Doctor Who History-Time’s Orphan

The Doctor and co. stop by the resort Tranquilty Spa for a relaxing vacation. Or so they think.

However, things (of course) turn out not to be what they seem. Ryan catches a weird parasitic virus, although a non-lethal one, from a snack machine. During his recovery he meets a young woman named Bella.

However, there’s a quick drill due to some form of perimeter breach, and the Doctor discovers a well-armed security room. The Doctor discovers there’s a shield protecting the colony….from….something. Except it’s broken, and something which quickly makes it’s presence known, killing many of the guests.  The Doctor manages to repair the shield, but soon the truth comes out. Tranquilty spa is mostly a hologram, surrounded by a barren wasteland and it’s inhabitants, the Dregs. Also, one of the guests, an elderly man named Benni, is outside in the wasteland. The gang try to rescue him in a vehicle, but unfortunately it’s too late for him and the vehicle gets trashed, forcing the gang to get back to the safe part of the resort by using the tunnels.

 

It’s in the tunnels the truth about why the shield failed is revealed-Bella is the daughter of the resort’s owner, Kane, who Kane left behind to run the spa in hopes of somehow terraforming the planet. So she sabotaged the spa. Bella transport with Ryan back to Spa to finish the job of destroying her mother’s dream.

Another disturbing truth is discovered. Orphan 55 is actually a future Earth, ruined by pollution/radiation, and the Dregs are devolved humans. The big clue is that they’re in a Russian bunker, as well as the race memory of the Dregs the Doctor unearths using her mental powers.

Eventually people make it back to the spa, where the transporter is fixed and the survivors evacuate, except for Bella and Kane who remain behind to fight the Dregs (and are presumably killed). Although the companions are disturbed by this future, the Doctor tells them it’s only a possible timeline.

 

Next, the group travel to 1903, the height of America’s “gilded age” when new technologies are being harnessed at the turn of the century, leading from the frontier times of the previous century to the more technically advanced and industrialized 20th. Among those in this age are Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. Tesla’s ideas are grand but he doesn’t quite have the popular support Edison does. One night at his Niagra falls lab, he comes across a strange glowing orb.

However, somebody’s out to get it, and tries to kill Edison and his assistant.  They’re rescued by the Doctor and his companions who head to NYC onboard a train, although they are chased again by the villain, who they barely escape by detaching a car.

The bad guys, disguised as humans are also keeping an eye on Thomas Edison, and kill most of his factory workers. Edison takes refuge with the Doctor and his rival, and the two of course visit the TARDIS.

It’s soon discovered that the aliens, the Scorpion-like Skithra, want Tesla’s help as an engineer for their broken down ship-or else. They recognized Tesla’s wireless transmissions, hence why they needed his help.

Tesla is able to escape, and with his rival Thomas Edison warning people to get off the streets (Blaming the disturbance on Tesla’s “Death ray”) as the space scorpions attack, Tesla and the Doctor fire up his Wardenclyffe tower into a weapon that stuns the alien ship, causing them to leave.

With Earth-and Tesla-safe. The Doctor tells his companions that unfortunately Tesla’s fame would not be realized during his life, although many of his ideas eventually find development in the modern world.

 

Next: Fugitive of the Judoon….and maybe a big secret at long last revealed.

 

Doctor Who History: Spyfall

All around the world, spies are being killed off by strange, luminescent aliens, with their DNA being messed up as a result. So MI6 decides to call in some alien experts: The Doctor and his companions, as Torchwood and UNIT are pretty much disbanded or unavailable.

Despite a booby-trapped car trying to kill them, they eventually make it and are met by “C” who suspects that these incidents have something to do with David Barton, a billionaire tech CEO of the Vor company. After giving them some fancy gadgets such as laser shoes, computer scanners and a spy camera, C is quickly killed by a mysterious assailant.

The Doctor and crew go into two teams. The Doctor and Graham meet with former MI6 agent O, an expert in extraterrestrials who she’d met once before, in Australia, while Yaz and Ryan take on Barton, discovering some oddities such as his DNA being only 93% human.

Eventually both teams run into the Aliens, who kill O’s security crew although the Doctor is able to capture one and ward off the others with the house’s surprising defenses. However, one of the aliens attacks Yaz and transports her to a strange dimension, although she eventually winds up in Australia when the captured alien-apparently bent on crossing over and conquering our world-swaps places with her.

