Welcome again dear readers!

We begin this week with a public service announcement: all those people who’ve been harassing me for years to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show can now get off my case. And I have witnesses to prove it! Yes, it was enjoyable, though not as high up on the ‘Where have you been all my life?’ scale as say, Big Trouble in Little China. It’s also resulted in me having the Time Warp stuck in my head. ALL. DAMN. WEEK.

So, come up to the lab and see what’s on the slab. I see you shiver with antici…pation!

We start this week with awesome news: Peter Dinklage has an Emmy! Dinklage won the Best Supporting Actor award for his role as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones and his acceptance speech was adorable. We also have the first on set pictures from season 2 of Thrones, featuring Dinklage on set.

Several of the cast of Warehouse 13 and Eureka will visit Down Under in October, with convention appearances in Sydney and Melbourne, the next season of Doctor Who will air late next year and there’s a new Muppets TV spot.

Alan Tudyk has said what he’d love to see in a Firefly sequel, the first clip from the animated Batman: Year One is out, along with the first official picture of the cast of the Dark Shadows movie. Chris Evan has said we won’t see Captain America 2 till 2014 while Kevin Feige has said Thor 2 will visit more worlds.



Yes, this actually happened. And it was glorious.

Ever wanted to tell George Lucas what you really think? Well, you might be able to, as there’s a chance to win dinner with him. Oh, and he’ll be bringing a few friends along – Francis Ford Coppola, John Lasseter, Chris Columbus and Phillip Kaufman. Bidding’s currently at almost $10,000, with all proceeds going to the charity Stand Up to Cancer, a worthy cause if ever I’ve heard of one.

If you’ve always wanted to hear video game music played live, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra is staging the special event Video Games Unplugged: Symphony of Legends next year, hosted by web cartoonists Scott Kurtz and Kris Straub with special guest the one, the only, Mr Wil Wheaton! *wild applause*

80’s TV show Beauty and the Beast could be getting a remake, there’s more Tintin and the Cthulhu Mythos fan art and video of Batman interrogating the wrong clown. Several members of the Muppets are now on Facebook while Waldorf and Statler are running their Twitter account.



“Hey, you old fool! You slept through the show.”
“Who's a fool? You watched it.”

Agent Coulson, aka Clark Gregg has given some fake spoilers for The Avengers while someone at DC Comics should open a history book before naming their next series. I get that Triumph of the Will kinda relates to Green Lantern (The rings being powered by willpower) but it was certainly an unfortunate choice…

Plans are in the works for a TV adaption of Source Code, that Casey Jones fan film we mentioned a while back is now online and pranksters added Conan the Barbarian to the faculty at an Irish college. I’d love to take that class, but I’d be terrified of what happened if I handed a paper in late.

Sabrina the Teenage Witch may get an animated series and the latest episode of web series The Guild has the Master Chief punching Hercules at a party. One of the new Teen Titans is gay, there’s another piece of art from Riddick 3 and we’ve some casting news for the Who Christmas special. Seeing Bill Bailey’s name on that list makes me happy.

There’s some sad news this week, with word of the passing of Erik Martin. Martin, who suffered from severe health issues and a rare form of cancer, had his dream to be a super hero for a day fulfilled last year by the Make-a-Wish foundation in an elaborate scenario (detailed here) that featured him riding in a DeLorean and rescuing the Seattle Sounders from Dr Dark and Blackout Boy, played by Edgar Hansen and Jake Anderson from Deadliest Catch. Martin died at home last Friday. He was 14.

All of us here extend our deepest sympathies to his family and friends.



Thank you young sir. You were an inspiration to us all.

Director Jose Padilhas has talked about his Robocop remake, saying he wants to explore different issues to the original. As loath as I am to see the film remade, I like that approach. I’d rather see someone take a chance then do something like the shot for shot remake of Psycho from a few years ago.

Christopher Nolan is keeping quiet on the ending of The Dark Knight Rises, apparently not even writing it down and while we’re pretty sure Joseph Gordon Levitt isn’t playing Robin, he hasn’t officially denied it. Tease. We’ve a sneak peek at season 7 of Supernatural and a new trailer for the final episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures. If you’ll excuse me there’s something in my eyes…

George RR Martin has said he loves Marvel Comics, as they took risks in killing people. That certainly didn’t influence his writing at all… There’s another peek at The Avengers from the Captain America DVD trailer, James Cameron is building an Avatar theme park at Disney World and Justin Lin appears to have dropped out of Terminator 5 to make Fast and the Furious 6.



“I have had it with these *bleep* Skrulls on this *bleep* Helicarrier!”

There’s the first pictures from the Doctor Who Christmas specials and Harrison Ford would make a fifth Indiana Jones film but he doesn’t want any aliens in it. On that, we’re in complete agreement. There’s a new red-band trailer for The Thing and Milla Jovovich has been busily tweeting details from Resident Evil 5.

