Half Blood Prince trailer? Yes please.

FINALLY. Check this out:



Compared to all the other movies, this one looks beyond intense. I really love the direction the movies seem to be going... getting darker and more adult, just like the books. This movie looks slightly terrifying. And incredible. I can't wait.

Doctor Who: Music of the Spheres

Okay, this is really dorky, but really cute.



This was shown at the interval at the BBC proms. Because I'm not British I don't know for sure what that is, but that doesn't really matter. But apparently there was some real live interaction at the concert... I guess the Graske appeared on stage when the Doctor let it slip through the portal, and I guess he had the water gun with him. I love this stuff.

I'm all set to name this my new favorite (American) science fiction show.

AWESOME

Heroes Season Three

Starts on September 22. It looks great, too. I'm looking forward to another full season, with no interruptions from a strike. Hopefully with the full amount of episodes they'll be able to return to season one awesomeness.

In Which I Make Fun of SyFy Portal For Telling Me About Things I'm Actually Interested In

This article is just silly.

"Zachary Quinto, who plays a young Spock in J.J. Abrams' upcoming "Star Trek" movie, based his characterization as much on the film's script as on Leonard Nimoy's previous performance of the iconic character."

Whoa... hold on. You're blowing my mind, SyFy Portal. SERIOUSLY? He like, watched the old show and old movies to figure out what his character would be like? And then he based HIS performance off the only other actor to ever officially play the character?! I'm completely shocked. I never knew an actor would do something so obvious to prepare for a role like that.

Why is this news? I can see wanting to know about it if Quinto was like "eff Nimoy" and decided to do what he wanted, but hearing "Oh, yeah, so he's basing it off the original performance of the character" is not something I need to know about.

I do, however, enjoy knowing that the first time Quinto put the ears on was a moment he shared with his dog.

Also, look at the desktop thing:

I got it off the official website, in the downloads section. There's one with Kirk, Uhura, and I guess whoever's the bad guy. I don't know enough about the plot to have an idea of who he is (and I don't care to, no spoilers for me). But I picked Spock, because I'm talking about him, and also, Spock is the coolest.

In other news, the new Caprica TV show might be starting in the fall. They say they haven't decided if they're airing the telemovie as a telemovie or as the start of the full season. AWESOME. This is interesting because more or less it means we'll have a totally new show about Caprica to get excited about before the end of BSG even happens. Like weaning yourself off heroin with cocaine. Here's the article talking about that. It is also talking about the other BSG telemovie they're working on, saying that it's probably going to be about totally new characters, and apparently this is cause for speculation about another spinoff besides Caprica. ...I'll withhold judgment for now, but let's not get carried away, okay kids?

Last but not least, what the heck is this. Steven Spielberg called up Steven Moffat and was like "write this movie for me"? I don't know why I think this is weird, but I do. I do know Spielberg is a Who fan, which probably means he drooled all over "Blink" just like everyone else in the universe and then decided that he needed Moffat to come make something with him because was obviously teh awsome!!!1!. I don't know where I'm going with this. The gist of it is, Moffat said no because he wanted to do Doctor Who instead of some sequels to Spielberg's Tintin thing (I guess he already wrote the first one). Which I know nothing about other than it's another comic book adaptation. The article is funny though, because it has this huge headline saying Moffat turned down Spielberg, and he was turning down ALLLLL this money to not do it, and then it quotes Moffat as saying, "I hope you don't make what happened sound too dramatic." Ha. Well, he tried.

Doctor Who 4x11: "Turn Left"

First things first, I would like to make USA viewers aware of how much the Sci-Fi Channel sucks monkey butt for cutting out so many important parts of this episode. I highly recommend finding the full version of this episode online (surfthechannel.com), because you missed the following things (that I noticed, and there may be more):

-Rose telling Donna who the "little band of fighters" were on the Sontaran ship - specifically that they were Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones and freakin' Captain Jack Harkness. You know, no big loss not knowing that detail, right.
-The explanation of why the Indian guy the Nobles were living with was being taken away, and a very emotional moment between him and Wilf that really brought home the gravity of the entire situation.
-AlternateWorld!Donna's full reaction to seeing the inside of the TARDIS for the first time. She doesn't just walk in, say "no way" and then walk back out and ask for coffee. It was a great, great character moment that we never got the first time we met her because Donna saw the inside of the TARDIS before she saw the outside. She goes in, goes out, goes in again, goes out and walks all the way around it, completely disbelieving... it was great. And they didn't show ANY OF IT.

I'm so upset that Sci-Fi butchered this episode.

But anyway, as for my actual opinions on the whole episode...

