Lost Doctor Who Episodes Found In Africa, and the Regeneration Limit

Krypton Radio reports via the BBC and other news agencies that lost episodes of Doctor Who have been discovered in Africa.

Some new episodes of the popular BBC science fiction television series have been found in the archives of the Ethiopia Radio and Television Agency, and as the dust settles from the discovery it appears that 90 episodes are being recovered.  In fact, it is looking like everything that had been lost is now found again, according to Bleeding Cool, except “nine episodes of The Dalek Master Plan, plus Mission To The Unknown, two episodes of The Invasion, two episodes of The Ice Warriors, and two episodes of The Wheel In Space.”

This is very good news for fans worldwide, who have had to be content with surviving audio and still photographs in place of the missing episodes.  What's more, with the show's fiftieth anniversary coming up next month, it gives fans another chance to become acquainted with the legendary William Hartnell, the first actor to portray the enigmatic Time Lord from Gallifrey in his broken old T.A.R.D.I.S.

Rumors frequently circulate about lost episodes in the hands of private collectors, but only seldom do they prove true.  In the vastly finite wisdom of its earlier days, the BBC destroyed or recorded over its video tapes and film reels, or sold them off, not realizing the future potential in raking in money from home video sales.  As a result, many episodes of many television shows are now "lost", and can only be recovered if copies are found from stations in other countries that preserved them, or from people who were prescient enough to record them when they were first broadcast.

So this latest rediscovery is good news for Doctor Who fans, and for the BBC.  I for one am looking forward to seeing the recovered episodes in all their remastered glory.

Oh!  It seems the issue of the Doctor's thirteen-life-limit will be addressed.  Departing actor Matt Smith, who plays the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor, is handing the role over to Peter Capaldi in the Christmas episode at the end of this year, leaving only one or two more lives for the Time Lord under current series canon.  But Stephen Moffat hinted back in August that a way will be written into the show that resolves the limit on Time Lord lives, and others have speculated on how the 12-regeneration limit could be breached.  Obviously the BBC isn't going to let one of its biggest cash cows be canceled for lack of a plausible writing gimmick, so don't be surprised to see the issue resolved soon.

I'll be back next week with a review of a recent Who episode, as soon as I dig my DVDs out of boxes.  Until then...see you in the Time Vortex!

Ego, and Linden Lab's Bad Decisions

Someone's got a really inflated sense of his own importance in the SL Doctor Who fan sphere, and after a couple of months of absence is claiming that without him the whole lot is dying off -- people are losing interest without him there to do all the marketing yadda yadda yadda, and the BBC wants nothing to do with SL after seeing how many self-absorbed jerks are present not only in the SL Whovian community but across the sci-fi fan base in general.

Granted, there is a grain of truth somewhere in all of this idiot's egotistical nonsense.  Certain regions never got the sheer amount of daily traffic others have, due mainly to being clique-ish, elitist, drama-causing jerks.  No one likes to put up with bad attitudes, and word of mouth spreads rather quickly to kill off groups, businesses, and communities that engage in that sort of behavior.  "We're the best around and our sh** doesn't stink" and "those other peeps are a**holes" only gets you so far, and then all you've got is an empty region no one wants to visit because you're all too busy having yourselves a circle jerk to notice that your attitude is what's driving people away.

So the claim that certain Whovian regions in SL are dying has some merit, but it has little to do with not having a certain lying, conniving, warpath-trodding bully around to handle all the marketing and do the bulk of the public relations.  It has more to do with bad attitudes, and Mr. Loser has the biggest, baddest one of them all, which is more than likely the primary reason he was finally pushed out of the Whovian region he called home for so many years.  Yet he'll continue to blame everyone but himself for his troubles and gloat over the havoc he thinks he's wreaked, and all because he couldn't be the one and only big dog in the proverbial kennel.

Ego.  It ruins a hell of a lot for a lot of people, and in SL it's no different.

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But more than anything, if there is a decline in the SL Whovian community, I suspect it's more a symptom of a wider problem in SL altogether: ridiculously high tier and bad business decisions by Linden Lab that are combining to cripple Second Life itself.