The Doctor, O and the companions decide to crash Barton’s birthday party, also doing a bit of gambling. The Doctor does her usual confronting of the villain and telling him that she’s going to stop him monologue.

Barton decides to quickly leave and go to his private jet, so the Doctor and co pursue them in motorcycles.

Eventually boarding the jet, the Doctor quickly notices a comment by O saying he’s not a good sprinter when his file says he was top of the class. O lets the facade drop-first by pointing out that his house is flying outside the now airborne jet-spinning in the usual hovering…of a TARDIS.

Yep, the Master is back, having taken the identity of O (It’s unclear where this is in his personal timeline, as the last time we saw him/her he was Missy and contemplating redemption, only to get fatally shot by her former “Harold Saxon” version). Not only that he shrinks people again, including the original O. He’s working with the aliens and Barton, who he’s transported away and left an explosive device in his place which soon activates. The Aliens then surround the Doctor and take her to another dimension, but not before the Master tells her everything she knows is a lie-and leave the companions to their doom.

However, due to some timey-wimey stuff later, the Doctor manages to give them a way to survive with some tools and an in-flight video. So they manage to land relatively safely in their cockpitless plane.

The Doctor gets stuck in the other dimension until he encounters a 19th century woman.  She takes the Doctor with her when one of the aliens show up, and she’s transferred to an invention convention in 1834 London. Turns out she’s actually Ada Lovelace, one of the inventors of the old computer along with Charles Babbage.

The Master however has detected this in his TARDIS and shows up with shrinking device again. Murdering several people in attendance and forcing the Doctor to kneel.

Ada, using a steam gun, manages to stun the Master enough for the Doctor and her to escape to Babbage’s house, where there’s a mysterious figurine machine similar to one Barton owns-or perhaps the very same one.

Meanwhile, in the present, Barton uses his social media abilities to make Graham, Yaz and Ryan public enemy #1, although they eventually manage to evade that by taking refuge in a under construction housing development. There, they kind of wonder what’s up with the Doctor and her enemy-Who is she anyway? Doctor Who?

 

The Doctor activates the figurine, summoning the Aliens, the Kassavin, and she uses it to try to get back to the present. She doesn’t quite make it, instead winding up in War torn World War II. Naturally, the Master follows her there too, posing as a Nazi officer. She takes refuge with another historical figure, Noor Khan, a British female spy. Using Noor’s morse device, the Doctor uses the tone of the Sound of Drums to get his attention  to meet at the Eiffel Tower and figure out what he’s really up to.

 

There the two have a chat. The Master doesn’t really have much of a stake in the Kassavin invasion-where it turns out they’ve been “spying” on our civilization in several time periods including the one’s she’s visited-he’s doing this mainly to get the Doctor’s attention. Turns out, Gallifrey’s been destroyed again, for some reason. The Doctor however, manages to escape the Master by weakening his perception filter keeping the Nazis from looking too much into them, and also faking a message to the British about he’s a spy working for them. He’s then captured while the Doctor and the two women steal his TARDIS.

Meanwhile, Graham and co. capture Barton’s car by using Graham’s laser shoes to attack his men. They’re taking to a hanger with the figurine which is serving as a gateway for the Aliens to invade through tech devices. The Master-having spent seventy years on Earth since he had no TARDIS, arrives, but then so does the Doctor, who popped back in 1834 and sabotaged the device with Charles Babagge’s help.

She also reveals that she recorded her conversation about the Master not caring much for the Kassavin-which makes them not too thrilled so they decide to keep the Master in their dimension for now.

 

She then goes and prepares the plane thing in the past so that Graham and co. are saved.

However, something’s still bothering her-what the Master said about Gallifrey.  She goes there and the Capital is in smoking ruins. So much for Gallifrey Falls no more.

 

But there’s even more shocks to come. A pre-recorded hologram from the Master shows up in the TARDIS, where he reveals that he destroyed Gallifrey-after discovering something about a mysterious “Timeless child”, something the Doctor had heard about before during the race to her TARDIS in “The Ghost Monument”. Apparently Gallifrey’s founding fathers (presumably Rassilon and Omega) had some big secret which shakes the foundation of their civilization/origins, and it drew the Master even more nuts.