Actually, hold on. Why, exactly, does the Sci-Fi Channel make its own trailers for the show? What's wrong with the ones that play at the end of the episode on the BBC? The ones without the stupid voiceover? I think that's what I have the most trouble with - the annoying Sci-Fi guy's voiceover on the previews.

Whatever.

I loved this episode. The first time I saw it, I was completely spazzing out at the end when the Doctor found out Rose was coming back. It was the weirdest thing I've ever experienced. No TV show has ever had me crying and shaking by the end of an episode. Thank you Doctor Who for accomplishing that.

When done well, "What If?" stories are my favorite things ever, and that's what this episode was. What if Donna had never met the Doctor? What would things be like? I love the speculation of that, and how the world would compensate - or not - in his absence.

The reason the Doctor is dead is completely devastating. The UNIT officer thought he drowned too fast to regenerate, but that isn't true. In The Runaway Bride, Donna tells him to stop - without her, he doesn't, and he lets himself die. Why? Because he's just gone through a horrific ordeal with losing Rose to the sealed off parallel world, and had no desire to live. This was displayed repeatedly in series 3. For example: in the Daleks in Manhattan episode, he basically screams at a Dalek to kill him because "it's his turn." This episode added an entirely new depth to that Christmas special and the Doctor's character and state of mind at that point in the show.

I would like to point out how absolutely splendid Catherine Tate and Billie Piper are. This was the Doctor Lite episode of the season, and it's not like you didn't notice he was gone (since the whole point of the episode was what the world would be like without him, of course you noticed), but the episode didn't suffer at all for not having David Tennant running around with his hair and his grin because of these two brilliant actresses. One day, I will be friends with them. Or I'll at least somehow get my picture taken with them and frame it and put it over my desk for the rest of my life.

One last thing - the music in this episode was so wonderful. Specifically, when Donna steps into the impromptu time machine that Rose and UNIT made with what was left of the TARDIS. It was beautiful and is another example of emotional music by Murray Gold that succeeded in making me teary eyed. (Previous examples of this include the songs "Doomsday" and "This is Gallifrey: Our Childhood, Our Home" which are arguably the best songs on the first two soundtracks.)

Next week: The Stolen Earth! And thanks to the uber-revealing trailer, there's a bit of a regeneration scare coming up. Thanks for spoiling the surprise, Sci-Fi!

Well, I'm speechless.

I saw this trailer before The Dark Knight last night (midnight showing, baby) and am now looking forward to this movie more than I have looked forward to anything in an extremely long time. (I almost wish they hadn't shown it, because then I was thinking about this during the entire movie and how I couldn't wait to tell my friends about it.)



That's right. The real, official Watchmen trailer, and it looks unbelievably amazing. (Of course, you should read the book first.)

In other news, The Dark Knight was a pretty good movie. You know. For a low budget indie flick. (Post coming soon, don't worry.)

regarding "turn left," "the stolen earth," and "journey's end"

Doctor Who posts will henceforth show up on here after the episode airs in the USA. That's how far behind I am. Plus, I still need time to process the last three episodes and it'll take me a while to form something cohesive about the three of them.

So... next week in the US is "Midnight," which I already wrote about (EVERYONE should watch it because the episode is ACE). Then will come the new posts.

Ok.

Just letting you know what the schedule is.

You can return to your lives now.

dear self: don't wait such a long time to see movies Daniel said were awesome.

I finally saw Hellboy. You know what? It was good. It was very good. It was funny and I liked the people in it. Even Selma Blair, for the most part. Now I'm all excited about Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which comes out next week.

Check these promos out, because they're hilarious.

Hellboy Meets the Ghost Hunters


Hellboy Hangs Out With Chuck Bartowski


Hellboy Creams an American Gladiator


Hellboy: The More You Know


According to the website I found these on, Hellboy is going to meet people from The Office, Heroes, and Law & Order. DUDE. I hope those clips hurry up and get on the internet.

Doctor Who 4x10: "Midnight"

Oh RTD. I wish you didn't know how to quit me. Seriously, this was such a breath of fresh air. No wonder RTD was so smiley on the commentary for Forest of the Dead... he knew THIS was coming up. "Oh Steven Moffat, let me show you how it's done."

Far and away, my favorite episode of the new series. I'm probably one of the very few people who didn't fall to pieces over "Blink," and the reason I didn't was because that episode, while being a very good one, could have been an episode of any science fiction series. It just so happened to be Doctor Who. It was a standalone that was good but didn't develop or explore any of the characters on the actual show. I liked Sally Sparrow, but this isn't her show. With "Midnight," we get a look at what the Doctor is like without a companion there to relate him to other people. That's an important question that hadn't ever been addressed. Without someone there, he's helpless - here, that's taken quite literally.

