This Friday sees an exclusive signing event for this weekend’s Eastercon. Eastercon is being held at the Hilton Hotel at Lanyon Place. Named Reconnect it will take place from Friday 18th April to Monday 21st April.
Some of those in attendance at the convention will be Belfast’s Ian McDonald, Derek Landy, Lauren Beukes, Rebecca Roanhorse and Will Simpson.
The signing takes place at Forbidden Planet in Ann Street Belfast between 4pm and 6pm this Friday 18th April. Magazine creator and contributor, Trevor Kennedy with Ramsey Campbell and Owen Quinn will be in attendance with special guests dropping in over the two hours to sign copies of the Eastercon 2025 souvenir issue. Come along and meet the team.
Just as we get new Doctor Who on screen, the show has lost a former companion. Jean Marsh whose career has spanned decades from the classic Upstairs, Downstairs to movies like The Eagle Has Landed and The Changeling. She was also a power behind the camera as co-creator of the House of Eliott. She is an Emmy award winner and in demand both here and in America. She appeared in The Twilight Zone, Return to Oz, Willow and so much more.
But for Doctor Who fans, she is one of ours and started with William Hartnell when she played Lady Joanna in The Crusade . She would later earn companion status when she joined the Doctor, William Hartnell, in the Daleks’ Masterplan as Space Security Service agent Sara Kingdom. She joined the Doctor and Steven, Peter Purves, in the battle to save the universe. While we take kickass companions for granted these days, Sara was the original and the best. Like an Avengers girl, she brought girl power to the Tardis like never before. She was tough, sassy and totally loyal to the Doctor and Steven. This loyalty was twisted by the evil Mavic Chen who allied himself with the Daleks. He persuaded her to murder her own brother under false pretences which she did before joining the Doctor. That brother was Bret Vyon played by future Brigadier actor Nicholas Courtney.
Sara would be the second companion to die when she sacrificed herself to save the universe. She grabs the Time Destructor and is aged to death right before Steven’s eyes before the Doctor can deactivate it. Thanks to Sara, Chen and the Daleks were defeated but with two companions dead, Trojan handmaiden, Katarina and Sara, at a terrible cost.
Jean was married to the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee for five years before they divorced but she would make another appearance in Doctor Who and this time she was an enemy of the seventh Doctor, Sylvester McCoy.
In Season 26, the legend of Merlin crosses dimensions as Jean as the magically powerful witch Morgaine and her troops including mad son, Mordred. She says the seventh Doctor is Merlin and this will be their last battlefield. Beautifully weaving the Arthur mythology into the story, Jean was not a one dimensional villain. She was a real badass, capable of summoning the Satan like Destroyer in a classic cliffhanger when she attempts to entice Ace, Sophie Aldred and Shou Yuing, Ling Tai into giving her the Excalibur to ensure her victory. Using her powers, she uses racism to break the girls apart but fails.
Battlefield was a special story because it marked the final appearance of both Jean in the show but also the Brigadier. For fans, it was lovely to see Bret Vyon and his sister reunited on screen once more. The scene where she meets the Brigadier and honours the fact he is a soldier was nicely done, again giving another level to the character. She may be a mad witch but she has honour and her defeat is brought about because her heart is broken when she discovers her true love, Arthur, is dead. She is devastated and ends up in a prison owned by UNIT. To this day, that is where she still remains.
Jean would appear in a photo in The Day of the Doctor when Clara found photos of all the Doctor’s former companions in the Back Archive. In the photo, she is with Mike Yates, fallen UNIT soldier from the Pertwee era leading to fans trying to piece how Sara and Mike Yates crossed paths.
Jean Marsh was pure quality in everything she has done and her contribution to the lore of Doctor Who cannot be overstated enough. Rest easy.
I’ll leave you with one final quote I’ve taken from Battlefield. which reflects today.
“Jean Marsh, who burned like starfire and was as beautiful. Rest in peace.”
So the Tardis is back with Ncuti Gatwa at the helm once again after a woke filled and terrible first season (saved only by Steven Moffat, Gatwa, Dot and Bubble and Bonnie Langford) with a climax that can only be labelled as shit.
