A Quick Introduction to Big Finish Doctor Who, Part Two

   

The Fifth Doctor and his many friends and foes

I was planning to save the Fifth Doctor for last as I had not listened to many of his plays, but I got through them faster than I expected and so I decided to talk about him now while it's all fresh in my mind.

The Fifth Doctor

Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor

Typically Patrick Troughton is credited as having the hardest transition to put up with, as he had to sell the very idea of regeneration to audiences. As difficult as that must have been, I think that Davison may have had an even harder time as he had to follow up Tom Baker. If you are not familiar with Tom Baker than imagine David Tennant's popularity and then imagine if he had stayed for seven years. Tom Baker was insanely popular, and since he played the Doctor for so long many children didn't remember there being another one. In order to make the transition easier they chose an actor who was already established for playing a popular character, and was young and charming. Instead of the strange offputting Doctor that Baker played, Davison played the Doctor as a polite, charming English gentleman. At the time he was controver, but he has experienced a lot more popularity as people go back and re-watch his stuff without the bias of missing Baker, and realized he was actually pretty good.

In interest of complete honesty I think it is worth mentioning that I don't like him much. I don't dislike him exactly but he is my least favourite. The fifth Doctor is polite, suave, charming, and kind of boring. I understand why people like him, I just typically find him to be the least interesting thing in his stories. He also typically seems to be the most helpless Doctor, and I'm unsure of why he is written that way, as he constantly seems to be declaring there is nothing he can do to help.
   
For Big Finish they had the advantage of an older Davison and so his fatherly relationship with his companions works much better, as does his grouchier side. That said, his Doctor was developed well enough on TV and was not in a great need of revision, and so they mostly keep him the same.

The Companions

The Crowded Tardis Crew

The fifth Doctor had the typical three seasons, and yet he had more companions than most during that time, as he had typically had two to three companions at a time. I actually quite like the crowded TARDIS, as it does allow for interesting character interaction. Unfortunately, it also allows for a lot of bickering that can get quite grating after awhile. His initial TARDIS crew consisted of Nyssa of Traken, Tegan, and Adric.

Adric

Adric was the most hated companion of the classic series. He is probably most comparable Wesley Crusher of the classic series. He was the boy genius, whose genius we are mostly just told about, and often seems like a petulant child. He was annoying, whiny, and arrogant. He was also one of the few classic companions to die. His death may have left many fans happy, but it was well handled and surprisingly emotional considering how annoying he was.

Tegan looking rather frightened of something. 

Tegan was an airline Stewardess who the Doctor promised to bring to Heathrow, but had trouble getting her there. She was often mad at him and wasn't afraid to let him know it. I thought she was a pretty good character, and she does eventually do some big finish audios, but is not in the first fifty. Nyssa is the only one who is actually in these audio dramas. She's from the planet Traken, and is also a teen genius, but, unlike Adric, she's not annoying.

Nyssa and a large statue thing 

There are two other companions that I should mention. One of them is Peri, who I briefly talked about when discussing the sixth Doctor. Peri was controversial because she was American and mostly wore revealing outfits, leading critics to think she was mostly there as pandering. They were probably right, but when removed from that she really isn't a bad character. She's an american botany student who wants to see the universe, and while she often had an adversarial relationship with the Doctor, it was still clear that she had a great amount of affection for him.

Peri and the Fifth Doctor

Finally there is Erimem, an Egyptian Pharoah who joins the Doctor in The Eye of the Scorpion. She's strong willed and wise beyond her years, which often makes up for her lack of understanding of technology. Erimem is loyal and gracious to her friends, and vicious and cruel to her enemies.

The Doctor saves Erimem.

