Aliens Star Set For Dublin Comic Con Summer Edition 2025

We’re thrilled to welcome the incredible Mark Rolston to Dublin Comic Con this August! 🎉

Mark has brought some of the most unforgettable characters to life across film, TV, and animation:

🧟‍♂️ Pvt. Drake in Aliens

🔒 Bogs Diamond in The Shawshank Redemption

👻 The original Alistair in Supernatural

🖖 Walter Pierce in Star Trek: The Next Generation

🚀 Kuroda and Magh in Star Trek: Enterprise

😱 Plus roles in SAW, Ahsoka, and so much more!

🎙️ And in the world of voice acting, Mark has given us:

Commissioner Gordon, Norman Osborne, Lex Luthor, Deathstroke, Firefly

Don’t miss your chance to meet the man behind these legendary roles!

📲 Get your tickets at https://www.tixr.com/groups/comicconireland

📅 Dublin Comic Con – August 9th & 10th, 2025

📍Convention Centre Dublin

#ComicConIreland#DublinComicCon#MarkRolston#Supernatural#Aliens#StarTrek#ShawshankRedemption

Doctor Who: The Dogs of Doom Comic Strip

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

Copyright BBC and Marvel

When Doctor Who Weekly launched, the one thing that stood head and shoulders above the rest as was its comic strips. They were epic and pushed the envelope whilst still retaining the wit and scope of the show. We already had the Iron legion, the Star Beast (as seen in the 60th anniversary), City of the Dead and then came my favourite one: the Dogs of Doom. It was based on a submitted and rejected story idea for the show and thank God they did as the budget could not meet the ideas and visuals here.

The Doctor, Sharon and K9 arrive in the New Earth systems consisting of over 30 planets where the colonies are under attack from savage werewolf like humanoids called the Werelox. They are attacking colonies and anyone bitten by them turn into Werelox just like Earth werewolves. Our heroes met space truckers Joe Bean and Babe Roth, the Doctor discovers what is really behind the Werelox attacks. After all, they are not the most intelligent of beings but they storm and overrun the colonies with a savagery rarely seen. When the Doctor meets Brill, a Werelox trooper that is not exactly enamoured with his masters, the Doctor discovers that the Werelox armies are paving the way for the real invaders, the Daleks.

That blew my mind as a kid and still does as I own both the British and the American versions of the this comic storyline to this day. Werewolves and Daleks in the one story was and still is a brilliant concept. Lunar light to trigger the werewolf transformation is always a fun thing in a sci-fi environment. By pure coincidence I have been rewatching all the old Wolfman movies and their crossovers at the time so it’s little wonder the Dogs of Doom holds a place dear in my heart. The comic covers say it all, from the Doctor turning into a Werelox to him, Brill and K9 being chased by a red Dalek down a corridor filled with caged monsters, they are just breathtaking and highly evocative to any potential writer. It never fails to remind us that ‘anything goes’ in a story, especially Doctor Who.

A Time Lord werewolf hybrid is as mad as they come but raises the bigger question of how lethal or useful would that be to the Daleks who are master geneticists? A werewolf that could regenerate and its cells distributed to Daleks is a scary thought. The sequence where the Doctor fights against the werewolf part of him in the Tardis to create a cure is tense and exciting especially as we learn he has been away for three months. Add to that we get K9 battling Daleks which we were denied on the television show and it is a fan’s dream come true.

Once again the Daleks have a nefarious plan behind their release of the Werelox hordes to weaken the galaxy. They are forever plotting and scheming and this time is no different. The Doctor learns the Daleks are fed up losing due to inferior numbers so intend to sterilise the entire system so it can be turned into a Dalek breeding ground. To that end they intend to enhance themselves and have searched the galaxy to find the most suitable animals with traits they can use to improve themselves. Showing the Doctor their alien zoo they boast about their plans. The monstrous Xxarqon has a capacity for slyness unmatched while the Tentrax is more cruel than any Dalek could ever display. The Glarosus has an insane hatred for everything and when they are distilled into each new Dalek they will be unstoppable. However when K9 joins the battle several cages are damaged allowing the monsters to escape but they attack the Daleks for experimenting on them so cruelly allowing the Doctor and Brill to escape. .

