Radio Free Skaro #948 - Cosmic Joyride

Radio Free Skaro #948 - Cosmic Joyride - Sunday wrap-up at #gally1 - Disney+ #DoctorWho launch! - Interviews with Shaun Lyon and Simon Guerrier! - Peter Harness previews Constellation on Apple TV+!

http://traffic.libsyn.com/freyburg/rfs948.mp3 Download MP3 That’s a wrap from Gallifrey One this year, but what a weekend it was! Disney+ chose Gallifrey One as the time and the place to launch their promo campaign for Doctor Who, including a special message to the convention and a new promotional poster. Gallifrey One Program Director Shaun Lyon tells us what went into that. Also, Simon…

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Constellation — first look at new Apple TV+ science fiction series

Constellation — first look at new Apple TV+ science fiction series

Apple TV+ has shared a couple of first look images for Constellation, a new science fiction series coming to the streamer 21 February 2024. It’s nice to see someone bringing more science fiction to the small screen, and it joins the stable of shows including Invasion, Severance, Silo and For All Mankind (the degree to which some of these are science fiction is perhaps debatable). Here’s the show…

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A Ghost Story for Christmas: A View from a Hill (BBC, 2005)

"Who's Baxter?"

"He was a watchmaker down in the village. Well before my time, of course. Fancied himself an archaeologist, like yourself."

"Well... I am an archaeologist. Actually, I'm a doctor."

"I'll have to get you to take a look at my feet."

It’s hard to believe there was once a time when “divisive” in fandom just meant people thinking the idea of the moon being a big egg was silly. Oh for those days.

Anyway, in an article that’s actually more about his upcoming Target Books novelization of the Zygon Invasion/Inversion, Peter Harness said he wouldn’t want to revise the Kill the Moon episiode from Series 8, other than perhaps restoring a deleted scene. 

Hi lack of interest in revising past works bodes well for his Zygon novel adhering closely to the TV story (hopefully meaning we won’t see, for example, references to a future Doctor which has happened in a few cases). As the first novelization set during the “peak Whouffaldi” era it’ll be interesting to see how much if any of that aspect is reflected in the book. Keep in mind that, while there have most definitely been examples of writers who have been on board with the idea (Moffat being one), others have either not realized or have chosen to downplay this aspect. I don’t know what camp Harness falls into.

The Zygon Invasion novelization is due for release in the UK in July (alongside a few others such as a rewritten version of the Tom Baker-era Warriors’ Gate). North American release usually occurs a few months later for these books.

Doctor Who books out in July, writers revealed

Five new Doctor Who novels will be released in July. Here's a guide to the titles and their authors, who include Stephen Gallagher and Peter Harness

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Constellation (Apple TV +)   Season 1.  Review.  .  

 NOTE Having started this season without seeing any marketing beyond the fact it was sci-fi from Apple TV + and starred Noomi Rapace   Having sat through all eight episodes it’s hard to know exactly how much to give away in this review from a synopsis perspective but ( Like the show itself)  This viewer will keep it as vague as possible.  As the years progress, the Apple TV + series catalogue…

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March 2024. Stop me if you've heard this one before: a high-end, made-for-streaming sci-fi psychological thriller miniseries (check) about a troubled female astronaut from a Western European country (check) who returns to Earth following disturbing events aboard the International Space Station (check) that result in her sanity being questioned (check) — no thanks to her drippy, condescending husband (check), whose reflexive gaslighting and willful obtuseness make things materially worse for everyone (check) — and causes a serious crisis for her precocious, troubled preadolescent daughter (check) that said drippy husband doesn't know how to deal with constructively (check) even in the face of an ongoing threat (check and double-check!).

Every part of the above description applies equally to the four-part DAS SIGNAL, starring Peri Baumeister (who's okay) as astronaut Paula Groth, Florian David Fitz (who's dreadful) as drippy husband Sven, and Yuna Bennett (who's adorable) as troubled daughter Charlie, and the eight-part CONSTELLATION, starring Noomi Rapace (who's okay) as astronaut Johanna Ericsson, James D'Arcy (who's dreadful) as drippy husband Magnus, and Rosie Coleman (who's outstanding) as troubled daughter Alice; it's often said there are no truly original ideas, but I think you'll agree that this is a peculiar degree of coincidence for two apparently unrelated streaming projects running more or less concurrently, even if their actual plots diverge quite a bit.