The Best:

24. The Eye of the Scorpion

The Doctor and Peri find themselves in Ancient Egypt, and the Doctor quickly saves a young woman who claims to be the new Pharaoh. The problem is that the Doctor has never heard of her, and there were very few female pharaohs so he really shouldn't have forgotten one. It's a fun story, with science fiction elements that don't overtake the story's historical setting. It also introduces a new companion to the Doctor, who really helps to mix things up.
http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/the-eye-of-the-scorpion-649

Big Finish also has a free short radio play about the Doctor showing Erimem around the TARDIS. It's a fun, charming little story.

http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-no-place-like-home-1115

34. Spare Parts

Spare Parts is often cited as the best play Big Finish has ever made, and for good reason. The Doctor and Nyssa arrive on what the Doctor insists is Earth. London, clearly. Nyssa isn't convinced since she's pretty sure London isn't underground. It's pretty clear that wherever they are the Doctor doesn't like it, and wants to leave as soon as possible. Before long it becomes clear that they are actually on Mondas, Earth's lost twin planet, during it's last days before the inhabitants turned themselves into Cybermen.

It's a dark, sad, and frightening story that shows the end of a civilization through the eyes of a family that Nyssa and the Doctor meet. It was written in an attempt to do for Cybermen what Genesis of the Daleks did for Daleks, but I don't know if anyone would have even thought this would be the superior story of the two. It's hard to compare Doctor Who across mediums, but I think this may be the best Doctor Who story. The Doctor gives a tragic, quiet, sad performance that really showcases the strengths of Davison's Doctor. 

http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/spare-parts-200

38. The Church and the Crown

Another historical, but the fifth Doctor seems to be strong in those settings. This one is a pure historical which means that the only science-fiction elements are the Doctor and his companions. No aliens, no ghosts, and no evil plots to alter history. This does not mean that it's historically accurate, but just that it is a period drama starring the Doctor, which can lead to some good stories. In this case the Doctor finds himself in France in the 17th Century, which means musketeers, Cardinal Richeleiu, the Duke of Buckinham, Queen Anne, and King Louis XIII. It's a fun time, and really allows Erimem to come into her own as a character and a companion.

44. Creatures of Beauty

Creatures of Beauty begins with the Doctor, voiced filled with world weariness, wondering whether he made any difference at all. Then we flip to earlier on to find that Nyssa has been arrested for  murder, by disfigured people who refer to her as a beauty. The story unfold in a non linear fashion, showing a world in a terrible position on the eve of destruction. It's a story that admits at the very beginning that the Doctor made no difference on this planet, creating an atmosphere of melancholic fatalism. Doctor Who often runs the risk of having the Doctor feel unnecessary to the story, as though he's just watching as things unfold. By doing this we have a story that explores a situation in which there are no good answers and maybe nothing really can be done.

http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/creatures-of-beauty-210

47. Omega

The Doctor arrives on a museum ship dedicated to the history of Omega, one of the founders of Time Lord society, who was trapped in a pocket universe. One of the actors goes mad and attacks the others, and then Omega's ship appears. This is a hard one to describe without giving too much away. It starts slow, but has a twist about halfway through which leads to a great second half. The story itself explores history and our tendency to either hero worship or slander the key figures of the past.

http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/omega-213

Honourable Mention:

15. The Mutant Phase

I find Doctor Who is often at its weakest when it is using classic villains such as Cybermen or Daleks. It's not that either of these villains are bad, but just that it seems to be difficult for writers to come up with exciting stories that involve them. So because of that I was somewhat hesitant when I realized it was a Dalek story that I was listening to, and then even more nervous when I reallized that this is a story where the Doctor is on an alternate Earth future where the Daleks need his help. It won me over when they revealed the threat, which was just dark and creepy enough, and convincing enough a threat to make me believe that the Daleks wanted the Doctor's help. After that I was hooked, and when I re-listened to it I loved every minute. Its probably not a great story, but it is one I enjoy a lot.

This one has the added advantage that you can listen to it for free:
https://soundcloud.com/big-finish/doctor-who-the-mutant-phase

Or buy it here:
http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/the-mutant-phase-640

The Worst

In my post about Colin Baker's plays I said that there were no bad ones, and the play I labelled worst was actually pretty good. Unfortunately, I cannot say that about Peter Davison's run. 