Let me explain.

By acquiring xStreetSL and transforming it into the marketplace, even going so far as to convert to direct product upload instead of the magic boxes (which required at least some small bit of virtual land), the need for maintaining a highly expensive in-world store was effectively eliminated.  Why spend hundreds of dollars of real money per month on a virtual region and maybe barely break even, or worse, lose money, when you can use a sandbox to build and upload content to the marketplace, thus eliminating a huge chunk of overhead cost?  With tier remaining at an all time high and real-world incomes shrinking for most SL users, the writing was on the wall as to what the consequences would be, and the consequences include the steady loss of privately-owned regions that can now only be stemmed with cutting tier across the board.

To be fair, Linden Lab does seem to have finally learned from its mistake in eliminating the non-profit-education discount, and reversed that decision earlier this summer.  This may help attract educational institutions and non-profits to return to the grid, though many may not want to come back after having been burned before by LL and they may not like all the new restrictions placed on content ownership on the grid.  Basically, Linden Lab claims rights to all content created on the grid, and has moved to block people from being able to save their own created content for use on competing grids, effectively putting up a very high, very thick wall between Second Life and real-world people whose content has helped generate a lot of money for the Lab over the last ten years.  Other grids, such as InWorldz and Avination, have far fewer restrictions or none at all, and sim-on-a-stick has freed up a lot of content creators to save their work to a format that allows them to practically take it wherever they wish.

So right now Linden Lab is betting that its other computer games will salvage the company's prospects, while belatedly realizing that some of its past business decisions pertaining to Second Life simply aren't sustainable in the long run and is now slowly working to remedy those mistakes.

Will Linden Lab eventually lower region tier pricing across the board?  Sooner later it'll have to.  No business that wants to remain open keeps its prices high in the midst of record low demand, especially when demand is so low because of an ongoing economic depression that shows no sign of recovery.

Wages have to go up and prices have to come down, in order for people to start spending again.  That's economic reality.  Only time will tell id the geniuses at Linden Lab will wake up to it.

Review: The Name of the Doctor

Talk about titles that mislead, but don't!  The episode isn't about "the name of the Doctor".  It's about the Name of the Doctor: The Doctor, the title, the name he's chosen for himself, and the secret the revalation of which has ramifications throughout the Whoniverse.

Stephen Moffat left us with a cliffhanger ending that introduced (SPOILER ALERT) John Hurt as a future (?) incarnation of the Doctor.  Why the FUCK has he been holding out on us, letting mediocre stories get produced for the second half of Series 7, when he could have made them all awesomely epic and well written?  I don't know and I no longer care.  Moffat really ought to be sacked and replaced with someone who can write well and do it consistently.

Okay, now that I've gone off on my usual tangent, there was actually a lot to like about this episode and a lot not to like, but nothing I could really stay angry about.  Madame Vastra visits a prison, where a deranged convicted murderer waiting to be hanged offers information about the Doctor and Trenzalore in return for his life being spared.  The information turns out to be the location of Trenzalore, where the Doctor's future corpse is buried.  This sets off the story's action, and things get really bad really quickly.

There were a lot of things I didn't like, chief among them being the complete lack of the Silence, the group led by the Edward Munch-looking aliens, which has been trying to prevent the Doctor from ever going to Trenzalore for fear of what the revelation of his greatest secret will do to them.  Well, it seems that, going by what cryptic information this episode gave us, Trenzalore may in fact be the Silents' homeworld, or at least, their primary base of operations, or maybe just the place of their final defeat at the Doctor's hands.  We don't know, because nothing was revealed along those lines.  Instead, we got the Great Intelligence making another appearance, apparently trying to uncover the Doctor's Big Secret as a means of gaining its final revenge on the Time Lord, in an apparently completely unrelated plot.

Granted, the Doctor faked his death to get the Silence off his back, but still, for all the trouble they cause throughout Series 5 with blowing up the TARDIS and destroying all of Creation, and throughout Series 6 with their ploy to turn Amy Pond's and Rory Williams' daughter into a weapon with which to kill the Doctor, you'd think Moffat would have brought them back.  But no, instead we get the Great Intelligence, with no hint as to any previous involvement in any of this, on his own quest to kill the Doctor.  That just annoys the hell out of me.  Moffat, you botched it again in that department!  A pox upon your house!

