The actual moment of solstice for we here in Central Standard Time was last night so I am a bit late.
I found this video and was quite surprised to see an image from here in Madison appear - the Monona Terrace.
I took yesterday off from work and went on an early morning hike completely oblivious to the forecast. A few drops were falling as I set out.
Being ensconced in the woods, the light sprinkling was barely noticeable.
It was a lovely day. Still on the cool side, everything was lush and verdant, and the birds were out singing and chirping and trilling.
Then the sprinkle became a shower. I stopped at one of overlooks where I could get some shelter and checked the forecast: showers and thunderstorms. D'oh!
While I cut the hike short, the walking I did was grand! Always great to be out in the woods.
We now complete a trifecta of TV comics before moving onto a different medium. Meine Damen und Herren, better living through chemistry. Er, I mean "Insect".
A farmer in the West Country innocently dusts his crops with a new-fangled insecticide which doesn't work very well. Instead of sending the pests to meet their maker, it has the effect of making a pair of caterpillars grow to gigantic proportions. Thanks, Monsanto. But rather than taking their situation with a bit of pantagruelian good cheer, they go on a rampage.
U.N.I.T. is alerted and the Brigadier tries to enlist the Doctor who is, like last comic, grumpy and resentful of being disturbed when he's trying to repair the TARDIS with household chemicals, Bunsen burners, and surplus vacuum tubes. Thankfully strange happenings in the West Country pique his interest and away our heroes go.
One of the creepy crawlies meets its demise after being hit by a lorry while the other is captured after the Doctor douses it with riot gas. I don't know what this stuff is but score another point for the chemists as it knocks out the second creature which is taken back to a facility for study.
Cue giant ants. Who says they only have Them! in New Mexico? The pair get into a slugfest in the center of the village of Cragwell, which does not appear to be a real place. I smiled when I saw that one of the ants was wielding a cross as it went mandible a mandible with its foe.
The Doctor and the Brig get in the former's helicopter to investigate when they become the hunted. A "daddy-long-legs of horrifying size" gives chase. I did a double take because, while the text says "daddy-long-legs", the picture is of a beastie with wings that looks suspiciously like a mosquito instead of the spidery creature that I know by that name. My country and England are truly divided by a common language.
The Doctor studies the captured caterpillar and comes to the conclusion that there was a freak error in the production of the insecticide that led to this outbreak of entomological gigantism. He hastily devises an antidote just as the creature breaks its rusty cage and attempts to run. This new formula is used to dust the infected fields and all of the insects return to their normal size.
I noted that the hitherto unknown exclamation "Great powers!" has been replaced by the more natural "Great Scott!". I also felt that "Insect" presaged "The Green Death" with its giant insect beasties. If the caterpillars had been left to their own devices, would they have turned into Mothra's?
Whether I go with the DW Reference Guide or The Complete Adventures, my Pertwee season 1 venture is going to be fairly short as there are no novels and I am forgoing the Big Finish stuff. It's the 4 TV stories, several comics, and some short stories. Next up is "The Multi-Mobile", another TV comic.
The Brigadier has brought a thoroughly uninterested Doctor along to a demonstration of the Multi-Mobile, a new mechanical marvel which is a squat, flat tank, basically. It reminds me of the creepy crawler hoolie that NASA uses to haul the space shuttle to the launch pad. The Doctor is suitably unimpressed as the demonstration of the vehicle's mad brush burning skillz comes to an end and the crew of the hulking mass of steel take a well-deserved pee break.
But leaving the vehicle unattended opens a window of opportunity for three scofflaws who commandeer the behemoth. U.N.I.T.'s initial attempts to stop the beast with a tank and some armored vehicles prove ineffectual. The same goes for an aerial strike.
Soon enough the Doctor figures out that the hijackers' destination is the British Nuclear Defence Centre. A little bit of cipherin' later, he calculates that the Mobile will run out of fuel a few miles short of its target. A plot is hatched whereby U.N.I.T. would lay in wait at the petrol station most likely to be visited by the Mobile and ambush the villainous hijackers when they attempt to refuel.
Things don't go according to plan but the Doctor comes through in the end by dropping a couple sugar cubes into the fuel tank. The sucrose sabotage proves successful.
I was impressed with this one in that it seems its creators actually watched the show. Or had better notes. Or read what they were given. When the Doctor is all pouty and in a huff about being at the demo when he could be back at the lab chillin' with Liz, Lethbridge-Stewart reminds him of the Brigaderian bargain they struck at the end of "Spearhead From Space": the Doctor helps U.N.I.T. in exchange for spare parts to tinker with.
While none of these TV comic have been good, at least they've become largely inoffensive. No, that's not totally fair. The Third Doctor in these comics so far really isn't too far removed from one seen on TV, er, bluray. Hopefully the ones in the Annuals follow suit.
Today is Juneteenth, a day to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.
You can listen to the stories of formerly enslaved people online and get first-hand accounts of life under slavery.
There's an interview here from 1975(?!) It's strange to think that there was still a formerly enslaved person alive during my lifetime.
Here in Madison there will be various Juneteenth events but I suppose the main one is the Juneteenth Freedom Parade which, I believe, ends at Penn Park where the big party happens. More info here.