41. Nekromanteia

The TARDIS materializes in the middle of a space battle wherein the technologically superior side is easily winning. That is, until witches on the planet below start tearing spaceships out of the sky with magic. Up to this point I was okay with it. It was weird, dark, and silly, which is all fine, but then the problems quickly started presenting themselves. The Doctor is irrelevant to the story, and not in an interesting way. He mostly walks around declaring the whole thing to be hopeless, until he passively watches as a cat saves the universe. That's not even close to the biggest problem this story has.

Around forty minutes in, a guard captures Erimem, brutally beats her, and attempts to rape her. She is rescued, mentions it briefly, and then never speaks of it again. She even seems completely un-phased by it. I'm okay with Doctor Who exploring more adult themes, and darker territory, but I think there is a line where it still needs to be something children could listen to. This crosses that line, and not even for a good reason. There is no attempt made to tackle this subject matter in a mature fashion, instead it seems to only be here in order to establish a dark mood. There are other scenes of humans being brutally killed that also possibly go too far, but the thing is that the audience members have almost certainly never lost a loved one to an army of witches, but there very well could be people listening to this who have been sexually assaulted. They took a traumatic, terrible, and terribly real action and used it as a way to pad out the story. The thing that makes this even worse is that this is a story with cackling cartoon witches and a heroic cat. It's just all so terribly misjudged and uncomfortable to listen to. 

I haven't even mentioned all the other problems. The story is almost incomprehensible, most of the acting is terrible, and there isn't a single likable character in the whole thing. This next complaint may be a bizarre one for radio, but there is a scene in which Peri is completely naked and they talk about this for some time. It bears no relevance to the story, and seems to be there for the same reason that it would be in a movie. It's weirdly shameless, and awkward. 

Nekromanteia is a bizarre, boring, incomprehensible, and uncomfortably misogynistic mess. The downside to buying a digital copy of this is that I cannot throw it out. I'm going to link to the place you can buy the story, but please don't. No one should support this disaster.

 http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/nekromanteia-207

Part three (7th Doctor) coming soon. 

      

A Quick Introduction to Big Finish Doctor Who, Part One

Recently Big Finish Productions took their first fifty audio plays out of print, and lowered the digital price from $12 to $3. This inspired me to write about my favourite and least favourite of Big Finish's first fifty plays. It’s worth mentioning that these were all made before the new TV show, so any repeated stories or ideas are most likely because Russell T. Davies is an admitted fan, and because some of the writers have worked on both series. 

After starting this I realized that this is going to be way too long to do all at once, there are after all 50 plays to choose from here. So I’m going to split this up by Doctor, and then maybe after I'm done that I’ll list my favourites from all four. Logically, I should probably start with the fifth Doctor, but I've decided to save him for latter so that I'll have time to brush up on some of his audio and TV adventures. Instead I have decided to start with the Sixth Doctor.

The Sixth Doctor

Easily the most widely hated Doctor from the entire run of the show, Colin Baker was cast at a particularly tumultuous period in the show's history. Peter Davison was leaving, and the story goes that Colin Baker was cast without even giving him an audition, but rather because the show runner, John Nathan Turner, saw him making a fool of himself at a wedding and thought, “That’s my Doctor!” Baker was thrilled, as he had already been a huge fan of the series, and once said that he planned to be on it longer than the other Baker. When asked about his costume he said that he would like to wear something simple, maybe black. Instead they got him this:

Colin Baker and his "Rainbow Vomit" outfit. 

