for his delusions of godhood.

So Earth is saved! Hooray!

On board the TARDIS, Adric whines, Teegan whines and Nyssa collapses.

Wait! What? 

The original idea was the Doctor would only have two companions, Adric and Tegan and Nyssa would be written out.

However, Peter Davison advocated for Nyssa to stay as she was the companion who was "most suited to his vision of the Doctor". 

(Also she did not whine like Adric and Teegan.)

So Nyssa was retained but the next serial Kinda was written with only 2 companions so Nyssa had to be written out of that story with a technobabble condition that knocked her out.

It was not until season twenty's Arc of Infinity before we would see Nyssa's full potential as a companion that Peter Davison saw in her.   

When I introduced Andrea to Four To Doomsday, she had this observation:  "Teegan whines a lot!"

And Adric?

"He's worse!" 

And Andrea likes everybody. 

Adric and Teegan annoyed her. 

She did enjoy Peter Davison's turn as the Doctor. Davison is alllowed some quirky character flourishes like making faces at the surveillance orb and snippily calling Adric a little idiot. Sadly some of this quirkiness would be eroded over time. I think producer John Nathan Turner wanted to remove any resemblance to Tom Baker's eccentricities.

FUN FACT: while Four To Doomsday was the second show of season 19, it was the first one shot.  

The plot logic of Four To Doomsday can be a bit of a muddle but it does provide a good showcase for Peter Davison as the Doctor. And for all us classic series fans who bemoaned what a nuisance Adric and Teegan can be, this story leans real hard into that.  

When Doctor Who Is CLASSIC next returns, we're back to Tom Baker as the Doctor and an epic serial that explores the origins of the Doctor's greatest enemies:  Genesis of the Daleks!

Movie Time: Elio

It's a science fiction weekend here on the blog thing!

I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You goes into SPAAAAAAAAACE!!!!!

Starting with.... Movie Time!

Today's cinema post is about an  animated science fiction adventure film produced by Pixar that came out this year called Elio.

Wait! It came out this year? 

And you never heard of it? 

Yeah, I can't say I blame you.  

There were some missteps in marketing and what all, resulting in Elio coming and going with little notice or fanfare.

Which is a damn shame.

When our son Dean introduced this to us a few weeks ago, I found Elio to be quite a remarkable film.

What, pray tell, is Elio about? 

Let's find out.

Meet Elio Solís, a young boy traumatized by tragedy. His parents were killed in an accident and he's living with his aunt Olga, an Air Force major who gave up her dreams of becoming an astronaut to raise her nephew. 

Elio Solís feels alone and isolated, disconnected from this world.

It make senses he would seek connection beyond this world.  

Elio wants to be abducted by aliens.  

After some shenanigans involving a ham radio, some bullies, a summer youth camp and Olga getting some weird signal from space at her military base...

Elio gets his wish! 

Welcome to the Communiverse, a place where alien ambassadors from different worlds share their knowledge. 

The aliens think Elio is the leader of Earth, a candidate to be Earth's ambassador to the Communiverse.  

Lord Grigon, a warlord previously rejected by the Communiverse, shows up full of bluster and bravado, seeking to bully his way into the Communiverse.  

In order to stay in the Communiverse and not be sent back to Earth, Elio offers to negotiate with Grigon.

An alien clone of Elio is sent back to Earth so he won't be missed. The alien clone does a better job at acting human than human Elio.  Olga is kind of happy at Elio's improved demeanor but it is kinda weird. 

Meanwhile, things do not go well with Elio attempts to just talk to Grigon but he has better luck with Grigon's son, Glordon.

Glordon's a good kid who doesn't want to disappoint his dad but really doesn't want to be a warlord when he grows up.  He would rather hang out with his new friend Elio.

So Elio hatches a plan...

Elio takes Glordon back to the Communiverse.

A clone is made of Glordon.

Grigon agrees to leave the Communiverse alone with the return of Glordon.

Elio and the Communiverse hand over the Glordon clone who is OK with becoming a warlord. 

The plan works.... until it doesn't. 