Meanwhile Mrs Roth and Joe Bean launch a suicide attack on the Dalek ship. They will smash into it at full speed but the Doctor’s companion Sharon has stowed away on board. Mrs Roth’s kids beg her to turn back but she is doing it for them and everyone else rather than let the Daleks destroy everything they have built. The Daleks have to be stopped at any cost. But Joe forces Sharon and Mrs Roth into a life pod and ejects them into space. He cannot let her leave her kids. He will do it alone.

Overwhelmed by the Dalek forces, the Doctor, Brill and K9 use the Tardis to get into the heart of the Dalek ship, the Room of Many Centuries. Brill reveals the Daleks brought the Werelox from the past to spearhead their campaign confirming the Doctor’s suspicion that the sealed room conceals time travel equipment. The Doctor is able to time lock the Daleks, the Werelox and all the aliens in a single moment in time. The ship vanishes into the singularity meaning Joe survives. Brill joins the security forces of the new colony leaving the Doctor, Sharon and K9 to take off to their next advdenture.

I love everything about this story and it captures the fourth Doctor perfectly. This is a big scale story that could really only have been done properly with today’s technology. The coloured version brings it to life in a way that makes it television standard. We have multiple coloured Daleks including the good old red one.

If you haven’t read it; go get a copy. The Doctor has faced werewolves, vampires, fish men, mummies and zombies in his time and the Dogs of Doom is one of the best of them all.

Forgotten Heroes: Dominic Purcell’s John Doe

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

photo copyright 20th century Fox

I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.

Long before he was Dracula in Blade Trinity, Lincoln Burrows in Prison Break, fire starter Mick in Legends of Tomorrow, Dominic Purcell portrayed a fascinating and endearing character known only as John Doe.

It ran for one season and like many other good shows was cut off in its prime and left us dangling forever on an unresolved cliffhanger. It ran for twenty one episodes and has a cult status to this day. All the episodes can be viewed on YouTube but I saw it on the television in 2003. As well as Purcell, it starred William Forsythe as Doe’s friend and bar owner Digger, John Marshall Jones as Detective Frank Hayes, Jayne Brook as Frank’s boss Jamie Avery and Sprague Grayden as Karen Kowalski.

The pilot episode lays it out. John wakes up naked on an island off the coast of Seattle. He falls into the ocean and is rescued by a fishing boat. It is a beautifully shot opening in black and white and colour. We quickly learn that John can only see the world in black and white, can speak any language and knows everything…except the most basic things like his name, where he comes from and does he like spicy food. He doesn’t know what his fashion sense is but knows there are 363 dimples on a golf ball. All he can do is speculate and then discovers he can predict every at a race track using mathematics and physics. He quickly runs up a small fortune buying a car and renting an apartment so he can have a base of sorts to figure out his past by running a think tank. He has a Celtic design branded on his chest but he has no idea what it is or how he got it.

Every episode opening after that used the voiceover that said,

I woke up in an island off the coast of Seattle. I didn’t know how I got there….or who I was. But I did seem to know everything else. There were things about me I didn’t understand…..the brand, being colorblind and extreme claustrophobia. And while my gifts provided answers for others, I still search for my own. My name is John Doe.

Drawn to a bar, he plays Funny Valentine on a piano earning him a regular slot from Digger. However the case of a kidnapped child sends him to the police when he sees her photo in colour. Figuring it has to be significant he convinces Frank to let him help against the advice of his boss Jamie Avery. When John is able to tell him details that no one knows Frank thinks he is a clairvoyant but accepts his help. What seems to be a random kidnap case turns out to be a father dying of cancer, who faked his death two years previously, spending some time with his daughter before he dies. But in a final twist John hears a woman calling and waving to him from a ferry boat calling him Tommy. And he can see her in colour. He learns that her name is Theresa. This ability would come in handy to steer him in the right direction many times.

But John would not just use his abilities to help break cases, he would become a strong loyal friend to Frank, Jamie and Digger. He would help Frank through his divorce and appeal for access to his children. He and Digger would go undercover to a mental help unit after a friend of Digger’s is murdered. Digger it seems is hiding more than a few secrets. When Karen was murdered, John discovers that there is an organisation tracking him which is also tied to Digger’s murdered friend. They discover the unit is being used as a front to run illegal experiments on patients to test their psychic abilities as a group for remote viewing. Rescuing a remote viewer Michael who is blind they learn about what is going on. But Phoenix burn the hospital down and Michael is seemingly killed.

