Space is no longer the final frontier. The Darkness is coming and only the Time Warriors stand between it and Earth. Grab your copies today on Amazon!
Join Stephen carey, Owen Quinn and Jack Markham as they celebrate the one year anniversary of the podcast. They look back at the higlights, who said what, stats, listener feedback and get personal when they reveal never before details ablut themselves as to why you love to tune in. Plus, will Owen ever be able to pronounce Dave Bautista’s name?
Join the craic. You won’t look back!
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Doctor Who has been for 60 years a canvas for every type of story you can and cannot think of but rarely has it dipped into pure horror. In the Doctor Who Monthly 54 and 55. Written by Steve Parkhouse and drawn by Dave Gibbons, it is one of those rare stories that would have to be toned down for television. Anything else that has come close like the Two Doctors has come in for criticism about being too violent for children. But adults underestimate kids sneakiness and watch things they should not be.
The Doctor arrives alone on a seemingly deserted subway platform in an undetermined time and place. It is covered with litter and graffiti and gives off a gloomy aura. Suddenly the Doctor finds himself under attack from cannibalistic humans. While the show has dealt with horror this is firmly in the genre where Mad Max, Doomsday and The last of Us are at home. Humanity has been reduced to the level of murderous scavengers who kill and do anything to survive. To think we as civilised beings falling to this level is unsettling and scary. Like those beings we would kill our friends for a scrap of bread or do anything to have the safety of a community in this nightmare landscape.
These cannibals use bones for weapons as well as blades, axes, hunting knives, anything to mutilate and carve their kill there and then. Some of them have devolved and look misshapen, the result of probably the radiation and toxic atmosphere that has caused birth defects. This revokes Wrong Turn and the Hills Have Eyes mutants. They are not to be reasoned with, something that is alien to the Doctor.
All he can do is run for his life in a landscape that wants to murder him and have him for dinner….literally. Their leader is called the Chief, a madman that has a chainsaw for an arm and his sniffer dog is an old man on all fours on a leash and harness. This is R rated stuff and would not have made it to television. When you watch movies like Doomsday where a virus has decimated the UK but there are survivors in Scotland that mirror the cannibals in End of the Line. In that movie they tied Sean Pertwee’s character to the front of a tank and burned him alive and started feasting on him there and then. This echoes the scene where the Chief is electrocuted. His minions comment they love a roast and how good he smells before feeding. This is scary stuff as the Doctor is on the verge of being sliced apart and fed on. No regeneration will save him this time. If ever a concept would send a kid behind the sofa then this is it.
In the seventh Doctor story Paradise Towers, Mel is almost murdered by two old cannibalistic pensioners. Even then it was played down as not to be OTT despite the image of one of them being eaten by a trash disposal unit with only her legs showing. What is shown in this comic strip is far more graphic. We see two survivors stomachs being ripped open by the Chief, something that would not make it on screen.
However rescue comes in the form of Angel, a blond girl ace fighter of the Guardian Angels. She is part of a few survivors including leader Sonny and the Engineer. Sonny and Angel are romantically involved and where there is love there is hope right?
The Engineer is an old man who has figured a way out of the city but is very ill. It is a combination of radiation and malnutrition. He knows there is a place called countryside where they can live free from the poisons and cannibals. All he needs to do is get the train moving. It is easy to picture Sonny and Angel starting a family along with the other survivors once they are free from the city.
The Doctor succeeds in getting the train moving but the Chief and his hordes attack. In the battle he tries to kill the Doctor for himself but hits electrical cables frying him on the spot. He suddenly becomes dinner as they are excited at the prospect of a roast dinner. Separated from the others, the Doctor stumbles upon the Tardis and takes off. As we know the Doctor keeps running, never looking back.
This time however he needs to know if the Engineer achieved his dream of living free in the countryside. He pilots the Tardis To land outside the city where he is dismayed to see a wasteland with no indication of any form of lush countryside.
He waits patiently on the platform for a long time until it starts raining. Concerned about the radiation effect in the droplets, the Doctor pauses at the Tardis door. He knows they are not coming and that they probably were killed in the attack. With a final look at the poison wasteland, he ponders that it is probably for the best. It is a bleak day when even the Doctor decides that death potentially at the hands of cannibals is preferable to finding sanctuary has been reduced to ash.
It’s a very somber end to the story and a stark reminder that the Doctor doesn’t always win. The television fourth Doctor would stride in to any situation and save the day no matter how dire the situation. He brings hope and light but there are some places in the universe that not even he can light up.
