Doctor Who: The Ark

The Whoathon slogs on. It's getting harder to get through the end of the 1st Doctor's tenure, especially with such terrible companions. Dodo is incredibly annoying. She is so awful, she has me longing for the days of Susan. So in the four-part serial, the Doctor, Steven, and Dodo arrive on a spaceship.

This ship is carrying the population of Earth, both human and animal, and a group of aliens called the Monoids. It's ten million years in the future, and Earth is about to be swallowed by an expanding sun. So they're making a 700-year journey to another planet to make a new home. But wait, Dodo brings the common cold along and almost kills them all since they have no resistance. Luckily, the Doctor finds a cure and they go on their way.

The TARDIS dematerializes and reappears in the same location. But now it's 700 years later. The Monoids are in control of the ship, all because that cold wasn't really cured by the Doctor. It mutated, and the Monoids enslaved the weakened humans. Let's make a long story short...too late. The Monoids are jerks who want to leave the humans on the ship and blow it up. Some of them don't. They fight amongst themselves, and the humans and the good Monoids live on the planet together with the current, invisible (?) inhabitants. The end. I recommend skipping this one, although I did think that ending part two with them leaving and starting part three with them materializing 700 years later in the same place was great. Too bad it didn't live up to its potential. Maybe if they had left Dodo on this planet...

THE RUNDOWN

Doctor: First
Companions: Steven, Dodo
Episode: #23, "The Ark," four parts- 'The Steel Sky,' 'The Plague,' 'The Return,' 'The Bomb'
Adversary: the Monoids
Classic Lines: while the Doctor is giving Steven the treatment, Dodo, to the Doctor: "Don’t you have to squirt it into his arm?" the Doctor, in reply: "What with a hypodermic needle? Good gracious, no. That went out a long time ago."
Tuck This Away to Impress Your Friends: The treatment for the common cold devised by the Doctor was a mixture made from animal membranes.
Next Up: "The Celestial Toymaker"

Coffee cake

I've always liked coffee cake, but I've never tried making it. I follow David Lebovitz's blog, and he made this recently, adapted from a cookbook he liked. You can find the recipe here.

YUM. It was good stuff. My family went nuts for it.

There's a thick layer of topping. Delicious. I was worried that the topping seemed too wet when I was putting it on the cake batter, but it turned out great. The cake tasted much better the next day, too.

Not that it wasn't good the night I made it...but it was fantastic the next day. This is definitely a keeper.

Beagle birthday!

Kenobi's birthday is next week. He will be 14! Well, I usually qualify that with I don't know exactly when his birthday is. I got him when he was about 1 1/2, the vet made her best guess, and we went with that. Maybe he is 14 now. Who knows?

He loves his duck.

He's a sweetheart. He has health issues, but he is still going strong despite heart disease, kidney disease, arthritis, and most recently, hypothyroidism. None of that can stop the gentleman beagle!

He did this himself.

Hm, let's say none of that can stop the beagle when he hasn't wrapped himself up in blankets. I was looking through photos of him before writing this, and of course I came across some from when he was young. It's funny how I forget that he wasn't always so grey.

Young beagle!

I love him. I don't know what I'd do without him. He's my forever dog. Happy Birthday, Kenobi!

Barnegat

This past weekend I went to Barnegat for the first time. I wanted to test out my new ND filter with some long-exposure ocean shots. An hour into the drive...I remembered that I forgot my tripod. Oops. Since Dave and I like to go on adventures, I got over it and we had a good time, anyway.

Wheeee!

It's a quiet little town in the offseason. There isn't much to it except for the lighthouse and the rocky beach by the bay. It was great for walking and great for birdwatching. This weekend also marked a year since Dave and I got together. He considered this an anniversary trip, I found out later, but I just thought it was a fun outing at the time. We went to Sandy Hook a couple of weeks ago, and we regularly go all over when it's nice out, after all.

Dave took this one, of course. That's me ignoring the lighthouse for seagulls.

We ended up walking all the way down the beach, well past the walkway. We both wanted to take photos; Dave was giving my old DSLR a test run. We walked on the rocks, and when I was convinced that I was going to fall between them and into the ocean, we switched to the beach.

Dave sneaks pics of me when I'm distracted.

I pulled a classic Jen and almost walked right into a tidal pool. I was looking down at my camera and walking, and I just happened to notice that my next step was going to plunk me right in some water.

He isn't worried about falling between the rocks.