On the other hand, we finally get the explanation for Clara and how and why she has existed in time and space before.  No, she's not Bad Wolf II like I initially thought.  Just watch the episode and you'll see.  I did like all the appearances of the Doctor's past selves, which included William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and (only as a stuntman dressed in costume) Christopher Eccleston.  We didn't get to see Paul McGann or David Tennant, either through footage or stunt doubles, as with the others.  That was odd, but we should really see all the Doctors in some way in November for the 50th Anniversary episode.  Anything less would be a huge letdown.

Now, as I wrote above, the cliffhanger ending was fantastic and introduced us to a (possibly) future incarnation of the Doctor — perhaps the Final Doctor — played by legendary actor John Hurt.  Only Hurt could portray a guilt-wracked Time Lord the way the future and Final Doctor must ultimately be played.  Brilliant casting decision there.  Oh, and if you're wondering how River Song could be in this episode after her doomed trip to the Library, well, it's Moffat's typically throwaway non-explanation.  I'll just say that even with that monumental cheat, the chemistry between Matt Smith and Alex Kingston was superb and undoubtedly caused quite the number of tears for many audience members.

So, I give "The Name of the Doctor" a B+ or A-.  Moffat still gets a big fat F- from me, but we'll see how the 50th Anniversary goes.

For an alternate take, go here.

Review: Journey to the Center of the TARDIS

I've got mixed feelings about this episode.  On the one hand, it was enjoyable seeing areas of the new TARDIS, which included a glimpse at the swimming pool, the library, an observatory, and even the Doctor's store room of cherished mementos.  On the other hand, the story was mediocre, which is to be expected from a show run by Stephen Moffat, and the ending was another "it never happened" cheat that abused time travel as a storytelling aspect.

Yes, I just gave you a major spoiler.  Considering how awful it was, you're not missing anything by knowing how the episode ends.

Okay, the plot revolves around the Doctor, Clara, and a trio of space salvage brothers as they try to save themselves from hideous burnt-mummy-clay-things.  At the same time the Doctor sets the TARDIS controls to a level Clara is able to handle, in an effort to bring her and the ancient time ship closer together, the salvagers lock a powerful tractor beam on the exterior, which happens to be materialized in space, heavily damaging the TARDIS.  Upon waking up from under the junk pile where the salvage team's spaceship dropped the exterior, the Doctor then proceeds to threaten them to help him locate Clara, who is lost somewhere inside the TARDIS, by activating a self destruct sequence.  And as is quickly evident, the five are not alone, and soon five become four.

There were a few nice touches, such as when one salvager removes a console panel only to hear the echoes of voices from the past, bringing us another reminder of the classic series, and another when Clara discovers the library and, irritated and impressed at the same time, reacts with the line, "now you're just showing off."  Also, while there, Clara makes an interesting if predictable discovery that, really, shouldn't have been included -- at least not the way it was in this episode.

So we have yet another contrived ending that once again leaves us feeling robbed of what should have been an epic moment in the development of Clara's and the Doctor's relationship.  I give "Journey to the Center of the TARDIS" a C- for poor writing.  I give Stephen Moffat a big fat F for his atrocious handling of Series 5-7.

Drama-Causing RFL Control Freaks

The title of this entry looks more hostile than this post is meant to be, so before I begin let me just get that out of the way.  It's meant to convey what something actually is, and really, there's no "diplomatic" way to describe it without offending.  In that way it's a lot like describing certain politicians and political movements.  Some people get upset when you call something what it is, and more because the notion that what you're describing really is exactly what you call it is just too disturbing to contemplate.

But I digress.  Recently someone I respect posted a blog entry complaining about another group doing a tribute event in memory of a particular person who passed away from cancer.  Because this person I respect considers the other group as rivals, he thinks it's in poor taste and was a deliberate attempt to use a dead person in order to steal traffic away from another club.