Ruby is gone after the events of Empire of Death and a new companion comes to fill her place; a companion with a face the Doctor has seen before. Actors that have appeared in Doctor Who before becoming companions has been going on since the sixties in the William Hartnell era but it is only the new era that has decided to connect these things, sometimes unnecessarily, e.g.: the reason the 12th Doctor looks like Caecilius from the David Tennant episode ‘Fires of Pompeii’, the 6th Doctor taking his face from Commander Maxil , a Gallifreyan guard who tried to execute the Doctor in ‘Arc of Infinity’.
You all know the story so I won’t go into detail. Nurse Belinda Chandra is taken by robots in the middle of the night to claim her rightful place as the Queen of planet Miss Belinda Chandra and all thanks to an old boyfriend buying her a star for her birthday seventeen years ago. Now she must take the throne and marry the great AI generator to bring about peace between the humans and the robots.
Got it so far? Good. Stay with me. So was it good? Was it an introduction worthy of yet another plucky woman to take her place by the side of the Doctor? After hearing other reviews say it was a shaky start and the new companion, played by Varada Sethu, was good and brought a new energy, I wasn’t sure what I was walking into and let me reiterate, I have been a fan since Pertwee and stayed during the wilderness years while the masses pissed off elsewhere. So this show is in my heart literally and when I hear others cry about its death knells, it annoys me. There is still plenty of mileage in this show with the right people in place and with no agendas to take you out of the story. After watching The Robot Revolution, I have hope. Hope dammit! HOPE! Let’s just hope that hope is not short lived.
I really liked this episode. It felt the way Capaldi’s era felt invigorated with the introduction of Bill (Pearl Mackie). She deserved more than a season. This was a great set up for the rest of the season.
It opens with a mystery and ends with yet another powerful mystery that I loved. Do you remember the wonderful one season show Odyssey 5 starring Peter Weller? That’s what the end reminded me of. But let’s break it down and address things.
When Mrs Flood breaks the fourth wall and tells the viewer not to say they saw her something in the back of my head but can’t recall what from the show’s past. I’ve heard the rumour and if it is, it’ll be a Sutekh sized anticlimax. So why is she hiding from the Doctor? Why did she say goodbye to Belinda? What does she know or is she setting it all up going as far back as Ruby?
I loved the robots but were reminiscent of those from the Sarah Jane Adventures episode ‘The Empty Earth’. I loved the wee cleaning robot with his “polish, polish”. Gatwa is simply the Doctor. He has it nailed on so many levels you would like to think the powers that be won’t screw this up and lose the show with him at the helm. I adored the every ninth word scene. Very clever.
The whole storyline of the time fracture stranding him six months on Miss Belinda Chandra and teaming up with the rebels to fight the robots was cool. As he said, timey-wimey and it was woven perfectly into the story structure.
It made sense that the Doctor would have yet another costume change and while he was crying within 17 minutes of the episode (something his incarnation has been criticised for) it was justified. You could see the bond he had created with Sacha 55 so her death when she was on the verge of travelling in the Tardis with him hit home. It proved a stark contrast to Belinda who takes no prisoners but in a real way this time. Her instinct is to help the sick and wounded, not follow the Doctor round like an impressed puppy. She doesn’t want this life and has no desire to travel with him because of actions. The carefree Doctor who bounces with the very joy of life and mystery. She takes him to task for just taking her DNA without permission just to prove his theory about Mundy in Boom. She reminds him that he made the same promise of adventure to Sacha and she died. He is passionately dangerous and it is this passion that gets others killed. He is in danger of seeing her, not as a person, but an adventure to be solved. He did this with Ruby, Donna and Clara and see how they ended.
Tegan and Turlough also wanted to go home as did Ian and Barbara but they soon changed their tune. Now the fact the Doctor cannot get to earth on the day of Belinda’s kidnapping is intriguing. Also notice the Doctor’s reaction; he is laughing at first until he realises something is wrong. When he looks out the Tardis door, how did he not see what we saw? That ominous rumble of the destroyed Earth was spooky and effective. It was a great shot and a wonderful way to keep us hooked. Whatever is coming now, whatever Ruby is referring to when she tells them to stay at home and lock their doors is powerful to say the least. The only race to ever mess earth up on this scale was the Time Lords themselves in ‘Trial of a Time Lord’ when they shifted it across space and renamed it to hide their crimes. Could it be?
I do have to raise the constant cry that he is the last of the Time Lords. He isn’t. He hasn’t forgotten about his other self because he asked Rose in ‘The Legend of Ruby Sunday’ how her uncle was; the name they gave the 14th Doctor. So is the Master as we saw when someone took the Toymaker’s gold tooth in ‘The Giggle’. And I’ve never bought the idea that all the Time Lords were on Gallifrey when the Master murdered everyone. Not a chance. Plus part Time Lord Jenny is loose too.