A great story that highlights that if we fall from civilisation it may be too far to ever come back again. A multilayered gem from Steve Parkhouse.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photos copyright BBC
We were warned in A Good Man Goes To War.
The Doctor would rise so high before falling further than he ever has before because this was the day he discovered who River Song really was. But I was not prepared to have my jaw fall during an episode that blew me away.
Thus far we have had the Doctor meeting the mysterious Professor River Song who knows him but he has no idea who she is. Currently she is in the storm cage for murdering a man and just back from a trip to London with the Doctor where Stevie Wonder played for them.
At the same time the Doctor has discovered that the Amy he and Rory have been travelling with is just a flesh avatar. The real Amy has been kidnapped and kept alive by Madame Kovarian and her army led by Colonel Manton. They have joined forces with the Headless Monks to prevent the Doctor rescuing Amy. But the Doctor is not one to simply walk away blowing up the twelfth Cyber legion as a message.
The legions at Demon’s Run are taken down by the Doctor and his allies such as the Silurian people, Vastra, Jennie, Strax, a pirate crew, Dorium and World War Two pilots including Danny Boy. Amy and the baby are rescued and all is well with the world. But the Doctor in all his planning has failed to see that he has been tricked in a double bluff. Lady Vastra points out that this was too easy and the Doctor did all this out of anger. Cleric Lorna Bucket arrives warning them that this is a trap. But the re are no lifeforms registering on their scanners; however the Headless Monks are not alive so won’t register.
All of this was done so they could have a baby with Time Lord DNA mixed in due to Amy’s exposure to the Time Vortex on her wedding night in the Tardis. The Doctor gets a message from Kovarian that the baby is hope in the war against the Doctor. he is the cause of everything that is happening.
As the Headless Monks attack, the Doctor’s friends surround Amy and baby Melody from their enemies getting Melody back again. Lorna joins the fight as she met the Doctor once before and has searched for him ever since.
Kovarian laughs that fooling the Doctor once was a joy but fooling him twice the same way is a privilege. Realising what she means the Doctor runs as River Song narrates a poem about Demon’s Run. The Doctor runs calling out for Amy, Kovarian says wakey-wakey and Melody Pond explodes in her mother’s arms as the flesh avatar she always was.
I cannot tell you how much this moment was a slap in the face. You immediately are horrified and feel for Amy and Rory as she screams staring at the white goo she is covered in. The Doctor cannot say anything and Amy pushes him away despite saying she knows this is not his fault. The mournful soundtrack is haunting as they come to terms with losing the baby. They lose Lorna too as she dies having found the Doctor again. Dorium is also lost as is Strax.
The entire episode has been so carefully layered and structured to the moment the Doctor realises too late that he has not won at all; he has failed and in the process delivered the prize right into Kovarian’s hands destroying the lives of his two best friends, Amy and Rory forever.
The loss of a baby is bad enough but to have her kidnapped, taken away from you forever to be turned into a weapon specifically to kill the Doctor is worse. You know she is out there and the life you had in your head for her, the plans you had, the moments that are robbed of that make lifetime memories are gone because of the man in the blue box. These parents will never smile again or have a happy birthday party. Rory says it all in three words “yeah we know.”
In those words he conveys the pain and grief he and Amy share now. And you can tell it is directed at the Doctor. There is so much consequence in their words and body language that the Doctor really cannot understand. Most people live to have children someday and raise them to be better and to give them better lives than they had growing up. There is a hole in their hearts that will never be cured.
The interesting thing is that although we know that River Song is Melody, it doesn’t take away from Amy and Rory’s pain.
A Good Man Goes To War is for me one of the most outstanding episodes of the Matt Smith era not because of the alien aspect but it is the boldest and most human story of them all dealing with the loss of a child. Perfect.
Join Owen Quinn and Stephen Carey as they look back at the Terminator. Join the craic. You won’t look back.
By Owen Quinn author. Artwork copyright IDW and Chris Shehan
It’s interesting that knowing Barrow is in potential danger for 30 days with no sun, that many have stayed there. What does that say about the human psyche that it would gamble with their very souls like that?
I don’t ususally review comic books but I read and collect them. But, last week while collecting my pull list, I noticed this on the wall. It is a limited series , six issues I believe and I have it ordered.