It was so simple, but still very scary and still very interesting. I loved how easily the characters on the plane (rocket? space bus?) were developed and how quickly you got to know them. The scene where they all turned on the Doctor, and he starts freaking out... that was the greatest thing. And Skye was BY FAR the scariest villain on Doctor Who this season. Or maybe even ever. She didn't look any different, which was the worst (and best) part. And the fact that the Doctor didn't know what it was, and didn't find out - there's no name for it. I know that "the fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself" and all, but what do you do when there's no name for it at all?

I was initially worried about Donna not being around so much in this episode, but I think that even contributed to the story. It wasn't just that Catherine Tate probably needed a little R&R away from the set. As I mentioned earlier, without a companion that knows him and trusts him there to back him up, the Doctor is pretty helpless. There's no go-between, no one there to explain that everything's going to be okay. As amazing and wonderful as the Doctor is, he's not actually the best at comforting people. He's too fascinated by everything going on to make everyone feel okay about it. He wanted to know about the new alien thing and everyone else wanted to kill it, because it frightened them. Without Donna, not only was there someone there to calm everyone else down, but there wasn't someone there to make him see it the human way. I think this episode really proved how important Donna is. I loved their hug at the end. He didn't even have to say anything, she just knew - something had gone wrong, and he was depressed about it, and he'd missed her because nobody there had understood him. Every time someone almost did, they went and changed their minds again. Not one of the Doctor's best days.

At the end, when the Doctor said "no, no... don't do that" after Donna repeated him speaking Italian. I LOVED that little touch. It took me a second to get it though, because I'm slow. I was like, "Doctor, why are you being such a jerk, she pronounced it fine and she's not embarrassing you in front of anyone famous - " and then I was like "Oh. Because he just spent the entire episode with this scary alien thing repeating him and stealing his voice. No wonder he's not going for it. Sorry I called you a jerk just now." This is just another way RTD schooled Moffat - it was self-referencing (the Doctor does the same thing to Rose in "Tooth and Claw" and then to Martha in "The Shakespeare Code"), yes, but it didn't reference ONLY episodes that he'd written, and it actually made sense and contributed to the story. Unlike when Moffat does it, and it's just gratuitous "remember how clever and funny I was then, well, laugh at it again."

Coming up: "Turn Left," with Donna and Rose (!!!) and not the Doctor so much.

Battlestar Galactica 4x12: "Revelations"

So... let's see. D'Anna came back to life and is the new cylon leader. The four cylons were outed, Tory went to be with the other cylons, Chief doesn't really care what happens to him, Tigh is loyal to the end and Anders is like a lost puppy and needs to come live in my closet. Roslin tells Lee that he'll have to be president after she's dead, and somehow they magically get to Earth in one jump after Starbuck's magical viper woke up and told them where it was. And they get here and nobody's around because we all killed each other with nuclear bombs. Or something.

Good thing the writer's strike ended because if it hadn't that would have been the series finale, with maybe a few minor edits (like telling us who the final cylon is). Which would have been extremely disappointing.

I don't know what's going to happen but here's my theory. It goes with the "all of this has happened before, all of this will happen again" motif. I think that the final five cylons are the cylon models that evolved from the cylons the people on Earth made. And they had a war with the humans just like the ones from the Colonies did, and they blew each other up. Towards the end of the war, maybe as a very last resort, the cylons, who in a reversal of roles are the ones who believe in the pantheon of gods from the colonies (because on Earth we believe in the one true God - you know how it is), sent off one of each of their models to try and find the Colonies. These models obviously succeeded, but their programming got messed up somehow and they forgot who they were. And the last cylon is someone who we've seen but has died. Possibilities my sister and I came up with: Elosha the priest, Admiral Cain, or that other girl from Razor, what's her face. Priest Lady has Roslin's head vision going for her, but I think the chances are decent that Admiral Cain is the last one. It wouldn't be any more surprising than Tigh being one. Although I guess we technically saw her as a teenager in Razor (extended version has those scenes), but Tigh even said in this last episode, "how do you know cylons don't age?" So it's possible.

I'll be honest - my caring what happens on this show is really waning, so it's a good thing there's only half a season left for me to be bothered with. It's similar to what happened with Grey's Anatomy (only not nearly as bad) - nobody is ever allowed to be happy and everything is just so downer all the time. Which makes sense because the human race almost got exterminated and stuff, and they were wandering around aimlessly through space trying to find Earth, but still. It really takes a toll on me to watch a show like this. It's well written and well acted and all around really well made, but it just makes me weary. Oh, and the fact that they never tell us anything. This last season moved along at a snail's pace. The rest of it probably won't be like that. They're on Earth now - supposedly - so things will get interesting. I hope.