They would create a fake life for him to keep him off track where his parent’s best friends have all the answers he needs. But when he finds it is all a lie, John realises that he is somehow central to their operations.

But they are not the only ones that John’s abilities have caught the attention of . When he finds out a man who was fished naked out of the water like him, John goes to the hospital to see him. The man seems to recognise him. John them meets a doctor that offers to show him the answers to what happened to him. John goes along with it but finds himself on a boat where the doctor is harvesting organs for the black market. A woman and her kid also arrive on his doorstep claiming that he fathered her child via a sperm bank. It teases John into wanting answers even more as he warms to the idea of being a father. But it ends up that it is a think tank of geniuses, one of which is really the boy’s father.

In the two part episode The Mourner, John does an appeal on an Unsolved Mysteries type show asking if anyone knows him or help him trace any family. However the serial killer the Mourner becomes obsessed with him. He sets him challenges and his abilities like using his colourblindness against him or a gas bomb will detonate in a club. He pushes John to the limits with every test. The Mourner is his deadliest foe putting him in situations where the information overload brings too many variables throwing John into making the wrong decisions. The Mourner was played by X Files monster Eugene Tombs himself Doug Hutchison. The only way to defeat him and save the kidnapped Avery was for John to fake his own death to lure him out.

Karen is kidnapped and they end up back on the island John woke up on, Horseshoe Island. He also finds Theresa’s burnt driver’s license as they try to cover up their tracks. It makes him wake up to the fact that he is dealing with dangerous people whom he discovers is called the Phoenix Group. They are killing people just so they can perfect the remote viewing experiments as a weapon. Everyone connected to him is now a target and the fact they know all about him is unsettling as there could be family members he isn’t even aware of in danger too. John is taken by a branch of the NSA who want to take down Phoenix.

They have two prominent operatives, a female Yellow Teeth and the Trenchcoat man who communicates via sign language especially with their mysterious leader, Stocking Cap. They murder Karen leaving John in a pit of despair and rage. Yellow Teeth’s dying words are that Phoenix will watch him night and day until they find the staff. Then they will come for him so he can complete his destiny and theirs because he is the Phoenix.

In the season finale they get their chance to strike at Phoenix. John is suffering from painful psychic visions which is Michael and Theresa projecting into his mind to help locate them. Together with the discovery of a partially corroded man’s body, it leads John to the new Phoenix base. They capture the Trenchcoat Man who they think is deaf but is in fact fully verbal. He and John face off. John, the NSA, Frank, Avery and the police force storm the cannery where they are hiding.

Trenchcoat Man arrives too late to stop them but murders Michael before Stocking Man takes Theresa. The two remote viewers have just given him the last piece of the puzzle; a drawing of the Vatican. John pursues them and manages to save her while Stocking Man escapes up a ladder. However his cap falls off and John finds himself staring into the face of the mysterious head of the Phoenix Group; Digger.

So another great cliffhanger of a cancelled series. However this time I have a reveal of what was to come in the second season. It would be revealed that the Phoenix Group believed that John was the new Messiah. They were in fact protecting him from a second group out to kill him. The staff would have been the staff of Moses. Stocking Man would have had plastic surgery to look like Digger presumably to give John a face he trusts when he completed his destiny. His Celtic scar would just be the result of a boating accident and the reason he knew everything was that he died, ascended into the plane of existence where everything is known before reviving back on Earth.

The run of episodes were very strong with John seeking answers to his past. The show was favourably received getting 72% on Rotten tomatoes. Critics like the performances, especially Dominic Purcell, enjoying the slick production and strong stories. So when Fox cancelled it due to “dwindling ratings” it was a loss. If ever there was an example of the stupidity of network bosses who are not really in touch with their audiences then John Doe was it.

Tragic Heroes of Horror: Pumpkinhead’s Ed Harley

By Owen Quinn author

Photos copyright United Artists MGM

Life can be a right bitch at times and evil likes nothing better than to take an innocent soul and crush it through feelings that are natural and normal at the time.

Take Ed Harley for instance. Ed was a store owner, Harley Grocery, who serves the community with supplies and was raising his young son, Billy, alone. His wife had passed a couple of years previously and together with their dog, Gypsy, this was Ed’s world and he was happy with his lot.