The problem with this is that no evidence is offered to prove that this was the case and not the alleged rival group genuinely wanting to do tribute to someone they knew and respected.  And that brought up memories of an incident from earlier this year involving yours truly, in which this someone leaped to conclusions that had no basis in fact.

At the beginning of this year I decided to get actively involved in a Relay For Life team.  Since I didn't have the desire or the time to be a team leader, I thought it would be better to join an existing team.  So I joined a group that was owned by this certain someone.

Here's where things went wrong: I had an off-season donation kiosk rezzed from last year in New London.  It had been in the sim, literally, for months.  I wanted to set the kiosk so it would register donations for the RFL team I'd just joined but didn't know how to do it.  And as it turns out, it couldn't be done anyway, but at the time I didn't know that.  So I asked in the RFL team's group chat how to set the kiosk.  Seems reasonable, right?

The reaction was anything but reasonable.  The group owner accused me of causing drama and ejected me from the group.  He also proceeded to eject a friend of mine whom I'd convinced to get involved and accused him of being an alt.  All this was without any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of either of us — my only "crime" was in asking how to set a kiosk that had already been rezzed for a year.  This group owner now claims I was trying to hack the kiosk, which is ridiculous.  The whole time I got the impression that the real reason for this extreme behavior had to do with control, that is, the group owner went apes*it at any action — no matter how small — taken without his foreknowledge and consent.

It's understandable to enforce discipline as leader of a group.  That's how successful groups operate.  But it's another thing entirely to micromanage things to the point where even asking an innocent question relating to the group's purpose is considered grounds for ejection and false accusations.

That's when I formed my own RFL team.  We weren't able to raise much, but we raised enough that our efforts were recognized by RFL.  I hope that next year we can raise more in the fight against cancer.

The saddest part of all this is that none of it needed to happen.  The team leader I'm writing about never had to do anything except simply answer the question I asked by pointing out that off-season kiosks can't be set to record information for a team.  If he'd just done that I'd have accepted it and none of what took place after would have occurred.  I'd have happily kept working within his group to help raise money for RFL.

But what I've come to realize about this person is that while he claims to dislike drama, he is very often the initiator of it.  There's a "holier-than-thou" attitude at work combined with an extreme need to control everything down to the smallest matter, the latter of which I've seen present in enough members of my own family not to tolerate it.  Again, I actually respect this person because for all the drama he likes to create and blame others for, he seems like someone who genuinely believes in doing what's right and for the right reasons.  But his ego drives him to make everything revolve around himself and he can't go without finding fault in what other people do, no matter how innocent or well intended.

Relay For Life shouldn't be about feeding egos or claiming bragging rights.  It also shouldn't be used to press grudges against others.  RFL is a charity organization for raising money toward cancer research in hopes of finding a cure.  That is how it should be treated.  It shouldn't be misused, whether by assholes with malicious intent or by misguided but otherwise good folk.  I hope the person I'm writing about understands and accepts this, and accepts that not everything revolves around him.

Real-Life Instability

Okay, next week is probably going to see me absent from SL for an extended period of time.  There are some reasons for this that I'll explain here.  I'm posting this in case anyone who reads this blog wonders why I'm not online.

The happier part of my explanation is that I've not only started classes again at college, but that after nearly four long years I've finally got a job — with the college itself!  Okay, it's a part-time position with a maximum allowance of twenty hours per week; this is because college policy forbids the institution from saddling student employees with so much work that it hinders their academic pursuits.  It's also minimum wage, so I really can't sustain myself with it.  Still, it's better than nothing and I for one am supremely grateful for the position, which came at a badly needed time.

Which brings me to the monumentally screwed up part of my explanation.  It's long and may be a bit rambling, but please bear with me.

Back in July my younger brother decided to barge in on me unannounced — no phone call or e-mail to let me know he was coming over.  He takes a look at the clutter of my living area upstairs from my parents, and decides to give me one of his patented lectures on how I live my life.  Since I was unemployed, had no access to on-site laundry facilities or money for the laundromat, and extremely limited space to put things, naturally things are going to pile up.  I'm not saying I couldn't have made more of an effort to keep the place looking better than it did, but my situation simply does not allow me to do much, especially when I am literally forbidden access to cleaning materials needed to help keep the place up.  I make do with what I have.  Anyway, I told him to fuck off as anyone in my position would, and the little stain left promising to call the authorities and have me forcibly removed from the house.