Grigon discovers the deception and goes completely unhinged at the Communiverse.

And Elio's real identity as NOT the leader of Earth is exposed.

Elio is sent back to Earth.

Glordon follows Elio to the Earth but his life is in danger.

Also exposed? Olga finds out her Elio is an alien clone! 

A lot of stuff happens that I'm going to not summarize but let's get to this:

Olga and (real) Elio steal Glordon's spaceship to save Glordon's life and stop Brigon from destroying the Communiverse.

It's a big and epic adventure against the wild and expansive tableau of outer space.

But it's not what the movie is about. 

Elio is about a childhood journey through emotional trauma and social isolation. That feeling of disconnection from others was something I could identify with from my own youth. For all the flash and color of the detail alien worlds created for this film, it's emotional core is what drives the story.

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department

• If the voice of Lord Grigon sounds like Robert Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond, well, that's because it is Brad Garrett.  Garrett has provided voices for previous Pixar films such as A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo and Ratatouille.  
• The voice of alien ambassador Questa is provided by Jameela Jamil from The Good Place, She Hulk: Attorney At Law and Star Trek: Prodigy.   
• Bob Peterson is the voice of the Universal Users Manual. Bob was also the voice of Dug the dog in Up.  
• The narrator of the Voyager 1 Museum Exhibit  is Kate Mulgrew who previously portrayed Captain Kathryn Janeway on Star Trek: Voyager. 
• Archival recordings of Carl Sagan are also used.
• Zoe Saldaña provides the voice of Air Force major Olga Solís, Elio's aunt.  Zoe brings a lot of sci-fi credit with her roles in Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avatar.   

BACK STORY: the part of Olga was originally designed to be Elio's mother voiced by America Ferrera.  But she had to withdrawn due to scheduling conflicts. The part of Olga was re-written to be Elio's aunt with both of Elio's parents dead when Zoe Saldaña was brought in for the role.   

I enjoyed Elio for it's imaginative and innovative style, quirky characterizations and emotional story beats. That being said, I have to admit that the film did not resonate with me as strongly as I would have expected given the subject matter.  

Sadly it didn't resonate with a lot of people, taking all of 4 weeks to cross a worldwide box office of $100 million.

Elio was a major money loser for Disney and Pixar despite mostly positive reviews.    

I'm not sure the marketing helped. When it was released, Elio was barely on my radar. And it wasn't always clear what the movie was supposed to be about. 

Frequent shifts in personel behind the scenes surely were a cause for concern.  There was a change of directors mid-production as well as re-writes to the story (like the one noted above). I think the interchangeable moving parts during the production contributed to Elio seeming less like an inspired creation and more of a competently rendered product.

The pieces to make Elio a unique and distinctive experience are there. It just doesn't quite jell as a whole.  Elio is NOT bad, it's good, but not great.  

Still, it is worth a watch and it remains a remarkable movie despite all the obstacles in it's path of development and production.  

Next up on the blog, science fiction weekend continues! 

Tomorrow, I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You once more goes into SPAAAAAAAAACE!!!!!

It's Doctor Who Is CLASSIC as the Doctor battles nefarious aliens AND really whiny companions.

Your Friday Video Link: Metric, A Canadian Rock Band

It's music videos for this week's edition of Your Friday Video Link!

While listening to music on You Tube, my feed sent me some music from a Canadian rock band  I had never heard of before called Metric.  

Your Friday Video Link#1 is an epic composition called Days of Oblivion.  

I may have never heard of Metric before but they have been around for awhile, founded in 1998 in Toronto, Ontario.

Metric is fronted by Emily Haines who addition to providing lead vocals also plays various instrumens including piano, synthesizers, guitar,  and harmonica.

The first song from Metric that my You Tube music feed sent my way is Your Friday Video Link#2, a percussive rocker called Sick Muse.  

 Metric is still in business, releasing their 9th album in October 2023.  

In 2023, Metric ranked 41st on Rolling Stone's The 50 Greatest Canadian Artists of All Time.

I've only just begun to explore the Metric discography but so far, Your Friday Video Link#3 is my favorite song by the group so far, called Risk.