Of the two, DAS SIGNAL is definitely the inferior effort, in large part because it very unwisely chooses to focus not on the troubled astronaut (who dies in a suspicious plane crash in the first episode), but rather on the drippy husband (whose actor (Fitz) cowrote the script); Paula's story, which is related to mysterious work she was doing for a Sikh billionaire (Sheeba Chaddha), is told in flashback, but Sven is, regrettably, the main character. Not only is he an inappropriate protagonist whose Horror Movie Husband intransigence constantly works against rather than toward a solution to the mystery, his unmerited condescension toward his late wife (even after all has been revealed) is emblematic of the story's deep-seated disdain for women in general and in particular for Paula, who's treated with such uncomfortable, obviously gendered contempt throughout that it eventually renders big segments of the plot completely nonsensical. Incoherent character motivations and an exhausting series of plot reversals in the final episode suck any remaining life out of the premise, and the infuriating bait-and-switch ending then attempts to trick its way out of delivering the emotional payoffs the story has repeatedly promised. I walked away mad.

For a while, CONSTELLATION seems like a big improvement: Drippy husband Magnus is even worse than drippy husband Sven, but the focus stays primarily on Jo and Alice (whose bleak thousand-yard stare becomes increasingly understandable as the story unfolds), and Jonathan Banks is good as former astronaut turned flight director Henry Caldera, who, like Jo and Alice, begins to sense that something is very wrong. The first six episodes take the time to establish a mounting sense of dread, with some nice eerie moments (kind of Richard Kelly Lite), and while viewers will likely grasp what's going on long before the characters do, there are a number of unexpected twists to keep things interesting.

The wheels start to come off in Episode 7, which finally confirms what the audience has already surmised about what's happening, but sacrifices too much plot logic for the sake of its narrative contrivances. It would probably still have been salvageable at that point, but the final episode slams the brakes on the narrative momentum, deliberately leaves all of the major story threads frustratingly unresolved, and then resorts to an incredibly bizarre EC Comics shock ending (which creator Peter Harness admits was a last-minute whim) that completely torches what's left of the story's credibility without altering the sense of downbeat anticlimax. Harness also contrives an unconvincing romantic reconciliation between Jo and Magnus, who has somehow managed to get her pregnant; I'd spent the last few episodes hoping he would finally suffer some appropriate narrative comeuppance (e.g., falling through the ice or being pushed down the stairs) for his stubborn refusal to give his wife or daughter the benefit of the doubt, but Harness apparently assumed that the audience would view Magnus far more generously than I did. It adds insult to injury in what's already a deeply unsatisfying ending.

CONTAINS LESBIANS? Nein! Not a single one in either series, WTF? VERDICT: Two houses, alike in misogyny (and willful anticlimax) — DAS SIGNAL never rises above "mediocre" and has no real redeeming factors other than slick production values and the adorable Yuna Bennett; CONSTELLATION could easily have been a perfectly decent moderately creepy thriller, but its catastrophically terrible ending makes it impossible to recommend except perhaps as a cautionary tale for aspiring writers. Both are complete disasters, and among the biggest disappointments of the season.

Constellation Trailer

After an disaster in space, astronaut Jo returns to Earth to find key pieces of her life missing. Desperate, she attempts to "expose the truth about the hidden history of space travel and recover all that she has lost." (Apple TV)

Constellation stars Noomi Rapace, Jonathan Banks, James D'Arcy, Julian Looman, Will Catlett, Barbara Sukowa, Rose Coleman, and Davina Coleman. The series is created and written by Peter Harness and directed by Michelle MacLaren, Oliver Hirschbiegel, and Joseph Cedar.

Constellation hits Apple TV+ on February 21, 2024.

BBC Books Celebrates 50 Years of Target Books With Five New Doctor Who Novelisations

BBC Books Celebrates 50 Years of Target Books With Five New #DoctorWho Novelisations

Five new Target novelisations featuring the Fourth, Tenth, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Doctors will be released in July, celebrating half a century of the Target Books range. Each book will come with new cover artwork by the sensational Anthony Dry, a friend of the DWC! The titles are: Warriors’ Gate��and Other StoriesPlanet of the OodThe Waters of MarsThe Zygon InvasionKerblam! These will all be…

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just fell to my knees

look at them look at them look at them look at them look at th

Do you ever think if the marauders understood hindi they would enjoy the song Har Ek Friend Kamina Hota Hai or is it just me?

I mean their friendship dynamic is A LOT different. But still.... Would they???

Pt 1, 2, 3, 4

This is part 2 of my Bollywood x Harry Potter fic ideas

@foreignink

Trevor Watson: Bum out - Peter Pan Goes Wrong

From Clare Noy's Mischief instagram takeover

I'm re-entering the MCU fandom after quite some time and I've started rewatching everything that contains Loki because... well... it's Loki.

I saw Thor and Avengers and all I could think about was:

self-isolating tendencies? crippling depression? fear of interacting with others? no, my good sir, I am not severely mentally ill. I am simply becoming an avatar of the lonely. bring me peter lukas at once.