Then, on August 5th, he brought over two women from the county board of mental health services to evaluate me — again with no prior announcement whatsoever.  After asking me some rather stupid and insulting questions, they left.  Whatever he hoped to "prove" to the board of mental health about me, it was a spectacular failure on his part.

So Monday the 8th comes along.  Another unannounced visit.  Younger brother hands me a thirty day notice signed by my mother to vacate the premises.  If I'm not out by the 7th of this month, they will proceed to deliver a three-day notice.  When I've failed to move out by then, a court hearing will be scheduled to evict me.  That take anywhere from two to three weeks, maybe less than two weeks.  It really depends on how busy the court docket is.  If I can't convince the magistrate to give me more time, I will be rendered homeless.  It is highly unlikely that I will be able to keep a roof over my head.  This may, in fact, be the last entry I'm able to make for a long, long time.  It may be my final entry, period.

All I can really do at this point is to try to convince the housing court magistrate that I've just started a new job and that I am willing to begin paying rent again, albeit with a firmly established and legally binding lease agreement that will protect me from unlawful retaliation, and hope that he or she gives me the necessary time to save up and move back out on my own.  After so many years of unemployment, and with wages stagnant while the cost of living goes up exponentially, it really is extremely tough trying to live in this country (the Corporate-Owned States of America).  It is unforgiving to the poor and without mercy.

Wish me luck, offer prayers, send money if you can and you're willing.  Because if I become homeless, I really don't think I will survive.  I probably won't starve; I bought the college meal plan and so will be able to get at least five meals a week until the end of the semester as long as I can keep my student identification card.  My job will provide me with regular enough income that I can replenish some of what I've spent of my financial aid money and, I hope, save for a cheap apartment somewhere and store my belongings.  But I can suffer and die from exposure, and news articles I've read on how homeless people are regularly assaulted by everyone from cops to spoiled rich kids fill me with dread.  To say that I am scared would be an understatement.

That's it for my explanation.  I hope to see (and be seen by) my friends soon.

Unnecessary Drama at the Convention

I read this morning a disturbing blog entry by a certain "member" of the SL Whovian community accusing another group of violating rules at the SL Sci-Fi Convention this year.  I am not going to name names here, though screen captures will unavoidably show the information, but I want to make this about the act, not the people involved.  To correct the official record, the accuser's allegations are false, as can be demonstrated by reading the rules pertaining to donations to Relay for Life by vendors.

Booth Prims:

- 384 - Non-vendors & non-sponsors (Free)

- 384 - Vendors & non-sponsors ($250 L or 10% of sales going to the charity.)

- 500 - Sponsors ($16,000 L)

The above is copied and pasted from the convention rules regarding sponsors and vendors.  The group being falsely accused is donating fifteen percent of its sales to the event's charity sponsor.  No rules are being violated by the accused, as far as security can determine.  There is no one affiliated with the accused group claiming to be part of Relay for Life SL group or trying to confuse people as to which group is which.  Others have reported the accusers to convention administrators for clarification and to end the harassment and defamation, especially since the accuser is a sponsor at the convention and should know better than to pull a stunt like this at an event co-created by someone who was sick of politics and fighting and wanted a way to unite people under a common cause to help others.  Whatever other actions taken to report the offense, I don't know, but I can't imagine they won't be taken.  Screencaps are posted below in case the accuser removes the entry and denies what he wrote.