I had never read the first comic book. My first encounter with the 30 Days of Night world was the movie starring Josh Harnett and Melissa George. I loved it. Such calculated savagery on behalf of the vamps and blood on a snow background never fails to impact. It was only then I heard of the comic and when I saw The X-Files comic do a crossover with 30 Days, I jumped on it. I didn’t jump on the sequel movie though.
But I did jump on this when I saw that cover staring at me from the shelf. It’s gorgeous and evocative. This print is the first in IDW Dark run which will focus on horror and it picks up twenty years after the events of the first comic series. Barrow is a different place now, fearful of the arrival of a month of night with survivors still in therapy groups. Me? I’d have moved to the sunniest climate I could find. Or a church with plenty of garlic and crucifixes.
Writer Rodney Barnes and artist Chris Shehan have brought us back to Barrow where a newly resurrected Vicente has shown to give Barrow a second taste of the power of vampires where everyone is on the menu and no one will survive this attack. This is going to be a slaughter for revenge theri fallen from the first attack. Shehan’s use of shades of red is beautiful making this a visual feast.
In the middle of this comes a troubled teenager, Jalen James, staying with his Uncle Calvin to escape gang trouble in Los Angeles. As Jalen meets the other residents, we see a lovely split. Those who don’t believe the original attack ever happened scoff at those that do like poor Bobby Jo, who believes she should have died with her family that night and is still plagued with nightmares. Ernestine’s mother fills her house with holy candles, crucifiex and the Bible but her daughter knows they are no good if a vampire comes.
Her mother says, “Barrow is wicked. That’s why the bad thing came.”
What a great line, so evocative of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot.
It’s interesting that knowing Barrow is in potential danger for 30 days with no sun, that many have stayed there. What does that say about the human psyche that it would gamble with their very souls like that?
The town prepares each year to vampire proof itself but seriously, why have they stayed and not moved to sunnier climates with me?
The fact we, as readers can see the rebirth of Vladimir, brother of, Vicente, who heads straight to Barrow with his vampire brood like migrating birds which brings a real sense of unease. Valdimir is furious that he was murdered by Marlow in the original series as his brother watched.
It is the first time that I have willed characters to run now especially with the divided nature of the town between those that know and those that don’t believe. I felt unnerved as we witnessed the rebirth and look into the inhabitants that have no idea what’s coming. Jalen has picked the wrong time to visit his uncle because he is now in the path of a gang far deadlier and terrifying than anything he faced in Los Angeles.
The art is stunning as is the writing, drip feeding you crumbs that will come to fruition further down the line against stunning artwork. The panel where a man is ripped apart to satisfy the newy resurrected Vicente is beautiful as is the moment Vicente rises from the dead having been resurrected through his own blood. How the vampires plan ahead like this to ensure they can be brought back to life a la Chrisopher Lee at his finest as Dracula, makes them even more dangerous across a grander timescale meaning they are much harder to kill than previously thought.
For a first issue, this sequel more than delivers leaving the reader terrified of what is to come. Can’t recommend this enough.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photos copyright BBC
“Your evil is my good! I am Sutekh the Destroyer. Where I tread I leave nothing but dust and darkness. I find that good.”
Doctor Who has always danced the line between pure horror and fantasy and in the 1975 adventure The Pyramids of Mars, Doctor Who delivered a perfect dose of horror and Egyptian mythology which is one of the most solid and memorable stories of the run. It is evocative of the Hammer movies with its a lost Egyptian tomb being opened against the native’s protests. Once opened, Marcus Scarman is killed by something in the tomb.
It introduced Sutekh who was able to psychically invade the Tardis scaring the hell out of Sarah Jane Smith. The Doctor claims this is impossible so we get our first indication of an enemy so powerful the Doctor cannot even conceive of it. The fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane arrive at the site of UNIT headquarters. This is the Priory which burned down. It isn’t long before they discover the house filled with Egyptian artifacts brought from their home country by one Ibrahim Namin who claims he is acting on orders of the house owner Marcus Scarman.
Namin is part of a cult that worships Sutekh and is paving the way for his lord’s return. To ensure this happens, he will do anything including murder. The story adapts artifacts with a sci-fi twist. One of the sarcophagus is a time tunnel leading to the tomb where Sutekh has been imprisoned by his fellow Osirans whose personal code did not allow them to kill another of their own. Paralysed in his prison, Sutekh is helpless, relying on his followers to put together his escape.