All that changed one day when a group of teenagers from the city went dirt-biking when drunk near his store. Ed had left Billy alone while he delivered some feed to Mister Wallace. Gypsy runs towards them followed by young Billy who is hit full on by Joel (John D’Aquino) mortally wounding the kid. His brother Steve stays behind with Billy while the others flee but on returning Ed Harley only sees his dying child. Steve’s explanations fall on deaf ears. The look on Ed’s face as he whirls on him is pure rage and hatred. You can see why in moments like this that Henrikson almost became the Terminator; he has such intensity in his eyes that it burns right off the screen.

Some say that evil is a trickster that plays a long game. It can choose its victims and wait years to take their soul. They allow glimpses of their world that imprint themselves on the human psyche in the form of fairy tales and disturbing dreams that are actually memories the mind cannot process because certain things should not exist. Our minds can only deal with them in the form of nightmares and folklore. Ed Harley was one such child the night he saw Pumpkinhead murder a man.

Young Ed saw his father secure their farm and barricade their door and stand over his family with a shotgun at hand. Clayton Keller hammers at the door begging for Tom Harley to help him. He cries he did not kill a girl but Pumpkinhead has been called and even a devout Christian cannot interfere or they too will be killed. This has stayed in Ed’s mind all these years and when the Wallace kids start teasing one of their own about Pumpkinhead those memories come back. It is almost as if dark forces are manoeuvring Ed towards Hell itself.

Billy dies in his arms and Ed’s world falls apart. He is broken and alone filled with anger that not only did the city folks leave Billy like garbage at the side of the road but they will flee back to the city and avoid paying for their crimes. Before she died It is reasonable to assume that he promised his wife that he would raise their son right and be there for him always. But he left him. He left him alone and he died because of it. Ed blames himself but he wants them to pay.

Despite Mr Wallace telling him to bury his son and move on and never to go to Haggis the witch, Ed wants blood. Bunt Wallace stops Ed’s truck and tells him where to find Haggis. It would be the sensible thing to go home, bury Billy and live the rest of his life but Ed is consumed with grief and hate. We know the current justice system can allow the guilty walk free through claims of all sorts but no-one walks away from Pumpkinhead. He will hunt you down until you are dead and there is nothing can stop him. Despite his faith in God’s will, Ed cannot reconcile how they left an innocent child to rot at the side of he road.

This is how evil gets you as seen when Ed goes to Haggis (Florence Schauffler) to summon the demon. She manipulates him into saying out loud what he wants her to do. He breaks and goes to a graveyard where the shameful have been buried at the back of the woods. She warns him what he wants will bring a heavy price but he doesn’t care.

But Ed doesn’t realise what he must suffer to get the revenge he seeks. Ed is connected to the demon. He feels and sees each and every death Pumpkinhead commits.

Haggis powers the demon with the blood of the requester in this case Ed. Pumpkinhead has his face, the face of someone so devoid of love and faith that it is vengeance on a speeding train. Haggis mentions none of this to Ed at all which is why evil can easily takes someone’s soul. No-one thinks clearly when grieving or acting out of raw anger and hate. Rationality is ash as they focus only on instant revenge. After all if these things exist then surely they must live to partially serve humanity’s needs and they have their place just as God does. Their very existence proves the reality of God therefore God will forgive all wrong doings. Ed fails to see that his wrong doing is allowing himself to take the dark path even God cannot redeem him from; all he sees is the city kids committed manslaughter that some fancy lawyer will free them of in a court of law.

But too late Ed sees that Pumpkinhead is killing innocent people and must act. He sees the error of his ways too late but intends to save the last two kids and Bunt Wallace who has disobeyed his grandfather to stay indoors while Pumpkinhead hunts. If Pumpkinhead can see and feel Ed’s pain and vice versa, Ed tries to kill himself to stop the demon but fails. He begs one of the teenagers to shoot him dead which she does. Dead, Pumpkinhead bursts into flame.

Ed would return in Pumpkinhead: Ashes to Ashes and Blood Feud to warn others about the stupidity of summoning Pumpkinhead and conversing with Haggis on summoning the demon but they were nothing at all compared to the intensity of Henrikson’s debut as the character.