I've been listening to some Staple Singers today and you should too.
For my previous Doctor Who marathons, I used the chronology at the Doctor Who Reference Guide. Since I had a good thing going, I returned to it in preparation for the Third Doctor only to discover that it had gone offline. Thankfully the Wayback Machine has it archived. But, in my panic to find a replacement, I ran across Andrew Kearley's site, The Complete Adventures. This site has the advantage of not only being online but also of being more current. There are newer Big Finish adventures, which I am not listening to in my marathon, in Kearley's timeline that were never added to the Reference Guide but also newer comics, which I will endeavor to read.
I noticed some differences in ordering between the two sites and so I've opted to throw a little Reference Guide in here and some Complete Adventures there for my marathon. Whatever discrepancies they have, they both list "The Arkwood Experiments" as the story that follows "Spearhead From Space".
"The Arkwood Experiments" is a TV comic from early 1970. I've run into these comics before during my earlier marathons and like pretty much every First and Second Doctor comic from their eras, they were almost uniformly bad. It was apparent that their creators had never watched the show and instead were given a paragraph long synopsis of it along with some publicity stills and told to go off and make comics. Would that be the same here?
Pertwee's elongated face in the first panel has a slightly caricaturish feel to it plus he's got a big grin so we've got a whole new feel already.
The Brigadier calls the Doctor to ask for help with a bit of bother down at the local zoo. It seems that either the animals have jointly declared Opposite Day or something is quite amiss. While a panther and lion are both meek as a pussy, the birds attack anyone who dares enter the aviary while the penguins are the most murderous since the giant electric one that Scott ran into in the Sahara.
It turns out a 10 year-old boy named Cedric Mathews used the zoo animals as, er, guinea pigs, to test a new drug he has concocted that he hopes will turn boys his own age into "raging hooligans". One wouldn't think a wonder drug would be needed to accomplish this.
Aside from using the exclamation, "Great powers!"(?!), the Third Doctor here is not wholly un-Third Doctorish.
Reflecting the TV show at the time, I think this may be the first Doctor Who comic set on Earth. Contemporary Earth, at least. A slight story to be sure but it was funny to see our hero flee from a waddle of savage penguins.
It's been almost two years since I've done a Doctor Who marathon. I had meant to delve into the Third Doctor's tenure months ago but then heard about the release of Pertwee's first season on bluray so I waited for its release. That being done, the fun can begin.
The previous Doctors each had 3 seasons but this would be a fiver. I also think the Third Doctor has had a few more novels written about him than his predecessors. Short stories and novellas I'm not so sure of. I was looking forward to jumping into the Pertwee era as it had been a while since I've watched any classic Who and hadn't read much of it in the past year and a half or so either. Plus Pertwee was my brother's favorite Doctor and so I took some comfort in knowing he'd be watching and reading along with me over my shoulder throughout this little endeavor.
When I left off, the Second Doctor was falling headlong into a black void courtesy of some vengeful Time Lords. Jon Pertwee's time on the show began with "Spearhead From Space" and the Doctor falling out of the TARDIS and onto a patch of wildflowers who were probably not happy to be squished by a rogue Gallifreyan. But at least he fell in color!
Not only was it in color, but the story was shot exclusively on 16mm film. And so the visual style is akin to Nu Who's cinematic approach, utilizing a single camera instead of 3. Not only that, but we get a country ton of location scenes with studio sets being kept to a minimum. I never knew why until a day or two ago when I looked it up: apparently shooting on location allowed the show's makers to avoid getting tangled up in a labor action of some kind which apparently only affected BBC HQ.
Legendary Doctor Who scribe Robert Holmes penned the script and the story opens with a shot of a radio tower before cutting to a control room with some fellow diligently looking at a radar screen. His direct superior, a woman no less, enters and I noticed her tie clip - U.N.I.T.!
I also noticed the video quality which was sharp and clean. Perhaps a bit too clean as there seemed to be less grain than I recall seeing previously. It appears to have been upscaled and the frame rate boosted too. Maybe not 48 FPS like The Hobbit but the motion appeared to be smoother than the show ever was on broadcast TV.
The guy watching the radar notices some thingies descending to Earth and landing in sector 5 - Epping. You bet part of my brain started singing "Yes, it's the battle of Epping Forest..." We then cut to an old duffer in sector 5 who witnesses the thingies land and he is adorned with a lovely red cravat. The script continues on its merry way of introducing us to all of the main characters and plot threads. The TARDIS then lands and the Doctor falls out as noted above. In the back of a car Liz Shaw is being taken to her latest assignment - at U.N.I.T. HQ. I noted how the music went from that typical minor key oboe stuff to something jazzy and perky for Liz's intro.
Swinging London meet stodgy military man. Liz is brought to the Brigadier's office and he looks slightly uncomfortable, slightly anxious commanding from behind a desk. It is here that I noticed the use of short lenses. The scene wasn't full of shots and reverse shots but instead we get some nicely composed frames with both speakers in it at the same time with one in the foreground and another in the background. Some nice depth of field here.