Coming up on the blog this weekend is science fiction stuff with an animated sci-fi film for Saturday's Movie Time and on Sunday, a classic episode of Doctor Who.

Until next time, remember to be good to one another.   

Katina Eats Kilos

Today's post is about another frequent visitor to my Tik Tok FYP,  Katina DeJarnett AKA Katina Eats Kilos.

Katina has a Bachelor's  degree in Kinesiology & Physical Education.   She appears on a variety of social media platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram (as @KatinaEatsKilos).

Katina Eats Kilosfacebook.com/katinaeatskilos

Twitchtwitch.tv/katinaeatskilos

katinaeatskilosinstagram.com/katinaeatskilos

TikToktiktok.com/@katinaeatskilosofficial

Katina is a "professional eater" who posts food and travel vlogs highlighting exceptional foods in restaurants around the world.

Where she engages in eating challenges to consume large amounts of food in a short amount of time.  

Katina is jacked but she is also has a slim, petite 5' 2' frame.

She plants herself  before massive plates of food and eats all of it in a short span of time.

Below is a video where she consumes 72 pounds of steak plus sides including a humongous baked potato the size of a toddler.

After finishing the portions required to beat the challenge, Katina has the temerity to order dessert.

Bread pudding no less.

Where the hell does all this food go?   

Apparently the key to Katina's success as a professional eater 

involves managing her calorie intake on a weekly basis rather than daily.  She allows for higher calorie intakes on the days when filming challenges and lower calorie days in between. 

Still, I am incredulous at the sheer mass of food that enters her relatively tiny frame.  

Even before I started taking my weekly Tirzepatide injection curbing my appetite, I could not imagine even beginning to eat anything like the mass quantities consumed by Katina.

Katina approaches her eating challenges with a sense of humor and humility. Despite her successful record of beating these considerable challenges, she never assumes victory is assured.

While Katina is a fun and friendly presence online, I do have some misgivings about these eating challenges.

In a country, indeed a world, where so many struggle with food insecurity, I can't say I am completely comfortable with the concept of one person eating for fun enough food that could easily feed a large family.   

On one hand, I find Katina to be a charming presence online and find myself captivated watching her decimate the oversized meal in front of her.

But not without some small measure of guilt.

Because on the other hand, I can't help but feel there should be a better use of all that food.  

BLOG BIDNESS

No blog post tomorrow! 

We'll be back on Friday.

Until then, remember to be good to one another.

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Brilliant Minds

So today's touchbase is about the medical drama that nobody knows about, Brilliant Minds.

Most attention goes to medical shows like Grey's Anatomy,  Chicago Med, Watson and The Pitt.  

But churning away in it's own little corner of the NBC schedule, virtually unnoticed is Brilliant Minds.

Which is a damn shame.  

As I've said before, Brilliant Minds is the formula for House turned on it's head.  Zachary Quinto's Dr. Oliver Wolf is as brilliant and clever as Dr. Gregory House but the total polar opposite in terms of bed side manner.

Dr. Wolf is earnest and compassionate to the extreme. Which sometimes puts him at odds with hospital administration at Bronx General.

Up against a system that prioritizes a quick diagnosis and a quicker discharge, Wolf's insists on taking time and care in making sure each patient gets the maximum attention to arrive at the most perfect solution possible.  

Some cases Dr. Wolf and his residents deal with seem impossible to solve.

Like the episode where two window washers plummet 38 stories and somehow don't die. 

The odds of staying not dead are against them, their bodies completely shattered, organs crushed and bleeding. In a powerful episode, it's all hands on deck in a marathon push over 18 hours of surgery and treatment to keep these two men alive.

Ultimately those efforts come up short for one of the men.

The odds of the other one surviving are not good but by some miracle, he holds on.

But we're not done.

While Brilliant Minds is typically episodic in nature with a "case of the week" structure, the surviving man's continued care form a subplot through subsequent episodes as he continues to hang on the precipice of life and death.  

Another power episode was about a firefighter named Matthew with ALS, a neurodegenerative disease that no doctor, not even Dr. Wolf, can cure.  Wolf's tactics for this case shift from curing a disease to helping Matthew live with it. 