It got even worse after that. The calm, kind, gentlemanly fifth Doctor had just left the show by sacrificing himself in an emotional scene wherein the Doctor almost doesn't regenerate due to his own self-doubt, but right before the end he sees his companions pleading for him to live, and he decides that his life does have a purpose. This kind, gentle Doctor's replacement is arrogant, mean, and slightly insane. In his first episode he continuously insults his companion, hides behind her in the face of danger, and even attempts to strangle her. Needless to say, people were unimpressed. Despite this characterization, and some terrible scripts, Colin Baker managed to inject a certain charisma and charm into the character. Eventually he was fired for playing too unlikable of a Doctor, even though he wasn't the one writing the scripts. He asked for a full episode in order to show his Doctor’s death, but was told that he would regenerate at the very beginning of the episode, and so he declined to return. As a result the Sixth Doctor was killed by hitting his head on the TARDIS console.

Needless to say, Big Finish didn't have a lot to work with here. What they did have was a good performer who loved the show and still wanted to play the Doctor. The Sixth Doctor is quickly redeemed in his big finish adventures, without really changing his personality. He’s still grouchy, arrogant, and pompous, but he’s also caring, kind, and contains a righteous fury at those who exploit the weak. Within a few hours Big Finish transforms him from the worst to the best of the Doctors.

The Companions

Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown

       The Sixth Doctor never really had a companion that worked well with him on screen. First he had Perry, an American who was introduced to be the fifth Doctor's companion and always got along better with him. His other companion, Mel, was barely even a character. She was introduced late in his run, without even an introductory episode, and never had a chance to cement as a character.

Melanie Bush

So Big Finish introduced a new companion, Dr. Evelyn Smythe. Evelyn is one of my favourite Doctor Who companions. She’s a history professor who specialized in studying Tudor England. She idealizes Queen Elizabeth I, cares about her students deeply, and loves hot cocoa. Her and the Doctor swiftly gain a mutual respect and even a love for one another, without ever stopping bickering. She brings out his softer side, and is also able to keep up with him on an intellectual level.

Dr. Evelyn Smithe

The Doctor also journeys with Frobisher, a shapeshifting alien Whifferdill.  Frobisher is a private eye, who prefers to take the form of a penguin. He went to private detective school, got his private detective diploma second class, it would have been first class but his teacher hated avian species. I really like him, and his portrayal by Big Finish is great, but unfortunately there is this weird bias against Frobisher in the Doctor Who fandom. He was originally introduced in the comics, and is hated by the fans for being too silly. This makes perfect sense because Doctor Who is a super serious show. As a result he’s only in one full audio adventure, and one short one that was free for subscribers. Makes me sad.

Frobisher sometimes forgets that he can shape-shift.

The Best 

14. The Holy Terror

       The Doctor and Frobisher arrive on a planet in a state of political turmoil. The god-king has died, and his son must now take his place. His illegitimate half-brother must play his role by plotting in the dungeon, and his mother must be executed for her blasphemy of having been married to a false god (he must be false; he died). On top of all that they have to deal with the customary attempted coup, and all the scheduled miracles. The play is darkly funny, frightening, disturbing, and in the end very tragic. It's possibly still the best thing Big Finish has made. It succeeds on many levels and it gets better every time I listen to it. The first time I heard it I became convinced that the conclusion would never live up to the buildup, and so I was pleasantly surprised to find that the conclusion fit perfectly and was very satisfying.   

http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/the-holy-terror-637

35. ...ish

      The Doctor and Peri travel to a conference for experts in the English language. It's a place where words themselves have power and are traded. Peri meets a man who loves language more than the Doctor does, and the Doctor quickly gets drawn into a mystery when the most respected expert there is murdered by her own holographic assistant. Quickly it becomes clear that there is more going on here than there appears to be, especially when they discover that the expert had been seeking a mysterious word known as the omniverbum and its affix "ish". Word anarchists, sentient words, and crazed dictionaries are only some of the adversaries that the Doctor must overcome. It's weird, funny, and exciting. I suspect that to love this play one needs a special affection for the English language, but even without that I think it would still be an entertaining adventure. http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/-ish-201