He is able to send things down the tunnel for first Namin then Scarman to use. We have the robot mummys controlled by a ring. I like many kids couldn’t figure out how this was a man dressed up because of the strange shape of the chest. The image of them stalking their prey and crushing a poacher between their chests remain images that burned into our minds. When the Doctor and Sarah remove the bandages from one, the kid me was unnerved to see there was no man but a wire frame.
But as we see Nanim is but a disposable pawn when Sutekh sends a horrifying figure down the tunnel. It is totally black with a domed like head. It steps forward and places its hands on Namin’s shoulders. They immediately burn as Namin is scalded alive. Aand we get the classic line that stayed with us and rang terrifying in our ears at the climax of The Legend of Ruby Sunday; as Namin screams in agony it says “I bring Sutekh’s gift of death to all humans.”
It is said with such reverence which makes it all the more frightening. The harbinger the turns into Marcus Scarman who now serves Sutekh in all things. Sutekh may be paralysed in his chair but he is controlling everything. Giving Scarman Osirian technology, Sutekh seals the Priory off from the rest of the world under a force field. He gets his mummies to build a rocket that will destroy the lock keeping him trapped. On the surface of mars is a pyramid housing the Eye of Horus, the power source keeping Sutekh where he is. Scarman is every inch the classic Hammer horror villain. He is pure white, the pall of death around him. The man that was is just a puppet, a walking cadaver as seen when he meets Warlock, his old friend.
The memories are still there but come out forced as if it is a foreign word to him. He calls his brother, the human whom he is seeking. He is destroying every last human under the force field. They are now mere humans to be killed by the mummies. His appearance and devoid manners are the classic behaviour of the possessed of a superior force.
But the horror is escalated when a poacher, Clements, having witnessed Scarman and his mummies murdering Warlock. He shoots him in the back but the power of Sutekh manages to reverse the gunshot and keep his puppet alive. It is Sutekh’s will that is controlling everything but even that can be jammed by throwing a signal back at him to break his control. The Doctor says that if Sutekh frees himself Earth will be the first to fall. Everywhere there is life in the universe, Sutekh will destroy. We would see come to pass in The Empire of Death.
The Doctor knows Sutekh from mythology and explains to Sarah who he is and how dangerous he is.
Sutekh destroyed his home world of Osiris. Horus and his surviving Osirans hunted him until the battle of the gods in Egypt. That battle became an integral part of Egyptian mythology leading to a cult that worshipped him. Every part of Egyptian society is based on the Osirian pattern. Over the centuries Sutekh has gone by many names; the Typhonian Beast, Set, Seth, Sutekh the Destroyer; everything our society associates with evil. Not even the Time Lords could stand against him.
I do have to say that part of the terror of Sutekh is his voice. It is gentle and soothing in a manner you wouldn’t expect. That is perfect for the character as it is a voice that pulls us in because it is alluring. That is down to actor Gabriel Woolf. He returned for the two part finale The Legend of Ruby Sunday and The empire Death.
He has influenced humans from his prison planning every step of his escape. It shows just how patient and cunning he is. Companions have so many adventures that they come to be immune to the possibility that they may not win every time. This time the fourth Doctor shows Sarah her future Earth if Sutekh wins; a planet that has been razed to a wasteland of howling winds and lightning storms. This we would see when the fifteenth Doctor watches the Earth fall to dust beneath the dust of death spread by Sutekh’s acolytes, Susan Triad and Harriet Harbinger.
The Doctor and Sarah mange to blow up the rocket aimed at Mars but the sheer will of Sutekh keeps the explosion from happening. Scarman is ordered to remove it forcing the Doctor to travel to face the god alone. He distracts him long enough to break his concentration and destroying the contained explosion.
The Doctor is on a suicide mission when he enters Sutekh’s tomb to face him down. He is thrown back by Sutekh’s mental powers as seen by his eyes turn green. The Doctor is no match as Sutekh takes control of his mind effortlessly and forces him to pilot the Tardis to Mars carrying Scarman and some mummies to destroy the Eye of Horus. Scarman achieves this and freed from the Eye, Scarman dissolves to dust and Sutekh rises from his prison. The only thing that saves them is the two minute gap it takes for a signal to travel between Earth and Mars.
This allows the Doctor to change the time tunnel settings and fling Sutekh to the far future where he dies around 7,000 years later.
We also have to look at the design of Sutekh. His cobra like mask with tunics evoke an Egyptian taste. Beneath the mask is the long alien face of an Osiran. He is a physical humanoid form which raises the question of his return.