Matthew insists on not involving his family because he doesn't want to be a burden. It's Wolf's objective to convince him his best chance of dealing with this disease is to involve his family.

The episode is especially poignant as the part of Matthew is played by Eric Dane, formerly in the cast of Grey's Anatomy.  Earlier in 2025, Dane was diagnosed with ALS and his own struggles with accepting his diagnosis and what he had to do live this condition informs his role as Matthew.  

The fall finale of Brilliant Minds that aired last week brought to a head a contentious relationship between Dr. Wolf and a new resident, Dr. Charlie Porter.

Porter arrived at Bronx General as a young, obnoxious upstart who tends to counter Wolf at every turn. Where Wolf would doggedly persue options that were against all odds to effect a cure, Porter tended to be more to the point and pragmatic, choosing realism over hope.

The fall finale reveals the Porter's animosity against Wolf is personal.  When he was a child, Porter's mother was diagnosed with cancer. And a young resident by the name of Oliver Wolf encouraged her and her family to have hope of her survival and cure.

Porter's mother died and Porter still holds on to the bitterness that Dr. Wolf encouraged the family to have hope when the odds were clearly against her survival.   

This revelation seems to tie into another subplot that takes place a few months into the future where Dr. Wolf is in the care of a sketchy mental health facility known as Hudson Oaks.  The story of how Wolf will get there and why they won't let him leave  has been an unfolding mystery this season. 

Brilliant Minds is not a one man show.  Dr. Wolf is surrounded by a supporting cast with their own dramas.

Principally among them is Dr. Ericka Kinley who is not quite dealing with the post traumatic fallout of barely surviving the collapse of her apartment building last season. Ericka's struggles have manifested itself in crippling anxiety and an unhealthy dependence on self-prescribed medication.  

Erika is also single mindedly obsessed with saving the life of Sam, a homeless man with schizophrenia and a failing liver.  In order to get Sam the liver transplant that can save his life, she has to reunite Sam with his family.  

Brilliant Minds can be a bit pendantic and maudlin in it's message of compassion and empathy but it is a valueable counterpoint to the real world where the health care system can often seem impersonal and more concerned with stats than people's lives.

All in all, Brilliant Minds deserves a better fate than being ignored.

Coming up next on  the Touchbase.   

• Stranger Things and Peacemaker

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.   

Good Ol' Fashioned Racism

Earlier today, I posted about discrimination and abuse towards transgender women led by Donald Trump, his capitulating syncophants and stupid, hateful Republicans.

But Donald Trump and his MAGA cultists are just getting started.

Do you know what they're hankering for?

You guessed it! 

Some good ol' fashioned racism!

Bleach and iron those white sheets, you silly little racists, you!

der Führer is ready with some marching orders! 

It helps to understand that Trump's issues with immigration have less to do with "There's a dark skin person next to you who may be here illegally" and more to do with "There's a dark skin person next to you."  

And in Li'l Donnie's world, that is the real problem.  

Trump decided Somali immigrants need to go.

“I don’t want them in our country.”

Wait! There's more! 

“Look how bad their nation is. It’s not even a nation. It’s just people walking around killing each other. These Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country. They have destroyed Minnesota. We can go one way or the other, and we’re going to go the wrong way, if we keep taking in garbage into our country."

Minnesota is destroyed? Wow! I am shocked to hear that.

So too are the people living in Minnesota.

OK, so let's assume life in Somalia does indeed suck. Which is why the Somalians living in America like living in America. 

My understanding is the the Somali immigrant community in Minnesota is a quiet and industrious community that contributes to society.  Far from being "garbage".

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon is more succinct in his assessment of der Führer: “Donald Trump seems like a gross, bigoted, racist piece of shit.”

OK, that works for me. Thanks for getting right to the point, Mr. Lemon.

Meanwhile, Trump’s administration released a document early on Friday morning decrying “civilizational erasure” in Europe.

Translation: Europe is becoming less white! 

The document  expresses concerns that European nations aren’t strong allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which is the fault of diversity in the population.