40. Jubilee

      The inspiration for the episode Dalek, sees the Doctor and Evelyn arriving in a London gone mad. England famously repelled a dalek invasion years earlier, and has now become a dictatorship entirely based off of fear of the daleks, and worship of the Doctor and his companion Evelyn "Hot Lips" Smythe. They have a dalek in lockup, and plan to execute him at the next Jubilee. Dalek's oddly out of place satirical element makes more sense when this play is kept in mind. It's darkly funny, and often disturbing, with sharp political satire, and a wonderful examination of the daleks. Dalek is good, but this is much better, simply because it is able to delve more deeply into all the aspects of the story. http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/jubilee-206 

43. And the Pirates

      Science fiction shows will often kill off characters in order to denote danger, but rarely do they deal with this death in an emotionally satisfying way. This play introduces a story line that does just this, as the constant deaths she faces start to weigh heavily on Evelyn. In And the Pirates Evelyn visits one of her students, brings her some chocolate cake and a story about pirates. She doesn't do a very good job of telling it, so the Doctor comes to help. Eventually the story becomes too emotional for Evelyn to tell so the Doctor adds songs to try to lighten the mood. It's mostly awkward and funny at first, becomes hilarious, and then heartbreaking in its exploration of grief and guilt. In many ways it's about the relationship between the three characters as bond over, and through telling a story attempt to overcome their guilt for things that are to late to change. So in that way the framing device is the point, but the story itself is fun to listen to. If that doesn't convince you maybe this will; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00T_ft5RCdc

http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/doctor-who-and-the-pirates-209

48. Davros

        As they were approaching their 50th story, Big Finish produced three plays focusing on famous villains. All three were quite good, but this was easily the best of them. An interplanetary corporation hires Davros, creator of the daleks, as a scientific consultant. Soon after they reluctantly hire the Doctor as his assistant. The Doctor is convinced that Davros is up to something, his companions are convinced that the company is, and the company CEO is convinced that Davros is a victim of propaganda and that the Doctor is the dangerous one. It's tense, exciting, and fascinating, as it delves into who Davros is when separated from his infamous creation.
http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/davros-214

The Worst

        Colin Baker eventually did some bad plays for Big Finish, but none of them are among the first 50 plays that Big Finish produced. That doesn't mean they were all great, but they were all good. My least favourite was:

22. Blood Tide

        The Doctor travels to the Galapagos Islands, and finds Darwin on the verge of his discovery. The Doctor and Evelyn are both thrilled to have a chance to encourage the great man, but at that moment an evil Silurian scientist is waking from his long sleep. I don't dislike this exactly, but some things in it rubbed me the wrong way. I disliked its revelation of the origin of humankind (the Silurians created us), and its portrayal of Darwin as a man swiftly becoming an atheist. The real Darwin was a Christian while on the Galapagos Islands, and became a Universalist during his return voyage. At one tense moment in the play the Doctor tells him to think of what he believes in, and he says; "I believe in God.. No, I don't believe in God. There is no God! I believe in natural selection!" The play isn't bad though, the characters are like-able, and the villains interesting enough. But its revelations about humanity (how many origins of humanity does Doctor Who have now?), and the agenda in its interpretation of history brought down an already mediocre story.
http://www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/bloodtide-647

Part Two coming soon... ish. 

Why I Do Not Write More Often and Why I Probably Should

     A little over a year ago I wrote a blog post about Star Trek Into Darkness, then, a couple months ago, I wrote one about God's Not Dead. During that time I constantly told myself that I was going to write more, sometimes I even did, but I couldn't bring myself to post it. I am now attempting to explain why that is. I think that it's fairly normal for people who start blogs to write about five posts and then get tired of it and quit. I expect someone has calculated statistics concerning it. Blogger is probably a graveyard of abandoned blogs; I feel sorry for the poor lost things. I don't know the common motivation that causes people to quit blogs, but I do think that I understand why I quit this one.