As per The Legend of Ruby Sunday and The Empire of Death we learn Sutekh latched on to the Tardis when the fourth Doctor flung him down the time tunnel. He fused himself with the Tardis and evolved into the dog/anubis form (some have said Scooby Doo) we see wrapped round the Tardis. Now the fourth Doctor does say Sutekh’s mental powers make him capable of anything. Could it be he was able to melt himself at a molecular level and fuse into the Tardis so he could recover and realise his plans for destruction? Jack Harkness had to hold on for dear life in the vortex when he grabbed the exterior of the Tardis in Utopia so it does stretch believability that Sutekh simply clung to the outside while in flight.
The fourth Doctor warned us that he would destroy all worlds which is what Sutekh does with his dust of death. He has been part of the Tardis since The Pyramids of Mars so has left his imprint on every world with every Tardis landing. He has marked them all for death as he leaves a form of Susan Triad behind every time, ready for when he is ready to attack. Everything and everyone dies as the dust clouds of death consume everyone bar the fifteenth Doctor, Mel and Ruby.
With only his skull face acolytes remaining, Sutekh is at last supreme but bogged down by the mystery of whom Ruby’s mother is. He is eventually killed when the Doctor drags him into the vortex to restore all the worlds lost, cutting him loose to die in the sheer forces of time itself. There is no denying that the reveal of Sutekh’s return was brilliantly done and a shocker but the demise left a lot to be desired.
That’s the problem with bringing back someone as all powerful as Sutekh; it is a great idea but how do resolve it in a believable and logical fashion? A great reveal but a reminder that sometimes it is better to leave the all time greats in the past. Savour perfection and don’t sour it.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
General Urko in the episode ‘Escape From Tomorrow’
For years, I thought that General Urko was part of the movie trilogy. It wasn’t until I was older that I realised that I was wrong. But that just shows me the power of the character and just how embedded into my young mind the performance of Mark Lenard was.
Lenard was, of course, famous for playing Sarek in Star trek. He would appear in the original in Journey to Babel and as a Romulan in Balance of Terror, Sarek in the animated series, three of the Trek movies as Sarek and one as a Klingon. Finally he would return as Sarek in Star Trek The Next Generation episodes Sarek and Unification.
Lenard was a powerfully commanding actor holding a great screen presence. So it is no wonder that he made such an impression on me as a kid from under that gorilla mask.
Urko was the head villain in the television series, a high ranking figure his troops looked up and intent on capturing the two human fugitives from Earth’s past, (Alan Virdon, Ron Harper) and Peter Burke (James Naughton brother of An American Werewolf’s David). Like Taylor (Charlton Heston) and Brent (James Franciscus) before them, they were astronauts caught in the time warp sending them crashing to Earth centuries after the nuclear war that allowed the apes to take over.
Urko was introduced in the pilot episode “Escape from Tomorrow” and went on to appear in all fourteen episodes of the short lived series. There was always something distinctive about Urko to me and part of that was his appearance with that big helmet with those unique markings. The opening titles also terrified me with the gorilla on horseback against a burning sun rifle raised into the air against that theme music.
I remember vividly my mother buying me the Mego action figure and the Planet of the Apes franchise has stayed with me ever since. Aside from Cornelius, Urko was the ape for me and meshed in my head with the movie series for ages.
General Urko appeared in the not so great animated series dressed in a much more colorful costume and this was the last time we would see the character. The ape hatred of humans and their fear of bringing down the ape civilisation in the television series was not unfounded. This gave Urko a more multilayered character as Burke and Harper discovered that there were vaults from their time and they had a circuit key to those very computers. If what man knew and had destroyed their world, then the likes of Urko did not want that same knowledge destroying ape civilisation. It elevated General Urko to a rounded character.
In the pilot Dr Zaius dispatches Urko to capture the two humans but doesn’t trust him to obey his orders to take them alive for questioning. Indeed Urko does arrange for the humans to escape but has a shooter in place so he can claim they were killed while trying to escape.
In episode three, The Trap, Urko gets up close and personal with a human in the shape of Burke. Urko doesn’t let even earthquakes put him off his pursuit which leads him to being stuck with Burke. Burke is terrified of being killed at his hands and manages to build a form of mutual survival by pleading to Urko’s sense of self survival. Urko says he does not work with humans but Burke tells him he will need him because he was born in the time of the subway and knows how it works. As part of his denial that humans once were the dominant species, he does not believe that a subway train would be used to travel underground. He believes that apes were part of what was here before and it was theirs not the humans. He hates the fact Burke thinks he knows more than Urko does.