Translation: Europe is becoming less white! 

The document goes on to posit that “within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European. Should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.”

Translation: Europe yada yada yada less white! 

The document has more urgent warnings about Europe’s “loss of national identities and the need for American diplomacy to uphold European countries’ individual character and history.”

Translation: Hell, you know the drill by now.  

C'mon, Trump’s administration document! Bring this racist bad boy in for a landing! 

“We want Europe to remain European!" 

Translation: Europe, STAY WHITE! 

Emily Harding, a director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, had this to say about this position paper from the Trump administration. 

“The most worrying parts of the strategy are the ones that chastise Europe for losing its European character. The sentiment behind the words seems to stoke fear of migrants and an adherence to an idealized, old-world Europe that is questionable at best."

Translation: “Donald Trump seems like a gross, bigoted, racist piece of shit.”

Wow! This is a LOT of racism! 

But wait! There's more! 

Apparently there are days where our National Parks have free admission. Two of those days are MLK Day and Juneteenth.

I don't think so, scooter! 

Trump has rescinded MLK Day and Juneteenth as free admission days to our National Parks. 

Days important to black history no longer qualify for free admission status.

But what der Führer taketh, he also shall giveth. 

Another date for free admission has been added: June 14th which is Flag Day.

Of course it is only a "coincidence" that June 14th is also Donald Trump's birthday.

Translation: “Donald Trump seems like a gross, bigoted, racist piece of shit.”

Oh, come on! Don't be so hard on Li'l Donnie! 

Some good ol' fashioned racism never did nobody no harm! 

Good ol' fashioned racism! Just like your granddaddy used to make.

It's what will make America great again! 

Wake Up Dead Name

On February 13, 2021, the person President Joe Biden nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary of Health was Rachel Levine.

On March 24,2021, the person the U.S. Senate voted to confirm to that position was Rachel Levine.

On October 19, 2021, the person who was commissioned as a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps was Rachel Levine.  

The official portrait of the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services from 2021 to 2025 was Rachel Levine.

The HHS Official Portrait of 
Admiral Rachel Levine

Until last week.

As of December 5, 2025, someone in the Trump administration decided that name was wrong.

I should note that Rachel Levine is a transgender woman. 

So the name under Rachel Levine's portrait is no longer Rachel Levine but her birth name, her dead name.  

It appears knives are out for some petty retribution at the Department of Health and Human Services to wake up Rachel Levine's dead name.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon had this to say: "Our priority is ensuring that the information presented internally and externally by HHS reflects gold standard science. We remain committed to reversing harmful policies enacted by Levine and ensuring that biological reality guides our approach to public health."

Levine said she is "not going to comment on this type of petty action."

Well, that is very gracious of Admiral Rachel Levine.

I am under no compunction to be gracious.

This is total fucking goddam bullshit! 

Among the "harmful policies" under Levine included addressing the health needs of LGBTQ youth such as making sure they didn't kill themselves.  If you think helping people NOT commit suicide is a "harmful policy", that puts you on a fast track to hell.

Satan: "Goody! Another victim for my hell pits and WHAT? You were PRO-suicide?? Jesus Christ! What is WRONG with you?!? Can we not get a better class of sinners down here than these Trump cultists?" 

But this is also another demonstration of Trump cultists willingness to re-write history.  Whatever issue the current HHS leadership may express over so called "harmful policies", the name of the person who was nominated, the name of the person who was confirmed, the name of the person who served was Rachel Levine. 

When this damnable existence under the Trump administration is over and if our nation and our government manages to survive, I hope someone remembers that the name of the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services from 2021 to 2025 was Rachel Levine. 

And fixes her portrait with her correct name! 

SIDE NOTE:  This not the only anti-transgender bullshit going on in Washington. Sarah McBride, the transgender Congresswoman from Delaware has to put up with this nonsense from Republicans in the House of Representatives:

"The chair recognizes the gentleman from Delaware."

"I wish to address the bill introduced by the Congressman from Delaware."

And there's also the ban on McBride from using the ladies' restroom in the Capitol building.  

