By Roy Mathur, on 2023-01-30, at 23:07:00 to 23:47:45 GMT, for Captain Roy's Rusty Rocket Radio Show, Listen
Boldly Voyaging the Multiverse has moved from roymathur.wordpress.com to the self-hosted address- roymathur.com/blog/.
No Advertising and easier to control if I have to change hosts one day. The move was not without problems, but I seemed to have done it with no real problems.
Moolah (or lack thereof) means no FTL- that very popular multiplatform topdown rogue-alike.
It's back! (Premiered April 6 USA, 7 UK, 2014).
A fairly low key build, but as is traditional for GOT, we end the episode with the usual horrendous dose of gory violence to remind you that this is GOT!
I'm most curious to see whether Theron will be joining the choir as a soprano this season, but no news yet of his fate as he does not appear in this episode.
So, we catch up with the characters not killed off in last season's Red Wedding finale, as well as others.
Tywin Lannister, the puppet master has had two swords from the magical metal of the Starks' greatsword. One he gives to Jaime.
Joffrey is still a maniac preparing for his new manipulative bride Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer).
Shallow Cersei seems to have gone off Jaime Lannister who is getting used to having a metal hand! A metal hand! Right there's a another fantasy trope!
Emilia Clarke's Daenerys Targaryen is still off conquering, ammassing a huge army... also her dragons are growing ominiously large.
Peter Dinklage's Tyrion is trying his own hand at diplomacy with some vicious, ambisexual southerners played by Pedro Pascal (Oberyn Martell AKA "The Red Viper") and English actress Indira Varma (Ellaria Sand) (Kama Sutra, Luther). (Yay! Brown person in genre!)
Tyrion is also trying to console his new wife Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner), while placating his dangerously jealous girlfriend. It's not going to end well.
Jon Snow is back at Castle Black warning his fellow Rangers of the Nights' Watch of impending invasion.
Arya is being escorted to by the Hound to her Aunt Lysa in the Vale (in exchange for a reward).
As usual, I'm tending to follow Tyrion's story line the closest, though I also like Jon Snow and Arya.
Broadcast: 11 April 1964 - 16 May 1964
Writer: Terry Nation
Director: John Gorrie
Producer: Verity Lambert
Cast: William Hartnell as the Doctor, Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright and William Russell as Ian Chesterton (companions). George Coulouris as Arbitan.
Synopsis: After the narrow escape from the court of Kublai Khan, the team land on a beautiful beach with a huge structure poking out of a tropical jungle. Unbeknownst to the guys, three torpedo-like glass craft arrive at the beach and two weird amphibians get out. When the Doctor discovers the craft, he finds the third amphibious creature has dissolved after a lean in the craft let the sea in. The beautiful sea is, in fact deadly acid.
They make their way to the high-tech pyramid and meet Arbitan who guard the Conscience of Marinus- a giant mind-control computer that enforces peace on the planet. The amphibians turn out to be the stealing and criminal Voord, led by Yartek, who have found a way to resist the computer.
Arbitan says that after so many years the computer can now control the Voord, but needs to be reactivated by means of the Keys of Marinus. Arbitan forces the Doctor and the others to search the planet for the micro-chip keys by erecting a force-field around the TARDIS. He gives the team teleportation bracelets so that they might more quickly complete their mission.
They then journey to various parts of the planet which are markedly different jungle, arctic and a couple of urban environments. Along the way they are joined by Arbitan's daughter and boyfriend, who were sent on ahead, who help them.
Through solving, various puzzles and mysteries and undergoing the usual dangers they eventually retrieve all the keys and return to the pyramid. Unfortunately Yartek has beat them to it, disposed of Arbitan, and wants the keys to control the Consience and give him ultimate power over Marinus. He is in full supervillain mode by now, and actually, pretty disturbing in his horned rubber Voord mask.
Through a twist, he is foiled at the last minute and gets blown up, at which point the Doctor and his companions leave Marinus back in the hands of its people, who are finally free of both enforced peace through mind-control and the predations of the vile Voord. Free-will triumphs!
My View: It's generally pretty good, though a little drawn out and, of course, the now very familiar occasional screaming from the female companions in imminent peril.
Some parallels with Terry Nation's later Blake's 7 episode from the first series, episode four: Time Squad, with enigmatic, stalking killers.
A bit of Greek mythology thrown in too with the lotus-eaters adventure of Odysseus (which you might have seen a more current adaptation of in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010).
The idea of the teleport-bracelets seems straight out of the technology aboard the Liberator spaceship. Definite feel of quality SciFi with this adventure.
Steam with their Steam Machines have sort of managed it badly.
Ouya has kind of failed with their tiny Android console.
Apple have threatened, but not produced an Apple TV, and Forbes reported in January that Apple are planning to include console functionality. (And, did you know that this won't be the first time Apple has gone into the console market
back in the 90s there was the Apple Bandai Pippin... look it up!
Google bought Green Throttle, a smartphone game controller company a few weeks back.
Amazon have said that they want to get into gaming and now they are there already! In fact they've been here for a month. Behold Amazon's Fire TV a small set top box that comes with a remote AND a Nintendo/XBox(ish) XABY controller.
Is this the death knell for Xbox and PS? Nooo. Steam Machines will be high powered, but cost much more than XBox and PS, while these will be a lot cheaper and low powered and focus on ported Fire Kindle games. According to Wired.com 100 games now, and about 1000 in a month's time, but the point is that these games require much less from the graphics hardware. The games also cost less, so it seems to me like just another way to make money from the n00b or casual gamer.
But, just to through a spanner in the works, my choice for gaming is still the PC.
On Freesat, the Horror Channel have just announced that they have bought the rights to re-transmit the Doctor Who, Doctors 1--7 ending with Sylvester McCoy.
This podcast marathon seems quite timely. If you want to catch up, or listen in tandem with the Horror Channel screenings, just head over to iTunes and search for Roy's Rocket Radio and subscribe. The marathon starts at RRR 33 with An Unearthly Child. This episode will be broadcasted on Friday 18 April 2014 19:00 on Sky 319, Virgin 149 or Freesat 138.
The Amazing Spiderman 2 review coming soon (that's where the FTL money is going---another cinema "bargain" Tuesday).