Ed was a good Christian man that fell into a pit of all consuming pain when his young son was cruelly taken from him. Given the killer would have gotten away with his death in our world, wouldn’t you do the same if given the choice?

As it stands tragic circumstances allowed evil to get a grip on an innocent soul and drag it, as Mister Wallace said, all the way to Hell.

The War Between The Land and The Sea Trailer Released

By Owen Quinn author copyright BBC

Following the events of The Reality War, the trailer for the new Doctor Who spin off The War Between The Land and The Sea has been released. Starring Gemma Redgrave, Freema Agyeman and Russell Tovey, we will see the appearance of the Sea Devils and Silurians once more. But is Salt the new Sea Devil design? And how is she connected to Barclay?

TW Watches Doctor Who The Reality War: Stunning or Sucked? S02E08

By Owen Quinn author photos copyright BBC

So, as we know, the first episode of this two-parter was simply not up to scratch. So with the Reality War, would the downward slope continue like Empire of Death?

After the cataclysmic events at the climax of part one, we learn that the Rani has been replaying this day for ages as each replay of May 23rd scrapes away the layers of the underverse which will let her free Omega. So the reset button actually works for a change. By the way, why does the Doctor keep saying Omega incorrectly?

But my scepticism was immediately burned away when Anita from Joy To The World popped up, rescues the Doctor from the falling balcony and drags him back to the Time Hotel. I liked Anita from that Christmas special and wanted her to join the Tardis and here we get a lovely catch up. After she became the manager of the Time Hotel, she looked for the Doctor, allowing us cameos from Pertwee, Matt Smith, Troughton and Hartnell but when she saw him with Rogue, she hooked up with Richie from HR and is now pregnant. Well, that’s one way of getting over the Doctor I suppose. Anita is instrumental to this because the open doors to the hotel are pumping real time back into Wish World, restoring everyone in UNIT as well as the Doctor.

Remember that last line about Poppy being his real daughter? Well, thanks to Wish World, she really is the wish of the Doctor because we learn the secret of the Time Lords. They are sterile since the genetic explosion. There can be no more Time Tots as referenced by Romana. So, young Poppy is now a hope for Time Lord society to be restored. She is made of hopes and dreams and wishes which all children are. And we know she is born from the Doctor because Ruby recognises her from Space Babies. And Belinda will burn the world rather than lose her so nice to see the Zero Room back from Castrovalva which was instrumental in the fifth Doctor’s regeneration.

Unfortunately, there is no explanation or reappearance by Susan, his granddaughter which really should have been done. But there is enough here to keep us entertained. Neither is there an explanation as to the Tardis doors exploding inwards at the end of The Interstellar Song Contest.

The reactivation of UNIT is inspiring especially as Donna’s Rose reappears. In Conrad’s world, she didn’t have a place but now she is back; the wish is breaking apart. Mel roars in on her bike and finally gets a chance to go head to head with the Rani. You can almost feel the ghost of Kate O’Mara speaking.

Everything is revealed as Mrs Flood appears to her former neighbours; Ruby and Belinda. She was supposed to be following the Doctor on all his travels but she took Christmas off, allowing Anita to rescue the Doctor.

The Omega plan fails due to his ego which is worse than ever before and poor Rani 2 is eaten alive by him while Mrs Flood flees by grabbing the time ring she used to escape the genocide of Gallifrey, last seen used by the fourth Doctor in Genesis of the Daleks. I loved the two Ranis joke but it will be lost on the younger generation.

Omega’s return in a brand new form is impressive though he could do with a lot of moisturiser. The real use of the Vindicator is revealed as the Doctor banishes him back to Hell with the power of a billion supernovas while UNIT is almost shattered in a battle with the bone beasts, a type of Reapers like those from Father’s Day. It’s a much better defeat than what was given with Sutekh. This is really the battle to save a child, one impossible child, one hope against the gods themselves. Ruby must face Conrad using the Indigo teleport harness device from The Stolen Earth as last used by Martha Jones.

Do you think all these Easter Eggs are leading to something special? No, it was internet gossip. So many elements of the 15th Doctor’s era popping up almost as if….naw, can’t be.

The triple battle, much like the climax to the last season of Stranger Things is awesome. So much going on and very enjoyable. Everyone is in there fighting for the world and this child. I have to say those creepy Borg like things with the cracked white flesh that the Rani uses were quite scary.