But like the ‘Joy To The World’ Christmas episode, this is not as simple a story as it seems and is expertly shown at the beginning so deftly, many will have missed it.
The great AI Generators that Belinda must join with is in fact her old boyfriend, Alan from the opening of the episode. This is why he has a duplicate of the certificate of the star named after Belinda, not just a duplicate but the exact same certificate somehow gotten from the future. In the opening, she rips off the wrapping, he mutters if she had unfolded it, the paper could be used again later. Such an off the cuff remark, we associate with Data from Star Trek The Next Generation where he did unfold the paper from a present only to be told to rip it off.
‘The Robot Revolution’ is in fact a commentary on abusive and controlling boyfriends. The whole thing has been staged by Alan to get the girl he asked to marry him ten years before. Belinda refused and he moved away to what she thought was Margate, In fact, it was stargate.
We see how Belinda will be joined in marriage to him when she is mechanised very similar to the character of Vera is turned into a cyborg by the super computer. Alan started the war but Belinda caused his kidnapping by the robots when, during the time fracture, she told them to go get him. It isn’t until the AI generator asks her if she is married, does Belinda catch on who he is; Alan has been fully and very willingly transformed into a nightmare.
He is like a steampunk Locutus of Borg and really is the stuff of nightmares. This is the true face of the man that Belinda could have married; the devil behind the blond haired nerd that bought her a star. He started the war and only by merging with Belinda will the war end. We then see that when he wanted her to marry him, he wanted her to wear looser fitting cloth, no more texting after eight o’clock. He wants to absorb Belinda’s mind and is so deranged he wants to control everything. This war will never end. The fact that Belinda never caught it on is so real because many women and men in that position realise when it’s too late or in some cases just live with it. Russell T Davies should have just called this abuse rather than calling it coercive control. This is abuse on a planetary scale from a weak-minded fool who finds his power in the control others making them subversive under the label of love.
Tell it for what it is, not some fancy term. If they had, people would click on straight away but I suppose it keeps the children from asking.
Overall, this was far from a shaky start but a solid opener that delivered the central mystery only to add more intrigue. I have to admit, I did slow the faces sequence down when Belinda touched her certificate’s to Alan’s. I was betting that there were some hidden clues in there for what’s going to come but I couldn’t see anything or did I? In an episode that is all about the power of words, cause and effect , timey-wimey and a powerful new mystery, we are off to a great start. Now where do I buy a “polish , polish” robot?
Join us for the craic as we answer questions from the public like top Marvel movies, who would you love to kick in the nuts and can anyone name more than 2 M Night Shyamalan movies or does anyone care? Join us for the craic and give us a like.
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.
With every shop there is a constant thread that our heroes may die or nearly die or survive to the end with some scars but essentially human or Klingon or Gallifreyan whatever nothing terminal happens to them. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer we always had the threat of our heroes being turned into vampires. Being a friend of the Slayer or simply living in Sunnydale made you a prime target for a bloodsucker upgrade. Sometimes they came close but it never happened.
However in the third season episode The Wish, a hurt Cordelia wishes that Buffy had never moved to Sunnydale. She discovered that her boyfriend Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon) cheated on her with Willow Rosenburg (Alyson Hannigan). While they had always been close friends, Willow had a crush on Xander and they finally acted upon it.
Cordelia took a risk becoming involved with Xander due to her status as most popular girl in school and him being a nerd. But when Cordelia made that wish she didn’t realise her new friend Anya was a vengeance demon. Vengeance demons grant wishes for women betrayed by men and she creates a new timeline where Buffy never came. Sunnydale is now overrun with vampires led by the Master. With no Buffy there was no one to stop him from rising at the end of season one. Now it is a hellhole where the Bronze nightclub is openly vamp where they keep in cages unfortunate victims.
Cordelia is confused at first until she meets Willow and Xander dressed strangely and soon realises they are vampires and lovers. Becoming a vamp frees all your inhibitions and they act upon their attraction which only winds up Cordelia even more. She is only saved from them by the town’s only defence the White Hats consisting of Giles (Anthony Head), Oz (Seth Green), Larry Blaisdell and Nancy.