Despite himself, Urko learns what solar energy is, words like holocaust, disposable clothes, organ transplant and that his very future depends on making an alliance with the human he has been sent to kill. It is up to Burke to show him what humans and apes can do when they team up, However on one of the walls partially covered with rubble, is a ticking time bomb; a poster of a circus with a gorilla in a cage.
Urko attacks Burke until he admits that the apes owned everything and that humans were pets. Urko is heavy handed with all humans. To quote him, “I always assume a human is lying; makes it easier”. But they must work together before the air runs out. This tendency to disbelief humans carries to his loyal men who have to work with Galen (Roddy McDowall) and Virdon.
In the ruined San Francisco, they are both trapped together in an old subway station when an earthquake hits. Urko is a great hunter as he is able to lasso Burke from the back of his galloping horse before they plunge through a sinkhole into the subway. It is interesting to note here that the relics of man’s past are very much visible as we travel through San Francisco where man’s once tall buildings are shattered but there. That’s in stark contrast to the originals where none of man’s past was visible reduced to a few relics in the possession of Doctor Zaius. Indeed the movie’s Forbidden Zone holds the secrets the likes of which, Urko would never want made public.
He is a master tactician and strategist and like every bloodhound never gives up. Urko chooses his moments carefully as he sees the poster but says nothing until they are about to escape. Burke uses Urko’s own temper against him to knock him unconscious but still gets him out. An injured Urko still wants the humans shot there and then but doesn’t divulge what he saw or his reasons why.
In episode nine we learn Urko is an accomplished horseman and has never lost a race in his life. Now Virdon must race Urko to secure an innocent man’s life. Episode fourteen sees Urko’s distrust of human technology which he believes was the ape’s originally put to the test when they capture a human who can show them glider technology. example
In episode twelve Urko is quite happy to openly mutiny against the council and burn down a malaria inflicted village under the false banner that he is doing it for his troops. It is a battle of wills against him and Zaius to let Burke and Virdon’s medicine to cure the disease.
Urko will never be happy until he is in total control of humans and apes alike whom he will then exterminate. Alas we will never know but the fact Urko sticks more in our heads than any gorilla baddy from the movies speaks volumes to the power of the character. Even the new age apes in the movies will pale next to General Urko.
By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Buffy’s life changed dramatically in season five. She discovered feelings for Spike, her mother Joyce died from a brain aneurysm, she discovered her sister was in fact a mystical key made human so Buffy would protect her. She was broke and had to take a job in a burger joint. On top of that, the Slayer was facing a god in the form of the mad over the top Glory. Played by Clare Kramer. She left dozens of mindless zombies in her wake whose minds she stole as well as morphing into her doctor brother, Ben. Her victims included Willow’s girlfriend Tara. Glory wanted the key to unlock reality and bring forth all sorts of nightmares from another dimension.
But the last thing Buffy expected was to give her life up to save Dawn and the world.
Now in all genres lead characters die and can be brought back at any time if the writer is clever enough or desperate enough as in the case of Bobby Ewing in the eighties soap Dallas. Soaps are infamous for it with Eastenders bringing back Dirty Den, Kathy Beale and Cindy Beale from the dead. I wonder if Ian Beale ever sought to claim back the money he paid for burying his mother. It wouldn’t be like him.
But in the world of sci-fi and horror, people can come back with just the click of a finger. It’s usually some dark magic, a clone, a parallel universe, a transporter or a some ripple in time. Someone once said it took away from the death as you knew they would come back but for me, it is how it is done that matters. Bobby was brought back because the ratings dropped immensely. In Supernatural it was either a duplicate world or heaven or hell bringing the dead back including the Winchester boys themselves at times. Even The Vampire Diaries had more deaths and resurrections than you could count until it was the final season and the dead stayed dead until they reunited in the afterlife.
Buffy followed the same route with other worlds where vampire Willow crossed over into our world thanks to a temporal spell that snatched her away just before she was impaled. Spike died in the Buffy season finale and reappeared in the final Angel season thanks to an amulet. But Joyce never came back nor did Tara. When you think of it, Buffy’s had the biggest body count where few came back. The dead stayed dead.
So with that track record Buffy also left this earth in a blaze of glory. Now we knew there would be at least another two seasons of the show so the question was how Buffy would return from the dead. Rumours and theories flew everywhere but it was handled in a realistic and deeply affecting way.