McBride handles these petty slights with grace and aplomb. She chooses on focusing on representing her constiuents in Delaware and not on these partisan games to ostracize her.

Good on Rep. McBride for dealing with these insults with dignity.

Me, I gave up on dignity years ago.

FUCK YOU, Republicans in the House of Representatives and your despicable, deplorable actions based on fear and ignorance. McBride is a far better person that any of you who traffic in hatred and bigotry! 

And for good measure...

FUCK YOU, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon!

You know what? While I'm at it...

FUCK YOU, Donald J. Trump!

Doctor Who Is NEW: Destination: Daleks

Confession time: I am REALLY playing fast and loose with the true meaning of Doctor Who Is NEW!

This is supposed to be reserved for blog posts about NEW episodes of Doctor Who.

What is below is... not quite that.

It's a promotion for a new box set of season 21 of Doctor Who starring Peter Davison as the Doctor.  

Including a new segment starring Davison along with Janet Fielding as Tegan called Destination: Daleks.  

Season 21 contained Resurrection of the Daleks which was the first Doctor Who serial to be produced as two 1 hour episodes instead of four 1/2 hour installments. This was also the last episode for Janet Fielding as Tegan which made her one of the longest serving companions in the history of Doctor Who.

It's the events of this story the Doctor and Tegan reference in the new Destination: Daleks segment.   

Season 21 also featured The Caves of Androzani, Peter Davison's last time as the Doctor and what many fans (including me!) regard as his best episode. 

Season 21 also had The Twin Dilemma, Colin Baker's first turn as the Doctor in what many fans regard as one of the worst episodes ever.  

Season 21 also features the infamous Warriors of the Deep which featured the Silurians and the Sea Devils. I say "infamous" because the episode at an insanely high body count and an insane production schedule.

In 1983, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's unexpected call for  a United Kingdom general election created a sudden demand for BBC studio space so Doctor Who lost two weeks in it's production schedule. Production was completed but signs are evident of a rushed schedule. Many scenes had little or no rehearsal and received only one take. 

The new framing sequence was written by Peter McTighe who is the co-writer of the Doctor Who UNIT spin off, The War Between the Land and the Sea.

Speaking of which...

Tonight is the night of this series' big debut on the BBC. Viewers outside the United Kingdom will have to wait until next year when Disney+ releases it as the end of their deal with Doctor Who and the BBC. 

Here is a clip featuring Russell Tovey as character called Barclay Pierre-Dupont and  Jemma Redgrave as our beloved Kate Letheridge Stewart

I really enjoyed this dialogue. 

Barclay: I had a goldfish once. Is that relevant?

Kate: This isn't a joke, Mr. Dupont!

Barclay: I'm not joking! His name was Simon.

I have a theory that the gold fish is relevant.  

A theory shared in the comments:  I bet the gold fish Simon knew he was a good guy so he put in a good word for him in fishy land

I have some high hopes for this project as it is our only new Doctor Who adjacent stuff until the 2026 Christmas special.

The word is that this UNIT series will have a darker tone, kind of like with the Torchwood series. 

Next week is the return of Doctor Who Is CLASSIC as we return to the 5th Doctor era. 

Movie Time: Wicked - For Good

It's Movie Time!

Last weekend, we embarked from the Fortress Ineptitude to go to see a movie.

The "we" in question was yours truly, Dave-El plus wife Andrea, son Dean and friend Jan.

The "movie" in question was Wicked - For Good.

(Rosie the Dog did not go because she didn't want to take the chance of seeing that bitch Toto.)

It's been a year since we ventured out to see part one of Wicked. 

And it's been a year since  Elphaba defied the Wizard of Oz. 

Elphaba has been busy fighting for animal rights in the Kingdom of Oz, animals who are being ostracized and tormented under the Wizard's iron fist rule.   

Elphaba's efforts to fight for noble causes is undermined by Madame Morrible's propaganda machine that has labeled our emerald hued sorceress "the Wicked Witch of the West".  

Meanwhile, Glinda is the kind, pretty face of the Wizard's kingdom, a bright and smiling epitome of all that is good to counter all that is wicked.   

