Procrastination man - Part 2

Stargate Universe After 6 episodes of the Stargate franchise's new series, one thing is clear. It is nothing like the previous two shows! Darker, grittier, more "adult" in a way, Stargate: Universe also has a very different format. Yes, the Stargate is still there to explore new planets; yes, just like in Atlantis, there is a wealth of Ancient technology handy to discover. But Atlantis and SG-1 were about exploration, the discovery of new things (whether in the galaxy or in the City) and about fending off a newfound enemy (Goa'uld, Wraith, Replicators, Ori). In both cases, there also was an established command structure which, even when challenged, seemed safe in its ground.

So far, Stargate: Universe goes against all these principles. There is a wealth of technology but it is used as little as possible. Survival, not curiosity, drives the people onboard the Destiny. Exploration of planets is, because of the show's format, useless: twelve hours later, any contacts found on the planet would be lost. That is, unless Rush and Ely find a way around the twelve hour thingy. And most importantly, whilst Young is technically in command, his condition in the first three-parter weakens his position and leaders are only begrudgingly obeyed throughout the six episodes. Rush is an equally strong figurehead, which throws off the balance of the chain of command.
Finally, Universe does relationship full throttle. Where Carter/O'Neill and Sheppard/Weir romances were little more than suggested, Scott goes at it on screen. It is an obvious attempt at making the show more adult, in the same way that Torchwood was the adult Doctor Who. Sadly, at the moment, it is gratuitous but fortunately it is not the only thing that makes Universe a grown-ups' show.
The radical difference between Universe and its sister series is both the show's strength and its weakness. As it comes to Syfy when there is no sign of any new season for either SG-1 or Atlantis, fans are looking for a replacement, which Universe fails to provide. Yet the show needed a clean slate: if either of the other shows had still been running, the temptation to cross over might have been too big, whereas the premise of Universe is that they are cut off from home, with no hope of returning there (not even a mention of an equivalent to Atlantis's ZPM).
This dramatic change allows for bold new moves in terms of story-telling and direction. Universe steps out of well-trodden paths, which means anything can happen. When the main characters get in deadly danger, it becomes, simply, believable that they will die. As for the photography, hand-held shaky cameras seem to be in, which is consistent with the unstable position of the crew. So it's fine for now, even though slightly annoying - but it cannot go on forever.
Because there's only so many times that you can run out of a vital resource aboard a ship and need to find a way to replenish it (so far accomplished once by the ship alone and twice by going to a planet miraculously nearby): air (3 episodes), power (2 episodes) and now water (1 episode), what's next? Food? Ammunition? Medicine? Fortunately, judging from the next episodes' titles, it looks as though this section is over. Which brings us to one last point:
Universe is told differently. It is not a mesh of individual stories that intertwine one way or another (like SG-1 or Atlantis), it is not one big story with various storylines told together (like Babylon 5): it looks like it is a coherent whole with successive acts. In that respect, and in many others, it follows the lead of the new Battlestar Galactica. A shame it cannot boast as strong characters.
Let us hope it will keep on being different in that it does not feature any enemy but the enemy inside. This truly is the strength of Universe and what will keep me watching for at least a little while.

Yes, THREE! It is quite impressive that the second spin-off from NewWho went to such great successes, when you keep in mind how short-lived K-9 and company was...
But there are good reasons for that. Not only is Who a strong brand that will make any spin-off product work, the SJA are also a great show. It is aimed for kids, and it doesn't have the budget of either its sister-series, and yes, it does show in terms of special effects. Yet the writing and, to some limited extent, the acting, more than makes up for it. Prisonner of the Judoon, the third series' opener, is well-constructed and sees an old foe from Who meet Sarah Jane and gang. Despite having a target audience completely different from the one of Doctor Who, the Judoon stay in character - intergalactic thugs, as it were, stupidly bureaucratic. I would say they are almost French in their handling of things, but it would be a harsh judgement. The kid aspect of the programme appears in the jokes that crop up here and there, but never in a way that is detrimental to the plot.
And for the first time in the whole of the SJA, Lis Sladen's acting is first-class, and is met by most of her fellow cast. It's just a shame that Tommy Knight, whilst not being especially bad, is not up to his usual standard. Could it be that writer Phil Ford simply separated his "Sarah Jane's kid" aspect fromm his "boy genius" aspect when writing, and never used both at the same time? It would certainly explain the lack of depth in Knight's performance. Still, all is forgiven thanks to the sterling "posessed Sarah Jane".
So what's in store for the rest of the series? Well, exciting stuff. Including appearances by characters dear to us all. So tune in, and be more than 0.6m next time!