The accused group was not even going to have a booth at this year's convention because of the accuser's constant drama-causing, both in-world and off-world.  But I talked them into attending so they would not be chased away or excluded from yet another SL event, like they were from the Designing Worlds broadcast at SL's 8th Birthday celebration.  The SL Whovian community is larger than any one group or region, and it is wrong for any group to be excluded, defamed, harassed, and bullied — especially for the stupid reason of the accuser simply being too childish to share his Doctor Who geekdom with anyone else.  The accuser is deliberately and maliciously trying to destroy the SL Whovian and Sci-Fi communities just so he can stroke his own ego by pretending he's Master of the Universe.  This has GOT to stop.*

UPDATE (3:18PM EDT-12:18PM SLT): The accuser in this latest bit of melodrama has now resorted to sending out a group notice in-world with this false allegation of his, trying to bully people into booting his rivals from the convention.  I am told that he has been reported to Linden Labs and to convention authorities.  It is bad enough to use Relay for Life and the American Cancer Society as weapons in a personal feud against another region from an off-world blog.  But now he's bringing it into SL, which can and should be reported to Linden Labs for harassment and defamation of another individual or group.

UPDATE (4:20PM ETD/1:20PM SLT): I have been informed that the thread in question has now generated a number of comments, some of which the accuser has apparently deleted in an effort to protect his lie from the Truth. A poster named Wolf apparently read this blog entry and posted what I wrote above in the thread.  Here is the comment screen capture:

The accuser has since updated his entry to post a like to the American Cancer Society's rules regarding donations of proceeds from non-sponsor vendors, but those rules do not appear to apply in this case.  The rules pertain to people actively participating in the Relay for Life group or groups in Second Life, not specifically to non-sponsor vendors.  A ten percent minimum donation was asked by Sci-Fi convention admins of vendors, which the accused has done in compliance with said request.  In fact, they're giving more than the minimum amount asked.  This is just my theory, and may or may not be correct, but I think the reason the accuser has chosen to pull this stunt today is because he thought he had successfully chased his rival away from yet another event involving the SL Whovian community, and was livid at having been denied what I'm sure he saw as a victory over his sworn foes.  The accuser has not only been caught telling a major lie, but he screwed up royally by posting it in-world to smear another group.  That is a breach of LL terms of use, as he well knows.  I will keep you updated as more information follows.

UPDATE (6:19PM EDT/3:19PM SLT): IFT Sci-Fi Alliance, which runs the SL Sci-Fi Convention, just sent out the following notice regarding sales-sharing and Relay for Life:

The RFL rules are clear on this...  You can split your profits from vendor sales by sharing it, but unless you give 100% of sales to the American Cancer Society, you cannot promote it using their name.  I am told this reason is to reduce their liability on any fraud.  Plus, I believe they prefer people be using their vendors if that is the case.  See the attached notecard for details.

From the attached notecard:

If an individual would like to donate a portion of their store sales, tips or proceeds to RFL of SL, they may advertise that they support RFL of SL on signage in their establishment or venue and drop any monies they choose into a kiosk.  They may NOT advertise that a percentage or portion  goes to RFL of SL, nor that their sale is a RFL of SL event. 

It has also come to my attention that Laredo Lowtide of TARDIS region has been in contact with the Relay for Life people and been assured that they have no problem with New London Systems or TARDIS region's booth at the convention.  As usual, a certain someone is making a big stink over nothing in order to stroke his massive ego.  For the record, some of us have loste friends, relatives, and acquaintances to cancer over the years.  One person I know through SL told me she lost a close relative yesterday to cancer.  I have a history of cancer in my family, and a few years ago I had to have two abnormal moles removed because the dermatologist was concerned that they could devlop into malignancies.  So this latest round of dishonesty and bullshit hits pretty close to home for many people.  It was performed maliciously and knowing full well that the accusations were wholly fabricated.  If any mistake was made by anyone, it was in the outright refusal to take the matter up in private with the proper authorities and the decision instead to transform what should have been a fun event for every sci-fi and Doctor Who fan, that serves the worthy cause of fighting cancer, into just another excuse to wage war against a rival group.  That is absolutely disgusting and there is no excuse for it.  The truly guilty parties, having been thwarted in their latest attempt to exclude their rivals from a popular SL event, have desecrated the cause of fighting cancer and put a serious damper on everyone's good time.

*: The accuser has a legitimate grievance with me, for reasons I have stated in previous entries and which I will not go into here.  But his efforts to punish everyone else he doesn't like by spreading lies must be challenged.  Bullying, defamation, and harassment cannot, must not, and should not be tolerated.