Wicked - For Good brings us to a dark place, metaphorically and sometimes literally.  There are a couple of scenes where I wonder if director Jon M. Chu ran out of budget for light bulbs.

This is a problem not unique to this movie. A lot of recent films have had night scenes that are so dark, it is difficult to know what's going on. I understand eschewing the hokiness of "day for night" shooting and embracing the realism of shooting in the actual dark but let's not lose sight of , well, not losing our sight. We still need to see what's going on.

I think Elphaba and Fiyero may have had a love scene.  It was hard to tell.  

Speaking of darkness, going to the movies should be an escape from the dark times we're living in. But listening to Jeff Goldblum's Wizard talk about people believing what you tell them to believe made me think of a certain orange skinned wannabe tyrant and his idiot cult and damn it! I paid good money to get away from that shit. 

Sigh!  

Take a deep breath.

...

...

Back to the movie...

If all you know about the kingdom of Oz is from the movie The Wizard of Oz, some stuff might throw you.

A tornado does rip a farmhouse out of Kansas and drop it on Elphaba's sister, Nessarose. 

But this is no mere accident. Madame Morrible summoned the tornado for the express purpose of putting Nessarose in danger to lure Elphaba into a trap.  

Nessarose's shoes wind up on Dorothy's feet but they are still silver.  Apparently in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the shoes were silver and were only made red for The Wizard of Oz. It seems MGM owns the rights to the ruby red slippers so Universal's Wicked - For Good sticks with the shoe hue from the book.  

Dorothy does accumulate some strange friends along the way down the Yellow Brick Road but at least two of them (the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Woodsman) have serious beef with Elphaba, blaming her for being what they are.  As for the Scarecrow, we will discover by the end he has a more sympathetic understanding of Elphaba. 

Speaking of Dorothy....

She's not really in this movie.  We see her from behind and from a distance and what not which is apparently more than we see of her in the stage play Wicked.  In the play, she's talked about but never seen save for a silhouette at the end when she takes out Elphaba with a bucket of water.

Wicked - For Good echoes that sequence for the movie.

I had guessed the ending of the movie but I avoided reading about the play in order to not completely spoil it for myself. 

SPOILER

Dorothy does NOT kill the "Wicked WItch of the West" with a bucket of water. Elphaba stages her death with a good old fashioned magic trick involving smoke and a trap door. 

Meanwhile, Glinda struggles with her role in Madame Morrible's propaganda casting Glinda as Glinda the Good vs. Elphaba's Wicked Witch of the West. But by the end of the movie, Glinda is fierce as she confronts the Wizard with the depths of his sins (the woman he ordered killed was his own daughter) and tells him he's gonna hop in his balloon and leave Oz. 

And Glinda's final confrontation with Madame Morrible is epic with Glinda hurling Morrible's insults back at her and sending flying monkeys to carry her scheming ass to a prison cell.

So our movie ends at the end which is where it began a year ago in Wicked part one: Glinda finishes telling her story to the Munchkins.  

Glinda's in charge now and she's she going to be ruler who is good. For example, she restores Animal rights and they get their voices back. 

Elphaba and Fiyero (who is now the Scarecrow) leave Oz. 

So.... what's the verdict?

As my son Dean said, this did not need to be two movies.

Well, I'm not sure what director Jon Chu would've left on the cutting room floor to make this work as one movie but Wicked - For Good does feel less like a movie and more like an extended third act of the movie we started last year.  

A lot of what made Wicked so charming was the interaction, the chemistry between Ariana Grande (Glinda) and Cynthia Erivo (Elphaba) which is missing in Wicked - For Good. The needs of the story keep them mostly separated but the scenes they do share crackle with energy and, dare I say it, passion. 

(Yes, you Glinda/Elphaba shippers are going to be disappointed.)

As a movie in and of itself, Wicked - For Good may be found lacking.  But I think it succeeds in bringing the Wicked saga in for a relatively satisfactory landing.  

A landing I think that would have had more power and resonance if it was part of a single whole instead of being doled out in parts.