Hang on, I thought, why is the story over and there is still nineteen minutes to go?

The world has been restored because Ruby has the wish baby and gave Conrad his greatest wish; happiness. Mrs Flood Rani has escaped and the Doctor and Belinda, together with their daughter, are off to show her the whole of time and space. The God of wishes is now in the care of Cherry and Carla where Ruby can also keep an eye. Oh, and Susan Triad is glad not to be wearing nylon anymore. Finally, we get Ruby in the Tardis with the new family. We need more Cherry and where the hell is Morris?

As Ruby watches, Poppy fades out of existence and their memories.

Except for Ruby’s. Ruby insists Poppy was real but the Doctor doesn’t believe her and neither does anyone else but their bond makes him realise that she is telling the truth. His daughter is stuck out there, somewhere and also explains the mystery of the little child Belinda saw in The Story and The Engine.

The only way he can find her is to sacrifice himself in a supernova of regeneration energy. The Tardis flashes up all his other known faces so we get a Doctor fest of what is coming next. So begins the end of the 15th Doctor. But he is not alone.

Cue the 13th Doctor rushing into the Tardis, coat flapping. My God, I cannot believe how much of a joy it was to see her again. Maybe it’s partly because I met Jodie Whittaker last year and she was amazing. She is brilliant here as she meets her future self. We get her in full flow, criticising the new Tardis and its size with a ‘you redecorated but I don’t like it’ line. We get timey-wimey as a thing and the sad recall that she cannot tell Yaz she loves her. She is in awe of just how beautiful this incarnation is and is a real breath of fresh air. She and Ncuti shine on screen as she gives him the push he needs to find Poppy and he gives her a forgotten glimpse of the person she will become. That’s pure magic right there.

So time is shifted and Poppy is found but at a personal cost. The Doctor can never be her father just as he could never settle down and be with Rose in the parallel universe. So history has been rewritten by a degree and someone else is her father. He has also rewritten his own history with Belinda. Poppy is now the reason she wanted to get home all along. It was always about getting home to her daughter. The tragedy is, the Doctor wants it so much too but it is always out of reach for him. But as the Doctor says, the gods play tricks so you never know. He can never go home or have a family.

So, here it is. The 15th Doctor is leaving. His body is failing and the regeneration begins. Not wanting to be alone, he looks out into space at Joy, the star from Joy To The World. His body erupts with a fountain of regeneration energy among the stars in a spectacular effects sequence.

And he regenerates into….Rose Tyler??? What? What? What?

With Disney now gone, Doctor Who is going to keep going. Ncuti has been amazing. He is now forever the Doctor and what a journey he has been on. His Doctor has shone even in the shittiest of stories (yes, you Space Babies and most of season one) but if you are going to go out, then this is the way to do it. Doctor Who can still deliver after 62 years in every medium there is.

We laugh and we cry with the Doctor because the real companions are us.

As for the new Doctor? Well, who knows?

Stephen Carey & Owen Quinn Face The Predator: The Original & The Best?

This time, we go into the deep, deep, sweltering jungles to face an alien so powerful and unique, will it beat the power of the fearless duo? The Predator is here but which of us is really the ugliest mother fucker? Join the craic. You won’t look back.

Forgotten Heroes: Bishop from Aliens

By Owen Quinn author

Photos copyright 20th Century Fox

I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.

Some people think Bishop is known to everyone but I have come across people that will not watch any movies made before they were born, people that don’t watch sci-fi movies, people that didn’t like it and never gave it a second thought and those that just don’t do movies.

So, as much as it is a surprise, Bishop may well be an unknown entity to a lot of people but he is as synonymous with the Aliens franchise as much as Sigourney Weaver is. Played by the amazing Lance Henriksen, Bishop echoes down the Alien franchise forever and a day. He is in fact based on wealthy industrialist and founder of Weyland Industries, Charles Bishop Weyland. Weyland was dying of a terminal disease when he discovered a hidden pyramid structure beneath the ice of the Antarctic. Hence they learned of the aliens and the Predators even though he died there.

He becomes involved with Ripley when she joins a marine crack team aboard the Sulaco en-route to discover why all contact was lost with the colony on LV-426, the moon where Ripley and her crew first met the alien. She cannot believe that they have put entire families there given they knew the aliens were there from events of the Nostromo.