It was a little chilly for April, and down where the bay met the ocean, it was windy and freezing. Dave stood still long enough for me to torture him by taking his photo.

He usually hates photos of himself, but I think I get some good ones.

Then it was time to head back, and my hands were cold to the point that I could barely work the camera. Dave remedied that with his coat.

So Dave's coat fit over my down vest AND my camera bag. Note that the buttons don't line up. Now is when we met the mean heron. I like birds. Owls and seagulls and penguins and herons- all kinds of birds. We saw a heron flying overhead. We started to talk about how they hadn't been on the beach, and then one was ten feet away on the rocks. He was beautiful. I went to get my camera, under the coat in the bag, and it flew away. Repeat. The mean heron was taunting me. I eventually gave up.

Barnegat was fun. One day I'll get photos of a heron.

Doctor Who: The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve

The Doctor and Steven arrive in 16th century Paris and promptly get mixed up in the strife between the Huguenots (Protestants) and Catholics.

The Doctor goes off by himself, and Steven makes friends with Henri de Navarre, who has recently married the king's sister in an attempt to make peace between the Catholics and the Huguenots. Incidentally, a French movie I like, La Reine Margot, also takes place during this time. It was interesting to note how the historical figures were portrayed in each.

Every single episode of this four-part serial is missing, so I watched reconstructions with photos and audio. Also, the Doctor isn't in most of the story. It's almost all Steven. The story is a buildup to the assassination of Huguenot nobles (directed by Catherine de Medici) and the massacre of thousands of Huguenots by Catholic mobs in Paris. Once the Doctor and Steven are reunited and the Doctor finds out the date, he rushes himself and Steven back to the TARDIS. He knows what is about to happen. They leave just as the massacre begins.

Steven is angry that the Doctor will stand by and let this happen, but the Doctor says they can't change history. Steven is determined to leave the Doctor wherever they land next. They land, and Steven walks out the door. The Doctor laments the loss of his companions. He even wonders if he should return home, but he can't. Then a young woman bursts in through the open TARDIS door (that's Dodo, a new companion), and Steven isn't far behind. They dematerialize, taking the young woman with them.

THE RUNDOWN

Doctor: First
Companions: Steven
Episode: #22, "The Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve," four parts- 'War of God,' 'The Sea Beggar,' 'Priest of Death,' 'Bell of Doom'
Adversary: Catherine de Medici
Classic Lines: the Doctor, after Steven leaves the TARDIS: "Even after all this time, he cannot understand. I dare not change the course of history...And now, they're all gone. All gone. None of them could understand. Not even my little Susan. Or Vicki. And as for Barbara and Chatterton, Chesterton, they were all too impatient to get back to their own time. And now, Steven. Perhaps I should go home. Back to my own planet. But I can't."
Tuck This Away to Impress Your Friends: Dodo's last name is Chaplet, which is the same as Anne's- a young servant Steven feared died in the massacre.
Next Up: "The Ark"

Doctor Who convention

I went to a Doctor Who convention! (Re) Generation Who. It was a couple of weekends ago. This one was special because it focused on Classic Who. The best Who. I went with a friend of mine, who blogged a much better, more detailed account of the day here. For some reason, our significant others didn't want to attend...but we're working on them for next year. Dave likes Doctor Who, but he prefers the new series. He hasn't seen much of the old show. Maybe he'll feel like coming along in 2016.

Because I will be going again next year. It was amazing. It was the best con I've ever attended, hands down. I didn't know what to expect because it was the first year of this con, but it was so much fun and very well put together. And the con was filled with attendees who obviously loved Doctor Who as much as I do.

K-9!

The woman cropped out of the above photo on the left- the one holding the remote control- she made this K-9. It was awesome. It moved around- even the parts on his head. Cool.

Programming highlights? Tom Baker, the 4th Doctor, Skyped in for an hour-long Q&A session. That was fantastic. He was funny and engaging and I was laughing out loud. Really, all of the guests were funny. My friend and I also went to a panel with the 6th and 7th Doctors, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. They played off against each other very well. Then there was a tribute to the 2nd Doctor with one of his companions, Deborah Watling, who played Victoria. The last panel my friend and I attended was a panel with the 7th Doctor and his companion Sophie Aldred, who played Ace.

There were excellent vendors there, too. And of course the actors were around signing autographs. I didn't get any autographs, but it was cool to see them up close after seeing them on tv for so many years.

What a great day. I was basking in my nerdery.