Willow along with Xander is now part of the Master’s elite guard, the Order of Aurelius, his right hand persons so to speak. She is everything that our Willow isn’t; sensual, sexual, unafraid to speak her mind and fights like a demon. Like all vamps she is sadistic and uncaring about her victims. This Willow likes it when her victims die fighting and screaming. There is nothing human about her anymore and is a prime example of how becoming a vampire makes a person so far removed from the one you knew. Without a soul, good kind Willow is gone forever. It is a far cry from the guilt ridden one we saw earlier in the episode trying to apologise to Oz only to be rejected.
Willow’s outfit is Moulin Rouge in appearance announcing her lack of inhibitions In fear of being killed by the Master she and Xander murder Cordelia something Willow finishes with a little wave. Here Willow gets bored easily so passes her time being sadistic which she calls playing; her puppy is Angel, chained in a cell and Willow’s plaything. So good is she at torture that Xander likes to watch.
When Buffy does arrive, all hell breaks loose and there is a huge fight. Willow launches herself into it and her and Buffy battle. However ironically it is her spurned lover from this reality that kills her along with Larry by impaling her. As heroes fall, Giles stops Anya by smashing her amulet and reverses the wish.
But as we know death isn’t always permanent in this genre. In Doppelgangland, Willow and Anya try a spell to bring back Anya’s amulet. Alternate Giles destroyed the vengeance demon’s amulet to restore reality leaving Anya human in our world. She isn’t happy and desperately wants to be a demon again. Willow has begun practicing magic but is still a learner. Instead her spell creates a temporal fold that brings vampire Willow into our world.
Her world has a curfew, people do not go out once darkness falls and everyone wears dull clothes to avoid attracting vamps. Vampire Willow cannot believe humans walk the streets at night so freely and wear the most up to date fashion. She meets Buffy and Xander. She is horrified that her lover is a human and tells Buffy she hates her. When Buffy goes to stop her leaving, Willow shows her vamp face. They believe their friend has been turned only to meet her in the library as her normal self.
Vamp Willow is attacked by vampires thinking she is our Willow but she slaps them down. She then organises them to storm the Bronze where she intends to turn everyone into vampires. She kills a girl on the spot to prove her intentions. Oz is trapped there as is Anya and Angel escapes to get Buffy. Anya explains what is really going on to her telling her about her alternate self that brought her here.
Vampire Willow finds our Willow and at first wants to be sent back to her reality but comes round to the idea of a universe with two Willows. She licks her neck and our Willow is creeped out. It is the first indication that Willow is actually gay which will later come to fruition. She manages to hit her with a tranquiliser dart and lock her in a cage. Our Willow then has to impersonate her other self while swapping outfits. Camp Willow is horrified at being dressed as “fuzzy” and tricks Cordelia into letting her out but not before Cordelia nearly bores her to death with her wittering about stealing boyfriends.
After an unsuccessful attempt to kill Cordelia only to be stopped by Wesley, vamp Willow enters the Bronze as there is a free for all fight. She tries to kill our Willow by strangulation. Buffy leaps to stake her but our Willow stops her. They have to send her back to her world but still arrives at the point where she is killed by Oz.
Alyson Hannigan does a great job making the two Willows individuals and not verge into the camp exaggerated territory. It is always great to see a good guy go to the dark side but when it’s done so well as it was with these two episodes, it stands out from the crowd. Add to that the story is not just a stunt but has ripples that will echo until the end of the series.
Photo copyright New Line Cinema (Warner Bros Entertainment)
This time we follow up last week’s date with death in the first Final Destination to see what happens next. Is it a worthy sequel or just an attempt to squeeze more money out of the fans? Sure, it’s all good craic! Give us a like and help support independent authors.
Photo copyright New Line Cinema (Warner Bros Entertainment)
and Check out the latest movie look back when Stephen and I try to cheat death in Final Destination. Sure, it’s all good craic! Give us a like and help support independent authors.
There will be a lot of tributes today about the passing of Val Kilmer but how many will have that personal touch. Most will be bios of his career and quotes from fellow celebrities but I was a huge fan of the man and this one hurt hard for me.
For me, Kilmer has always been one of those actors who has always been there. Others have come and gone but there is something magnetic about Kilmer that has kept him in the industry this long. While he was a good looking man, he dominated the screen when he was on it. He had the most magnetic eyes and strong jawline giving him the classic leading man look, reminding us of the leading men from the golden days of Hollywood.
