Condi & Rose

Oh Condi Condi beggin’ on my knees
Open up your heart and let me in wontcha please
Got no money but everybody knows
I love you Condi and I’ll never let you go
Sweet and dandy pretty as can be
You be the flower and I’ll be the bumble bee
Oh she loves me oops she loves me not
People say you’re cold but I think you’re hot

I’ve been listening to Steve Earle’s The Revolution Starts…Now constantly here at work and I can’t get “Condi, Condi” out of my cranium. It’s just so blatantly catchy. And so I’m trying to shake it out by listening to the first album by Masters of Reality. It’s been quite a while since I’ve heard it. The album originally came out in 1988 or 89 and I bought it at the time based on the album cover. I was expecting something akin to Black Sabbath since their name came from the Sabs’ Master of Reality and the cover was full of deep blues and black featuring an old mansion replete with overgrown weeds & vines. Instead of dark heavy metal, I discovered that they were quite an anomaly for the time: MoR were steeped in Cream and Led Zeppelin much more than the Sabs. Plus there were some nice acoustic elements that sound like what we now call Americana. Chris Goss was the leader of the band as he wrote most of the material. All of the songs on the album are quite tuneful. However heavy or acoustic a song is, it’s got a catchy melody. Obviously The Beatles were an influence on him as well. Goss isn’t a typical hard rock singer. He has a really smooth voice and he doesn’t scream. The songs are just so wonderfully melodic. Rick Rubin produced the album and gave it a clean sound that has a warm ambiance. There’s a scene in one of Steven Seagal’s flicks where he wanders into a club and MoR are onstage playing “Domino” from this album. I think I was the only person to recognize them when a bunch of us watched it back when I lived in the dorms. Goss went on to produce a few Kyuss albums and I think he also produced the first Queens of the Stone Age disc. (Have they made a second?)

OK. I snagged the new Doctor Who episode which was leaked onto the Internet and finally got a chance to watch it the other night. There are quite a few differences between this new incarnation of the series and the old beloved series that ended in 1989. Firstly, there is length. Each story of the new series is one episode that is 40 minutes long. Previously, each story was 2-6 episodes that were 25 minutes long and ended with a cliffhanger involving either the Doctor or a companion or both in great peril. Those days are gone. On a technical note, the new Who is shot completely on DV so the show has a nice, uniform look. For the old series, interiors were done on video while exteriors were shot on 16mm film so the various scenes looked drastically different because of the differing media. The theme used now seems to be the one from the 1970s when Tom Baker portrayed the Doctor (and at the end of the Pertwee era?) but remixed with some bits added.

The Doctor’s new companion is Rose, played by Billie Piper. When I first heard about her being cast, I had no idea who she was. Then I read that she’s a complete bimbo with a failed singing career behind her who flashes her tits when she’s drunk. (You can find such pics on the Net easily.) Ergo, I wasn’t expecting much out of her other than being eye candy. However, I thought she did a good job. (Hey, it’s not Shakespeare.) And she’s good eye candy. Also grabbing the eye was the new TARDIS console room. It’s now this huge cavernous space with flying buttresses. It’s dimly lit with a funky-looking console in the center. There was a shot of the Doctor standing at the TARDIS door talking to Rose who was standing outside and you could see the console room behind the Doctor instead of darkness. The sonic screwdriver is featured as is the return of an enemy that was last seen back in the early 1970s during Jon Pertwee’s tenure as the Doctor. The show is a lot more PC now with Rose having a boyfriend who’s black. (African-English?) As for the Doctor, Chris Eccleston seems like a good choice so far. I miss the Edwardian clothing but I found that I got used to his leather jacket and short hair quickly. Eccleston’s Doctor is as hyper as a whore in church. He’s running around doing this and that just like Pertwee’s Doc did. But he’s also a bit goofy and eccentric in the Tom Baker vein. As a character, I really like him so far.

Now to the special effects. While they aren’t as good as you’re going to see in Revenge of the Sith, it seems the Beeb dropped some serious ££££ in CGI. Honestly, I’m still undecided about them taking away the cheesiness factor. It was one of the endearing things about the original series – all those cheap plastic monsters and laser guns that send smoke and sparks out the barrel when they fire. We’ll see how I feel after I’ve seen some more episodes. Lastly, while the structure of the story have changed due to the change in format, the plot was the same old stuff: an alien intelligence that can animate and control plastic. Lots of perilous situations with humanity being saved at the last minute by The Doctor and the forces of good. Oh, the TARDIS sounds the same when it de-/materializes.

There was a part in which Rose looks up the Doctor on the Internet and is led to a conspiracy buff who has evidence of the Doctor’s presence at moments in history when disaster strikes. For instance, he shows Rose a picture of The Doctor in Dallas watching JFK’s motorcade driving by. It’s was a nice inside joke (the very first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast on the day JFK was killed) and made me wonder if there may be a tie-in somehow with the book Who Killed Kennedy.

Overall, I enjoyed it. I laughed aloud a few times, ogled Rose, and just had a good time. My only criticism is that it’s too short. I’d have liked them to either keep the old format of multiple 25-minute episodes or one 50-minute episode. I read a criticism of it that said it was “too English” which, after having seen the episode, don’t understand at all. It’s no more English than the old series which the person didn’t rake over the coals. Although no American network picked up the show, we Yanks can always find it on the Net. As far as I know, the transmission date is still March 26th.