Bishop is the executive science officer just as Ash was in the original and is very quiet in nature. When he performs the knife trick on a terrified Hudson, he cuts himself. It is then Ripley sees the white fluid he has for blood and backs off. Given her near murder at the hands of Ash, she is wary of Bishop despite his reassurances that his programming forbids his ever harming a human. He also prefers the term ‘artificial person’ to synthetic. She warns him to stay away from her; smashing the plate of food he offers her from his hands. The way Henriksen plays it here makes you doubt his sincerity at being shocked at how Ash acted back then. His delivery makes you wonder if he isn’t dismissing the seriousness of the incident.

When the squad is virtually wiped out by the aliens and their drop ship explodes, Bishop takes over as a medic, caring for Gorman and analysing the colony and the alien face huggers. When Bishop detects a fault in the reactor, they must get the second drop ship down from orbit to get them off before they die in a massive nuclear explosion. The only way to do it is crawl through several miles of conduit and manually realign the relay that will allow them to remote control the ship. Hudson freaks out as usual and Ripley is taken aback that Bishop volunteers to go. When he quips that he is synthetic, not stupid, Ripley sees the first glimpse that Bishop may not be like Ash as she feared.

There is a deleted scene where Bishop does encounter an alien. It spies him through a crack in the conduit but when he doesn’t react to it, it loses interest and leaves. This has never been released.

When Newt is taken by the aliens, Ripley, an injured Hicks and pilot Bishop must go after her. Bishop is concerned about the limited time they have to leave bringing up the possibility that he will fly the ship out of there. When Ripley does rescue Newt and gets back to the landing platform our fears about Bishop after all. But he flies in as it was too unstable, allowing them to get board before going full speed to outrun the explosion.

Ripley finally accepts he is not like Ash after all. He is ripped in half by the Queen launching the iconic battle between Ripley and the Queen that has gone down in movie history. But since he is synthetic Bishop is still alive and is still able to grab Newt and save her from being sucked out into space along with the Queen. He quips, “Not bad for a human,” at Ripley for taking out the Queen before smiling. Ripley ensures they are all safe in the stasis pods but not even she can believe what happens when she wakes up.

They have crashed and she reactivates the damaged Bishop who reveals to her that an alien got aboard presumably when the Queen did or she laid an egg before the fight. It caused the crash resulting in the deaths of Hicks and Newt.

He asks Ripley to deactivate him. He can be reworked but will never be what he was. It is like a human dealing with an injury so severe that they cannot go on and have asked someone to help them end their life. He’d rather be nothing than a shell of his former self. Ripley does what he asks and her reaction is one of someone who just found a best friend five minutes before then lost them in a heartbeat. But at the end of Alien 3 the company sends the scientist that designed the Bishop series and modelled them on himself. He looks like Bishop and his name is Michael Bishop, a gesture to show Ripley a friendly face to persuade her to come with him. He may well be a descendant of Weyland himself as the looks are identical. Seeing and hearing him, in the voice of her dead friend, has little impact on Ripley. She knows it is just another ploy by the company to get the alien. Her Bishop is dead; this one is the version she initially thought Bishop was; the company man with no conscience who will bury an entire colony of people to ensure the alien is brought to them. Her Bishop would never do that because her Bishop had more of a conscience and morality than these humans who gave him their face. Rather than help them, Ripley kills herself by throwing herself and her implanted alien into molten lead.

Bishop and his likeness has continued in novels, games and comics including the Marvel Alien line. He will always be the android that showed Ripley what it is to be human whether your blood is white or red.

TW Watches Doctor Who Wish World S02E07

By Owen Quinn author Photos copyright BBC

I’ve watched this episode three times now and being the penultimate episode of the season, the stakes were high with the arrival of not one but two Ranis. Both they and the Doctor were on course for 24th May 2025 when the world ended. We knew Ruby and Conrad would be back so how was it all connected?

To be honest, I wasn’t impressed. It all starts off well with the Rani murdering an entire family so she can steal the newborn seventh son. he turns out to be yet another god, the god of wishes. She locks him in a room with Conrad in her palace above London who broadcasts stories to the world, a world that he wished for. Archie Punjabi certainly has shades of Kate O’Mara in her performance and it is nice to see Kate O’Mara in flashback. She was a legend.