Everyone will rightly talk about Top Gun, Tombstone, The Doors and Batman and he did so many other things. As Batman, he had that chameleon quality similar to Keaton. In a way, he was the perfect Batman because with his good looks, nobody would ever think he would be a superhero. The rich playboy label to throw people off Bruce Wayne’s night time activities has never fitted so well under Kilmer’s reign.
He was a great leading man; his Jim Morrison was so good that the surviving members of The Doors said they couldn’t tell the difference between the singing voice of Kilmer and the real Jim Morrison. He was also a great hero, best exemplified in Willow. Willow gave Kilmer the chance to play the hero without the limits of the Batman character and he was fun, exuberant and multilayered as Madmartigan. In some aspects, he was an even more fun version of Han Solo. People also forget that he was the voice of the super car KITT in the short-lived Knight Rider reboot. Remember Deja Vu?
No tribute can ever be complete without acknowledging his return to Top Gun despite being ill with throat cancer. And there can be no more touching tribute to a person than the quality of the things his friends say about him in their passing. Tom Cruise did him proud when talking about his return to Top Gun Maverick while his friend Josh Brolin is heartbroken. Kurt Russell formed a special bond with Kilmer on the set of Tombstone (has there ever been a better version of Doc Holliday). And when you think about it, that’s what we all want when we go. We only see the performance but his friends see the real man. But in Val’s case, we all got to see the dignity he displayed in his health issues.
Pause and think for a moment because the world really has lost a legend. They are few and far between and there won’t be a movie buff’s household today that will not be watching something featuring Val Kilmer and reminding us that his legacy will live on through his performances.
Join Stephen Carey and Owen Quinn for another episode as they breakdown movies to find the gem within. This week under the spotlight is M Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin starring Dave Bautista. check it out and give us a like. You know you want to because the craic is always good!
By and copy right of Owen Quinn 2024 Shadow Queen concept art Stephen Mooney Book cover by Conaire McMullan
Tyran is thrown into another dimension when one of her experiments goes wrong. Her presences begins to destabilise the region. her only hope is a talking rabbit and fairy. The race is on to retrieve her equipment but The Shadow Queen has taken it and from all accounts has no intention of handing it back. This story is part of the Time Warriors anthology The Wolves of Chernobyl and Other Stories
“Once, we spoke to humans all the time before the wall came down. Now they look at those left behind like we are mere animals. I was firm friends with Farmer Langdon, Lanky Langdon to his friends. We used to discuss everything from philosophy to the best way to grow crops.”
“Used to?” Tyran prompted.
“He died; his lungs went black from the smoke. The animals went to his funeral with the humans. Little did we know, the tears shed that day from the beasts and the humans would mark the very last time we would speak.”
“I’ve heard of that from the First Nation people; that humans and animals once lived in harmony until man forgot how to talk to the animals.”
The rabbit nodded sadly.
“True. I miss Farmer Langdon so I am so glad of this chance to speak with you,” the rabbit said brightly smiling, its whiskers curling up like a thumbs up.
“Can you tell me where I am? I have lost some things of mine. My name is Tyran. Perhaps you have seen them mister…?” she prompted.
“Shandy Badandy at your service Miss Tyran!”
Tyran stood letting the reality, the mind-blowing reality of what was happening right now.
“A bunny rabbit is talking to me like I had just met an old friend in the street,” she muttered to herself slightly stunned.
“I’ll try not to take that personally,” the rabbit riled with mild insult. “It’s not every day we get to hear a human voice in this land.” He shook his little pointed head slowly. “The first wails of the Fair Child are not even a memory any more since tones like yours vibrated the air. I can hear the music of this world shake as it reacts in real shocked surprise to the addition of your voice.” Shandy shivered despite the warm day as cold icy fingers slithered down his spine. “It grates our senses so we need to get you out of here and back to your human realm as soon as possible.”
“I’m all for that Thumper,” Tyran agreed eagerly. “I had some equipment with me. I need to find it so I can get out of here.”
“Your box made from a strange metal with three legs like the Tyrenian stork?”
Tyran’s head snapped back at the rabbit.
“You know where my machine is?”
Shandy recoiled, shrivelling under the question.
“It was stolen by the Shadow Queen. Oh my, she left you there like a fallen leaf in autumn while she took your machine,” Shandy said. “What is a machine?”
The Time Warriors and Beyond 