     The last year was incredibly difficult for me. To make a long story short, I failed a course I really needed in order to finally finish my degree, discovered that I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and as a result struggled with depression. My job was fine but I never felt as though I fit in and often wondered if I was actually any good at it. During this time I started to find it very difficult to motivate myself, and stopped reading, writing, and doing other fun things like that. That isn't to say that it was all bad and one of the things that did help a bit was a class I took on writing short stories. The thing that that class helped me with was that by forcing me to show other people things I wrote, I then realized that people didn't necessarily hate the things I wrote.  What they would do is read them and tell me what worked, as well as what didn't. Sometimes the stories were awful but people weren't mean about it. The other thing that demonstrated that for me was this blog. I wrote a couple pretty bad blog posts and I wrote some okay ones, but more importantly I realized that I have some friends who would always read them, think about them, and tell me what they thought. I really appreciated that more than I think they realized.

     The problem was that whenever I wrote anything some part of me would insist that it was really just awful. I would write stories for class and as people discussed them I would think, "but they really just think it's rubbish". It started to get so bad that I would delete the stuff I wrote for this blog because I assumed that it was awful. I think this insecurity actually started covering more parts of my life too. I have a bad habit of not answering people on facebook or texts or emails because a part of me assumes they don't want to hear from me anyway. Over the year I saw these aspects of myself get worse, I would become more convinced all the time that I really didn't have anything good to offer, that I would never find my calling because really I had no talents.

     The realization that I reached is that a large part of me doesn't want to write because I enjoy it. I do enjoy it quite a bit, but I think that there is a substantial part of me that just wants praise. I want people to read something I wrote and say it's brilliant and that I therefore have some value. I want people to look at me and say "You are very special and talented," and then I just become upset whenever I start to think that I probably am not all that good. I think that it's probably impossible to have entirely pure motivations. I do genuinely enjoy writing, I just wish that I enjoyed it to the point where I'd be perfectly happy even if it the end product was unreadable.

     The internet is covered in lousy writing. Fanfiction sites have thousands of pages of dreadful writing, for every good blog there's a hundred completely dreadful ones, and youtube is filled with self-indulgent whiny vlogs. But the thing is that all those people are trying; they may be writing pretty awful stuff but they keep going, and by doing so they probably start getting better. I admire that. I admire people who write not because they want to be loved, but because they love writing. And that is what I want to be, not a lousy writer, but someone who writes to the best of his ability and doesn't care if it isn't very good.

     I think the biggest problem with the little voice in my head that constantly says I'm rubbish is that it is constantly focused on me. If I'm thinking about how good or bad I am at something then I am obsessing over myself, and my own perceived self worth (or lack thereof). A part of me thinks I deserve to be adored, as though I'm some tortured artist. I start thinking of myself as Cezanne throwing his paintings over the side of a hill, but then I am just replacing my own insecurity with a delusion of grandeur.

     There's an important tension in Christianity; We were fearfully and wonderfully made by a God who is both wonderful, loving and perfect, but we are also marred by the sin that separates us from that God. There is a hope though; Jesus Christ died, and rose again, so that we could be forgiven and reconciled to Him. At least, that's the quick version. I think I need to try to recognize both those things more. I am not a worm; I have gifts and talents and abilities given to me by God, but I am also not perfect by any means. I make mistakes, mess up, and sin, but I am also forgiven. For awhile I thought the solution to feeling as though I was awful at everything was to remind myself of what I am good at, but I don't think that's the solution. There's an aspect of that. It's important to remember that God gave me talents and wants me to use them for His glory, but if I just focus on what I'm good at then I'm really replacing one kind of self-absorption with another. As a Christian I believe that God is constantly working in me, living through me, and molding me. He cares about me unconditionally and loves me, and so the solution to hating myself isn't to try to think about how awesome I am, but rather to focus more on God and His will.

     I realized though that I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to focus on Christ and to live as He desires me to. I tried to pull myself out of the depression I was in by myself but I couldn't do it. I could barely find the motivation to do anything, not to mention change my life and my outlook. So I asked for help from my friends, as well as from God. I'm trying to pray more, and read the Bible more, and think about others more, and about myself less.