It is a world where a woman is a woman, destined to be a good little wife and a man is a man, out working nine to five. Therefore the Doctor and Belinda are Mister and Mrs John Smith with a daughter called Poppy. Could this be a reference to the Poppy Honey from the last episode? And no man can love another man as it’s not in Conrad’s rules.

John Smith works for UNIT, only it’s a national insurance company ran by hard nosed boss Kate Stewart. You start at nine o’clock and be happy, happy, happy. The world is perfect which speaks volumes about Conrad’s character and how he sees the world. And it isn’t pleasant.

I have to say there is a nice commentary on the disabled. Ruby is on the run as anyone having doubts about the way things are are taken away by the police. She meets Shirley, the disabled wheelchair scientific/advisor from our UNIT who is now homeless and begging on the streets. In Conrad’s world, there are no disabled people or misfits; everyone is happy, able-bodied and living an almost fifties lifestyle. This is exemplified in the scene with Belinda, her mother and grandmother who discuss Poppy’s future as a good wife and mother. Yet none can remember her labour or even when she was born. And no-one sees the disabled. I still wish Morris was back though.

His begging on the street and living in cardboard city would have been a more powerful image than Shirley.

This reflects the real world as disabled people are literally a community of their own, mostly unseen by the world and if seen in the street, glanced at out of the side of peoples’ eyes. It’s also interesting that Russell T Davies cited Davros’ disability as too extreme so give him a normal body as people would associate disability with evil. Now here we have two wheelchairs storming the Rani HQ with Ruby. The show’s logic about representing disability confuses me. And I speak as a disabled person, an amputee to be precise.

The Ranis need the doubts of the world especially that of the Doctor’s to break open reality to find the Lost One, Omega. Omega is the first and most frightening Time Lord as seen in The Three Doctors when the entire universe was in danger because of him trying to break through from the universe of antimatter he was trapped in, bringing the first three Doctors together to save the day. He would once try again with the help of sympathetic Time Lords in the fifth Doctor story, Arc of Infinity.

Here we hear the dialogue from The Three Doctors as the world begins to collapse in a fantastic special effects scene but it isn’t loud enough to be heard properly for the casual viewer. Stephen Thorne’s portrayal of Omega is iconic so it is great to hear that voice again. But the return of Omega opens up a huge contradiction in Time history and indeed the show’s history, thanks to the Chris Chibnall era.

Omega harnessed the power of a black hole to give the Time Lords the power to time travel along with Rassilon. But in the attempt, Omega was lost, believed dead. He was their greatest hero even to the Doctor. But when Gallifrey and the universe was attacked by a force from within a black hole, they discovered Omega alive in an antimatter universe. He had been forgotten, furious that he had been abandoned by the Time Lords, living in isolation in a world of his will just like Conrad but he had been driven insane and his body had gone. Only his powerful will kept him alive. Tricked by the Doctor, he was believed dead again, destroyed in a matter/antimatter explosion creating a new sun. But somehow he survived and helped by some sympathetic Timer Lords, he wanted to use the Doctor’s body print to reclaim his place in our universe.

However, the Doctor is the basis for all Time Lords, a lost child found by Tecteun who harnessed her regeneration abilities, transplanting them into every Time Lord, creating the society of Gallifrey. It was under Tecteun’s guidance that they discovered the ability to time travel. She enforced the twelve regenerations rule while heading the secretive Divison.

So the Rani may not be aware of this but the Doctor is the first and most frightening Time Lord. So Omega’s return is kind of underwhelming. The Rani’s plan seems convoluted. The next episode trailer has revealed why she wants Omega but it’s a plot line that is the similar to the Time Warriors book Tempest.

I’ve watched it three times now and still get that underwhelmed feeling. The return of Mel, Rogue and Susan are titbits. Are the latter two real or just manifestations of the Doctor’s fractured memories? Where’s the David Tennant Doctor in all of this? Is he off planet or has his memory been erased too?

So with Earth collapsing Inception style, the Doctor plunging to his death, crying out that his daughter Poppy is really his flesh and blood daughter, just left me with a feeling of… just get on with it now.

This is a very mixed episode that seems to be struggling with its own logic. We can only hope part two delivers in spades.