Despite Michael Grade's decision to cancel Doctor Who in 1989, the show lived on in spin-off media. At the time, I doubt it was simply a way to milk the fan-cow further: rather, it was a way to give them at least some Who. And boy, there's been a lot of material published: disregarding the Novellas, the novelisations and the short stories, there have been 33 Missing Adventures, 61 strictly speaking Doctor Who New Adventures, both published by Virgin, 76 Past Doctor's adventures and 73 Eighth Doctor's adventures (BBC Books). So a whopping total of 243 books. I am about one third of the way there.
Just like the original TV show, some of it is really good, some of it is really bad. There seems to be a tendency amongst fans to prefer Virgin's publications to BBC Books. It is true that, amongst the books I have read, the NAs were oh so much bolder in what they undertook than the EDAs. They started off - from their very onset - with a four-part story, albeit with a meh enemy, and pushed the Doctor further than he could have gone on TV.
So, to know chaff from wheat, here are a couple of useful pointers:

• Flee Gary Russell like plague if what you're after is a decent, consistent plot. If you're looking for lots of continuity references, though, he's definitely your man. Some of the author's worst offenses include The Invasion of the Cat-People, and more recently the IDW Comic Agent Provocateur. Instruments of Darkness is not too bad, but still doesn't quite work.
• Marc Platt, on the other hand, always delivers mindblowing works. Though they are generally not action epics, quite the contrary in fact, they all have in common a very intricate plot which makes a second reading very rewarding. Though Ghost Light, his TV offering, was at least one episode short in order to be fully understandable, his New Adventures books have all the space which is necessary to craft a great plot with care. Cat's cradle: Time's crucible has three different time zones which are interacting with one another and gives a nice glimpse of Gallifreyan history. Lungbarrow, the most expensive Doctor Who book to my knowledge, picks up on that history and is grand because it manages to explain the start of the 1996 movie convincingly, which is no meagre feat.
• The second most expensive Doctor Who book is, as far as I know, Lance Parkin's The Dying Days, the only Virgin book to feature Paul McGann's Doctor. It has in common with Platt a great care given to a well-built plot, but is not quite as good at mythology-building. Where Platt took on the show's history in his stride and expanded it, Parkin only uses it as a help for his books - which is completely, absolutely fine, given how much he delivers. Parkin's strength lies not in continuity, but in characterisation. All his characters are particularly well crafted, instantly loveable or despicable. His Father Time is one of the only BBC Books that manage to push the boundaries of the show as far as Virgin books had done.
• Then there's Steve Lyons. His work is pure genius, unleashed in books. He does not only push the boundaries of what Doctor Who is, he plays with the concept of the book. He is, to date, the author of the only book I've read to break the fourth wall as a plot device (Conundrum). His Crooked World is very simply a joyride. The Witch Hunters is one of the very very rare pure historicals, and is worth every penny. A shame that the monsters he created for The Murder Game and Final Sanction haven't got that much depth - still, both books are still very entertaining.
• Terrance Dicks's books are just that. Entertaining, and well-crafted, but not really interesting beyond that. Timewyrm: Exodus is still one of the best NAs I have read to date, and his Players arc, revisited in Endgame, is definitely a great plot device.
• In the pantheon of Great Doctor Who Writers, there's also, in no particular order, Paul Cornell, Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum, Andrew Cartmel, though I must admit that, with the exception of Seeing I and maybe Atom Bomb Blues, none of their books has delivered to me yet...
• And then there's the one-offs: great books that simply are awesome. Fear Itself, The Banquo Legacy, Asylum, Eater of Wasps are among them, and they're all wonderful page-turners.

So there's a lot out there - a lot of great new companions (well. Bernice, Fitz and Chris Cwej are worth it, I'm not going to say about the other ones) and a lot of less good ones. But the good books are most definitely worth the poorer ones.
All links above are, when available, to The Cloister Library, a great resource to find out whether books require prep reading or not. When scouring ebay for these books, please consider using http://www.buy.at/revelation!