The Doctor spends basically all of episode 1 and a good chunck of episode 2 at the hospital in a self-induced coma. While not an ultra-salutary Zero Room, the place has some gorgeous wood paneling and wainscotting going for it. It's hard to blame him, really. He was forced to regenerate, had some of his memory wiped or hidden, at least, and was exiled to Earth in a non-operable TARDIS. He eventually wakes up and effects an escape but not before taking a shower and stealing some aristocrat's duds and an antique car. I guess this is where the Doctor develops a fondness for older automobiles. Bessie, here we come.
We learn that what the U.N.I.T. radar operator saw was the second volley in a few months of these glowing 12(?)-sided shapes that were power units. They reminded me of those old Tupperware Shape O Sorter Balls - and that the bad guys had taken over a plastics factory. There's a nice scene where someone at the hospital says in reference to the Doctor, "Something odd about his face" and we cut to a doll's face being made. I have to admit that I had no recollection of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" playing over the initial scene at the factory. Considering that song was released around the time "Spearhead From Space" was being shot/assembled, this is a notable injection of contemporary pop culture into a Doctor Who story. Thankfully no one thought it a good idea to feature any Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac in "The Robots of Death" or "The Talons of Weng-Chiang".
We are eventually introduced to the Nestene, a nasty non-corporeal alien who likes to invade other planets. The Nestene apparently ran into Mr. McGuire at some point because they have a thing for plastics. And so they chose to take over Earth by using armed, cravat-wearing mannequins - Autons, some of whom are in the form of various government officials.
The Doctor jury rigs a gizmo out of various parts found at U.N.I.T.'s lab that can deactivate Autons. (Nowadays this would simply be a new function of the sonic screwdriver.) He and Liz, with U.N.I.T.'s help, would infiltrate the factory and put paid to the Nestene's fouls plans. But not before a bunch of Autons posing at shop window mannequins
rampage through the streets killing helpless people, including about
half a dozen queuing at a bus stop in an orderly line the likes of which
has never been seen in this country. In the end, though, the fine citizens of Epping could once again safely window shop for cravats.
"Spearhead From Space" was a ball of fun. At 4 episodes, it may be the shortest story Pertwee ever did. The Third Doctor is friendly and charming yet also a bit haughty. While he may be suffering from memory loss, he hasn't forgotten that he's superior to humans. Liz is skeptical in a Dana Scully kind of way as well as sassy and sarcastic which made it seem like had she traveled back from the 1990's. She's also smart and highly capable. (Also like Scully.) No signs of screaming and cowering in the corner here. A nice feminist counterpoint to the Brigadier's more Victorian(?) demeanor.
There are some nice low angle shots here and I think these along with the glasses worn by various male characters gave the story a vague but palpable The Ipcress File vibe. I wonder who the costumer was. Did this person work on Doctor Who before or after "Spearhead From Space"? I don't recall seeing so many cravats on the show in any other story.
It's not quite true that the Nestene sought to take over the Earth only with maniacal mannequins. It was also growing a big tentacled beastie in a tank at the factory. Although cheesy looking, I loved it, especially what looked like an eye in the center of the malicious membrane adorned with green slime. The giant tentacles that it sports at the story's climax looked straight out of a Muppet adaptation of a Cthulhu tale. A classic Who moment.
I found it interesting that it took about half the plot for the viewer to be told just what the good guys are up against. Similarly, going into the final episode I didn't have much of a feeling that things were coming to a head. The Doc, Liz, and the Brigadier were still sorting things out as opposed to devising a masterplan.
It also occurred to me that it was the Nestene and their Autons who were the bad guys in the first episode of the resurrected Doctor Who 20 years ago. That was their first TV appearance since the Pertwee era and it got me wondering if I shall encounter them in a comic or book at some point in my marathons.
We got some rain last night and, when I woke up, it was cloudy but yesterday's heat had been sent packing. I went on a morning trek hoping that I wouldn't get rained on.
My neighbors' chickens were out enjoying the yard and, I presume, the cooler temperature.
The woodpecker at the other side of the yard was peeking out and perhaps contemplating its day.
On my way down to Starkweather Creek I took in some sweetly scented pine air.
The creek was rather still but the birds were singing their post-breakfast choruses.
I made my way to the bike path and spied a mallard hen in the distance. It wasn't until I got home that I noticed she was with a duckling or two.
Lots of bunnies about.
As I was headed home, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds all-too briefly.
Scenes from a trio of recent walks around the neighborhood. I've been trying to get into the habit of taking a walk before I start work when I work from home. Most of these are from those early morning strolls.
I tried to do something symmetrical but slightly off with this one.
I tried to get a good converging lines-perspective thing here. Not great, unfortunately.
Not sure what kind of bird this is. It ripped off a length of grass and took off.
As the weather has gotten warmer, my beer choices have gotten heller.
It's been a long time since I've had Schell's. It seems like there are only a couple varieties on shelves here in Madison these days, unfortunately. But I'll take what I can get.
The folks at Weihenstephaner must decoct this stuff 3 or 4 times because it is Maillard Himmel. Simply delicious! I can only image how much more tasty it must be fresh from the Keller.