But her actual death was just as impactful and stands today as one of the most powerful and saddest events on television. Given how devastating this season had already been on the cast, season five will be the most tragic year of Buffy’s and the gang’s life. Were there genuine tears? Well, you don’t spend 5 years watching a series grow and seeing characters grow without becoming attached. Fans, including me, cried a literal river and not in a ‘Westlife have split’ way but in a ‘we have lost a family member’ way.
Dawn has been discovered by Glory and her army and is now high above Sunnydale on a platform where she will be thrown off into a portal which will shatter to unleash more horrors on the world.
Buffy and the rest of the gang fight Glory and her hordes to get to Dawn before she plunges to her death and the world falls. They all have lifelong memories about Dawn regardless of the fact that they are false since Dawn has only been alive for about a year. Nevertheless she is part of their family, they love her and will die to keep her safe. They need to get just one person up there to save Dawn. The fight is bloody and brutal as Glory, within minutes of winning, is determined to smash Buffy to pieces. They fight on the ground and on the struts of the platform itself, but through a combination of witchcraft, wrecking ball, Buffybot, punching and a magical hammer, they fight long and hard. Buffy beats a weakened Glory with the Troll God’s hammer until she morphs into her brother again. Before she can remerge, in a brilliant piece of ‘what the f*ck?’ television, Giles suffocates him to death.
But Dawn’s blood has been spilled. Doc, whom Dawn and Spike had gone previously to for a spell to resurrect her dead mother, appears and reveals himself to be a worshipper of Glory also known Glorificus. He wants the world to fall and cuts Dawn across the stomach letting just enough blood out to bring the portal forth and to keep her alive. By the time Buffy reaches her sister, some monsters have already gotten into our world and the fabric of reality is breaking down. On a side note; the way Buffy nonchalantly throws Doc off the crane is another great moment in this episode.
And this is it; the tipping point and the moment the entire season has led up to. I had a Buffy party in my house for the screening of this and it was a powerful time. I saw first-hand the impact the final shot had. What made the ending worse is that the final headstone shot was in the trailer and, of course, everyone thought it was a red herring. How wrong we were?
Family has been a strong theme all through this season and it is solidified and best demonstrated in the Summer sisters’ final scene; Dawn is ready to throw herself to close the portal but is stopped by Buffy. When Dawn tells her until her blood stops flowing the chaos will not stop. Buffy then realises what she must do; she is reminded that earlier in the season Spike said, it was always about blood, that Dawn was made from Buffy’s genetic material and the first Slayer told her that death was her gift. Dawn is a Summers because they share the same blood but no-one said it had to be Dawn’s blood.
As the sun begins to rise time has run out. Dawn realises what Buffy is doing and tries to stop her but Buffy tells her to listen. The camera then pulls away so you cannot hear what Buffy is saying to her sister. With one last kiss, Buffy swan dives into the portal where she is wracked with lightning. The soundtrack is really emotional. The viewer is roaring at the screen as they realise, just as Dawn did, what is about to happen. Death is Buffy’s gift to the world and especially her friends and family. If you are not crying or welling up at this point you have no heart.
But as you watch Buffy die you then hear what she said to Dawn. This monologue is probably one of the most powerful and emotionally draining in the entire series. When it mixed with the image of her friends finding her shattered body you have to cry; you can’t help it. The look of Giles’ face as he realises he has failed Buffy. A restored Tara helping a wounded and sobbing Willow along as Xander stands helplessly with an injured Anya in his arms, it is the sight of Spike breaking down and weeping into his hands that sells it to us. As a collective we are mourning with them with a dual mentality. We know she is dead especially as the final shot of her headstone reads “She saved the world.”
There isn’t a dry eye in the house. The world can live without the Buffy Slayer but the Slayer cannot live without her friends and family. It is easier to give herself up for them than lose Dawn. You are so familiar with them all that you feel you know them simply because they are in your living room every week for half the year. You are connected to them because you become so entwined with their stories. You laugh when they are funny, grimace when they do something dumb and cry at their tragedy. Why? Because life isn’t fair and what we are watching is our own lives in an exaggerated fashion, yes, but the raw emotions are universal.
To paraphrase someone recently, we had fun, you know. Then a day came along and at the end of that day I lost them. Death rarely gives us a warning and that is why it hurts so much when it comes as clockwork as the sun. Think about that and the power of words that affect us all so deeply. That is why the death of Buffy Summers is such an event and one you should all watch. As Buffy herself said,
“Dawn, listen to me. Listen: I love you. I will always love you. This is the work that I have to do. Tell Giles I… tell Giles I figured it out, and I’m ok. Give my love to my friends. You have to take care of them now. You have to take care of each other. You have to be strong. Dawn, the hardest thing in this world is to live in it. Be brave. Live… for me.”