Lastly, I get to attend a special event this week and will now talk about it!

It was the 19th of September 2011, an auspicious day, nay, a day that would live in infamy! This was no ordinary day, for this was the day, the Day of the Daleks! Dun dun dun!

OK, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system – a select audience including yours truly were able to see the Special Edition of the Jon Pertwee story Day of the Daleks on a cinema screen, followed by a Q&A with Dan Hall from 2Entertain about upcoming DVD releases. There was much squeeing on my part.



I say old chap, you don’t think we could discuss this over a bottle of wine or two?

The original stories a bit of a mixed bag - while it was the was the first time Skaro’s finest had been seen in almost 5 years, it was let down both by the less than stellar Dalek voices and the usual limitations in time and budget, with the massive attack force assaulting Auderly House in part 4 comprising a few Ogrons (Ape like mercenaries, sort of space Uruk Hai on a budget) and a mere 3 Daleks (The BBC only having 3 complete props in storage at the time). It’s also the story where the Doctor shoots down an Ogron in cold blood. Which was odd.

It was one of the few classic Who stories to deal with time travel in any way, rather than it simply being used as a vehicle to get the Doctor and his companions in trouble. Mind you, there’s certainly some inconsistencies - the guerilla’s time travel gadgets change function between episodes and the Daleks were very smart to attack the back of the house, so the delegates can scarper out the front!

The plot has it’s fair share of twists, but we’ll try not to spoil too much: terrorists from the future come back through time to try to stop an attack that led to a third world war. The target: Sir Reginald Styles, a politician trying to organize a peace conference aimed at heading off said war. After the first would be assassin vanishes into thin air, UNIT (The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) and their enigmatic scientific advisor, The Doctor, are called in to investigate. Exterminations (and the raiding of Style’s wine cellar by the Doctor) ensue.



It was a horrible day on Skaro when they world bling was first used…

The cast are in fine form, with Jon Pertwee swilling wine and scoffing cheese at the drop of a hat, Katy Manning’s Jo Grant ably assisting (Her skirt should have been a bit longer though…) and Nicholas Courtney’s Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart acting as straight man, supported by the reliable Cpt Yates (Richard Franklin) and Sgt Benton (John Levene).

It’s the little moments that shine out in the story - Yates giving Benton grief so he can swipe the food and wine Jo’s brought for him, or the Doctor’s mockery of Stiles (“Try and use your intelligence for once, even if you are a politician!”). I’m even prepared to ignore the motorized trike that’s conveniently placed right outside the Dalek base that the Doctor and Jo escape from, especially as it’s there only to indulge Pertwee’s love of driving things (See episode 2 of Planet of the Spiders for this at its height).

It’s not the first special edition in the Classic Who range, but the grandest so far – the production team got a hold of a vintage camera and costumes to shoot new footage at the original location. And of course, the Dalek voices have been replaced by new series Dalek voice Nick Briggs, which both improves things immensely and is a hell of a lot louder.

The restoration was a labour of love for producer Steve Broster, both in part to do justice to the story as written and to try to recreate the version he remembered in his head from when he was 6. There’s a minimum of tweaking with only a few scenes being trimmed (The famous ’No Complications’ fluff being one) and new shots to beef up the effects of existing ones such as the shots of the conquered Earth now having Dalek skyscrapers emblazoned with OBEY (Very They Live) and people shot by the disintegrator pistols now exploding like a blobby version of someone being staked on Buffy, if that makes sense.



You won’t need sunglasses to see it, have no fear.

To sum up, it turned a slightly dodgy story into a cracking good show, with much fun ensuing and the mention of the date of the attack being September 12 getting a nervous laugh from the audience…

The post show Q&A was fantastic with Dan Hall being a lovely chap and clearly enjoying his job, happily answering questions and confirming The Daemons will be out next Easter! We also got a preview of some gorgeous work in progress animation from The Reign of Terror, while the Melbourne screening the night before got some color clips from Invasion of the Dinosaurs. It was a fantastic evening and I hope another happens soon.

Oh, and one last thing: a lovingly restored as transmitted version of the story is on the second disc for the purists to enjoy. George Lucas, can you take a hint?

Quote of the Week:
Sam: I swear, man, you gotta update your cassette tape collection.
Dean: Why?
Sam: Well, for one, they're cassette tapes. And two: Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Metallica?! It's the greatest hits of mullet rock.
Dean: House rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music; shotgun shuts his cake hole.
Sam: You know, Sammy is a chubby twelve-year-old. It's Sam, okay?
Dean: Sorry, can't hear you. The music's too loud.
Supernatural - Pilot

Remember, the Shadow knows…