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Doctor Who: Every Story 1963-2013

This video really is Doctor Who: Every Story 1963-2013, as compiled by the good folks at BabelColour. 13 Doctors in 13 minutes! And they don’t (he doesn’t would be more accurate, for even if his videos are group efforts, there is only one mind driving these productions) just cover the primary TV series; they also include the spinoffs, the specials, the webisodes, the games, and so much more. There is logic in the things he does not include as well; enjoy.

UPDATE: As some folks were kind enough to point out to me (see the comments), this is not a group effort, but the work of one person, named Stuart. That definitely makes this even more impressive than I thought it was when I believed there was an entire production team behind this video. The flip side of that is, I could have sworn the credits at the end of the video acknowledged other people who contributed to the production, several doing voice over work, one creating the music mix, and so forth. I suspect this may be a difference in degree, not kind, since the director always has the vision of what the final product will be, and assembles and edits the various parts of the production team’s work into that final result, after assigning them each their tasks and explaining what he/she needs from them.

Ylvis: Fox

I couldn’t help it, this song was too much fun. I Kveld Med YLVIS isn’t a band, it is a Norwegian talk/variety show with an attitude, and they originally did this track as another comedy skit on their show. It went somewhat viral, pulling in 359,757,676 views (as of the last time I checked), the equivalent of every man, woman, and child in the US watching it. They brought it to the BBC Children In Need Special produced every year to aid kids who might otherwise not get a chance to grow up, and were joined by a bunch of singers you should recognize; how many of them can you name? And then someone mashed it up with 2013’s other runaway silly song, Gangnam Style from Psy. Just goes to show, sometimes when you get silly the world notices and sings along.

Something to Watch: DVDs, 11Feb14

In movies, Ender’s Game was one of the rare films that is true to the book it is based on; both versions are telling exactly the same story. With an excellent cast, powerful performances, and amazing special effects, it is definitely worth joining anyone’s permanent collection. I don’t remember seeing The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box in theaters near me, but it is now coming to disc. It was meant to be the first in a series of YA Steampunk stories based in the Victorian Era’s British Empire, but it did not get good reviews or much in the way of box office revenues, so I suspect it will be the last, instead.

In TV, Sherlock: Season Three continues the brilliant series driven by Steven Moffat. I am seriously waiting for season 4 next year. The Returned is a twisty little series about a group of people who came home to learn that they had died years ago, and when the currently living start dying off it becomes obvious something has followed them back. It isn’t quite a remake of the TV show Les Revenants, but it lives in the same zip code. Doctor Who: The Moonbase is one of the lost stories, available only in partial video episodes, audio drama, or picture book form. It is one of the Patrick Troughton tales for which they have now used animation to restore, so you can watch all four episodes. Not as good as they did for Enemy Of The World or The Web Of Fear, where they actually recovered the original video footage to restore, but a step closer to getting the whole story the way it was meant to be experienced.

In Anime, Kamisama Kiss is about a ordinary young girl who suddenly became a god at the touch of a stranger’s lips. As she struggles to get her new realm under control, she realizes that life may be worth going for, after all. MM! is about a masochist named Sado who joins a club to seek help with his emotional problems. The clubs president may or may not be a god, but certainly wields some interesting powers, and some of the other members include a girl terrified of men and a nurse who forces all her patients to cosplay. The other club members are a bit strange, even by this groups reckoning. Finally, Strike Witches: Season 2 S.A.V.E Edition gives you the girls who were airplanes continuing to defend the home planet from alien invasion during WWII, at a very affordable price. The Funimation home page seems to be saying Season One S.A.V.E edition on BR/DVD is also about to come out, but since I already own it I have to believe they mean they will be re-releasing it. Or maybe the blurb is for a different country.

Something to Do: Movies, 7Feb13

There are an assortment of fun films coming to the big screen this week, starting with Vampire Academy, an action/comedy/fantasy that has an excellent soundtrack. If you want to skip the action component, try out The Lego Movie for a dose of pure silly fun. Also in the silly fun category although not strictly genre, A Fantastic Fear of Everything is a Simon Pegg comedy. It is a bit strange on the release dates, since it comes out this Friday in US movie theaters, but it came out on June 8th of 2012 in the UK, and you have been able to rent it to stream online for a while now. Also, the web site seems to be down, but I am including the link anyways in case it is just a server issue.

If you don’t feel like laughing this weekend, Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage is all about the action, and from the trailer at least looks to hold true to the original Sinbad tales. And one I would enjoy seeing on the big screen is being re-released in NYC, and with any luck perhaps it will have a limited run so the rest of us can see it. The French masterpiece Alphaville may not have invented Space Noir as a genre, but Jean-Luc Godard’s movie certainly put it in the public eye.

Something to Watch: DVDs

In Movies About Time is a romantic fantasy involving the Groundhog Day premise; you do each important event over until you get it right. It was in the theaters just a month or two back, I feel certain they are going after the Valentine crowd with this one. It is a very nicely done movie with a lot of heart, so not a bad choice. The animated comedy Free Birds also comes to disc, but although I am an animation fan I can’t say this one really caught my attention. A better bet for animated entertainment this week is Justice League: War, a direct to DVD feature film.

In TV, while not a fantasy, the historical epic The White Queen deserves a mention, about some power mad women who stopped at nothing to get on the British throne.

We do much better in Anime this week, leading off with Fairy Tail – Part 8. This magical guild continues to do as much damage to their fellow guilds and the surrounding buildings and terrain as they do to the demons they are called upon to defeat. AKB0048 Next Stage Complete Collection is a bit silly but a lot of fun, as season two rolls out the 77th generation of the ultimate IDOL group going across the galaxy singing and shooting. Why shooting? A number of planetary governments have outlawed “things that disturb the heart”, including music. So the girls swoop down on a planet, set up a live concert which is also spread on the planetary net, and sing and dance until the police and soldiers show up. At that point, they have to fight their way back off the planet and head for the next one. If nothing else, this series is a great way to collect a bunch of AKB48 music. BTW, the English version of their home page is broken at the moment, dumping you back to the Japanese version if you try to go to it, but all of their other English pages appear to be working.

Blessing of the Campanella: Complete Collection is a mash up of medieval quests and robotic harems, with supernatural meteor showers and automaton artisans. Plus a lot of time spent hanging out at the beach in between quests and mysteries. This package includes all 12 episodes of the series plus the OVA. I found the provenance of this a bit confusing at first, since the home page with streaming video in the US is over at Funimation, but the DVD release is coming from Nozomi/Lucky Penny/Right Stuf. It turns out that the original simulcast run was at Funimation in 2010, with a DVD release from that distributor in 2011. Normally I do not post re-releases here unless they are important in some way, but I completely missed the series the first time around. Since it is new to me, I am claiming that as justification and posting it anyways.