By and copyright of Owen Quinn
Inspiration comes from all sorts of places. But when a good friend sends you a message that contains the the words, “Only the dead get off at Kymlinge,” my storyteller instincts were immediately perked. This book was originally called The Return & Other Stories but when I was sent that message, it changed everything including the next set of stories. Hence, Only The Dead Get Off At Kymlinge was born., improving it no end.
What was Kymlinge? What have the dead got to do with it? I had to know. I discovered that it was an abandoned train station outside Stockholm. When I read the history, I was excited. Its haunted reputation was just too good to resist but why would something like this bring the Time Warriors into it?
It had to be something personal so Jacke has come looking for a missing friend. It leads them to Kymlinge where they find something far more strange than simply a ghost train.
Trapped aboard a train that is made from many different eras, they find a deadly conductor and comatose people from the past to the present. But the greatest danger is still to come. Not only does this reveal the consequences of past actions but opens a terrifying new threat through Michael’s carelessness.
This is also the first book where I introduced variant covers. I liked them all and couldn’t decide on which one to go with so released all three. It works for comics so why not the Time Warriors book series?
A story set on a train is featured in all sorts of shows but I always wanted to do things slightly differently than the norm. it was originally going to be a happy ending with the rain mystery solved and the passengers back where they belong including Jacke’s friend. However, I was sitting in a carpark one day, waiting on my wife doing the shopping, it occurred to me. Why don’t I go with a disaster ending where nothing is wrapped up in a nice little bow and a brand new threat is revealed.
This threat comes in the form of one Geyron. The Y is silent but Geyron will be a major force especially in Sasquatch Darklands. What Geyron is and what he is planning will have a major impact on the Time Warriors universe.
To find out how it all ends get your copy in paperback and kindle on Amazon today.
By and copyright of Owen Quinn author
If ever there was a story written in the history of this planet which started as a disjointed series of images before becoming an unwitting commentary on assisted suicide then the Lighthouse At The End of the World is it.
Like Wolves of Chernobyl, it began as something that caught my eye on Google. I read that there was a lighthouse off the coast of France which had been abandoned years ago and was powered by solar panels. The seas around it have been a hazard to ships for years and the only way in was to be lowered in by helicopter.
Immediately my juices were flowing. Why would they abandon with the lighthouse leaving it to the mercy of solar power? Wouldn’t that be somewhere that someone that didn’t want any contact with the world use to hide? Why would they want to live in such isolation? Had they committed some crime so horrible, they were ashamed and could not live with it? And what if Varran has kept his secret and hasn’t even told the others about it?
I toyed about with an immortal that had committed some terrible crime in which billions died but I really wanted to create non-human characters. So who better to live in an abandoned lighthouse than a lizardman?
But again, why? Who is he? How does Varran know him?
That’s when it fell into place. Isolated and alone from his own people, Barick, would never see home again and that’s where the story came into its own right there.
If your friend asked you to help them die, could you do it? This story coincided with the passing of a law in the UK allowing assisted suicide.
It was never my intention to do a story on it but it was something I always wondered what I would do in that situation. Thankfully, I haven’t been in it and hopefully never will be but it’s something that scares me. I lost my dad to brain cancer while my mother and brother passed away in their sleep. death doesn’t frighten me but I’m in rush to meet it either.
But this was the chance to face a dilemma for someone whose disease is never going home again. They might as well the last of their kind just in the same way Varran is so can Varran sympathise and do what his friend wishes?
The ultimate solution has caused discussion among readers but as I say, what would you do in their shows? The answer is; you don’t know until that happens.
I also like to add different locations into the stories so the Mars like terrain of the Haleakala National Park. Its Martian like surface was a double bluff as a hook into the story and it also gave me the chance to explain the lizardman attack in Louisiana on a young man in 1988 Scape Ore Swamp.
For me, small details like this enhance and built the world the viewer lives in. To me, it was much better than a secret government genetic escaped experiment.
Given Varran’s actions here, how long before it comes back to haunt him or did he exactly what any of us would have done in his place?
To find out how it all turns out, get your copy of Wolves of Chernobyl & Other Wtories now in paperback and kindle on Amazon.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 