 

 

Badly shaken by all this, the Doctor decides to tell her more about her background-her status as a time lord, her home planet, and her relationship with the Master….before setting up on new adventures-and eventually perhaps, discovering what these revelations will mean.

 

 

Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker Review Part two

Lando tells them where to find the ship containing the Wayfinder, and also that he and Luke were looking for it themselves. While Han is usually paired with Lando in most Star Wars stuff for obvious reasons we never quite saw a lot of Luke and Lando hanging out together outside of the Expanded Universe material that’s set between ESB and ROTJ, where Han was out of the picture. It’d be kind of cool to have some future Disney novel, comic, or even video game fill in the blanks about Luke & Lando planet hopping to find Jedi artifacts and clues about the Sith.

When asked to help out the resistance, Lando is reluctant, saying his flying days are over. However there’s apparently cut stuff from the movie that says Lando has suffered a family tragedy-His baby daughter was kidnapped and introduced into the First Order’s Stormtrooper corps. This’ll become relevant later.

 

This leads to a chase scene that’s a fun little thing with flying Stormtroopers where the characters all say “They fly now!”. Although Flying Clonetroopers are seen in the Clone Wars and various other Star Wars stuff I don’t think we’ve really seen any flying Stormtroopers in the films apart from the EU. There’s also a new Stormtrooper vehicle that’s a mix between a treaded vehicle and a speeder bike.

After the final Stormtrooper dies in a sort of goofy way, the group slips into some quicksand near a ship that Rey thinks looks awfully familiar. Thankfully, this scene isn’t as goofy as another quicksand scene from another somewhat diminished Lucasfilm film series….although Finn does seem to say he’s always wanted to tell Rey something.

Turns out there’s a bottom, a cave system. There, they find what’s left of the Sith hunter- a skeleton-and a dagger. Unfortunately it’s written in some archaic Sith langauge that C-3PO can’t translate since the Old Republic senate presumably banned the language or something.

We soon find the predator of the Sith guy-a giant snake monster. ROS continues the tradition-although one kind of lacking in “Revenge of the Sith” and “Last Jedi”-of the heroes being threatened by hostile local wildlife-The Dianoga in Star Wars, the Wampa in ESB, The Rancor *and* the Sarlacc in ROTJ, The trio of sea monsters in TPM, the arena monsters in AOTC, AND the Raktars in TFA. Phew.

Thankfully Rey is able to tame the savage beast by healing it’s wound and they get out of the cave, but the First Order is nearby with the Knights of Ren, Kylo himself and a bunch of Stormtoopers. The crew powers up the Sith Hunter’s ship and we’re introduced to a new droid, D-0, who use to work for him but is fairly docile itself, although not quite fond of people considering who his master was.

However, Chewie gets captured, and then Kylo shows up with his new TIE fighter, the Whisper which is more or less souped up TIE interceptor, almost a bit of a downgrade from the Silencer from Last Jedi, with a more standard “eyeball” middle. Especially since Rey makes quick work of it, destroying the wings.

 

 

Ren of course recovers but now they have a force tug of war over a troop transport apparently containing Chewie. If you recall in the Last Jedi, that didn’t go too well for the old Skywalker lightsaber (although Rey was obviously able to fix it).

This doesn’t go too well either as Rey uses force lightning (a bit of a clue what’s coming) which destroys the transport and Chewie.

In the original, Legends Expanded Universe, Chewbacca dies during the opening acts of the Yuzzhan Vong war in “Vector Prime”, something done by the new publishers at the time (Del Rey) to show that the Vong were a very serious, game-changing threat.

However, we soon see a scene on the Star Destroyer, where it turns out Chewbacca is alive, there was just some last minute switch or something. It’s pretty much the same fake out “Raiders of the Lost Ark” pulled with Marion and the Basket chase, although in that movie, Indiana found out Marion was alive at the same time the audience did, whereas here Hux (and presumably Ren) know Chewie is alive. Too bad we never do get any sort of interaction between Ren and Chewie apart from him shooting Ren in the first movie. I mean, obviously the two probably knew each other, and would Chewie forgive Ren for Han’s death?

 

 

Next: Kimiji, where fears are awakened, destinies are foretold, and secrets are at long last revealed (including Poe’s)-That’s from the ESB special edition trailer BTW 🙂