     I said I was going to explain why I stopped blogging, and I'm not sure I've really done that yet.The reason was that I decided I wasn't very good, and that I didn't want to do it if I sucked at it. I haven't decided that I am really good, what I have decided that is that it doesn't matter. I kind of like writing and I often feel better after I do write for awhile, so I'm not going to stop. I'm going to try to do it more, because it's when I don't do things like this that I start to feel more depressed. The only way to overcome my own insecurities is to keep doing going even if I either improve or just stop caring if I'm any good.

     I realize the hypocrisy in writing an entire blog post about myself in which I say I'm trying to focus less on myself, but I'm a work in progress. I sometimes feel like a failure, but I know that's not true. I'm a person and a person who was and is forgiven by Christ. I mess up and make mistakes and that's okay, because everyone does. I have to stop trying to get better and just start trusting in God, following God, and caring about others more. 

God's Not Dead: A Review

There is a popular urban myth[i] that tells of a young Christian who just started at a unnamed prestigious university. He excitedly goes to his first class but becomes rather concerned when the professor demands that all the Christian students stand up. He and several Christians stand up only to have the professor quickly and efficiently convince them all that God does not exist. Finally the professor gets to him, but this kid was secretly Albert Einstein[ii] and is able to destroy the professor’s argument very easily. The professor then cries and converts to Christianity on the spot. Well, apparently someone was inspired by this story and decided to make it into a movie.

             This is movie is so bad that it’s actually very hard to even talk about it. It has about seven plot lines all of which come together in the most irritating way possible. It quickly establishes several main characters most of whom never meet but are all connected in some way. For this reason it is very difficult to explain the plot of this movie, as it has several fragmented story lines that are only connected in a loose sense. A good writer and director could have made this work but this movie clearly had neither so instead it became a jumbled mess of bad acting and poor theology. 

             I’ll attempt to explain this by introducing our characters. The protagonist is a young evangelical named Josh Wheaton[iii] who wears Newsboys shirts and goes to Newsboys concerts and has a Newsboys poster on this wall. This means he’s a good Christian[iv]. He goes to his philosophy class where he meets Professor Radison (Kevin Sorbo)[v] who announces that his class is not an easy A and will be very difficult to pass. He then goes on to explain that as long as everyone declares that God is dead that they will all receive an automatic A on 30% of their grade. The class of eighty all eagerly write “God is dead” on pieces of paper, but not our hero who declares that he cannot betray God that way. He then agrees to “put God on trial” with Professor Hercules[vi] as the prosecutor and the class as the jury. This plot line is the least insufferable part of the movie as they at least put a modicum of research into their arguments so, while hardly great, they are at least not totally embarrassing. 

           We then meet our other players and I really don’t care enough to look up their names. The problem with all these characters is that they are not people but rather caricatures of types of people. We are first introduced to an atheist blogger who interviews famous Christians in order to show how terrible they are. At the beginning of the movie she interviews Willie Robertson[vii] who gives her a sermon on how good people are Christians, eat meat, and say “y’all”[viii].  She then goes to the doctor and discovers she has cancer. Her boyfriend (Dean Cain) breaks up with her because their relationship is apparently based off of what they get from each other and getting cancer was against the rules. Next we are introduced to a Muslim girl who iss secretly a Christian and is beaten by her dad, a Christian pastor and African Missionary, and the atheist professor’s Christian girlfriend. These subplots go on throughout the movie and mostly are unconnected except in order to preach the movie’s message.

           Ultimately Wheaton proves to the class that God exists and embarrasses the professor. Radison’s girlfriend dumps him and he goes into his office and reads a message from his mother where she says that she knows God has a plan for him. That night all the characters go to a Newsboys concert including Radison who goes there in the hopes of finding his girlfriend. At this point the Atheist reporter meets the Newsboys and they convert her to Christianity. Radison rushes to the concert and is hit by a car, but the evangelical pastor is nearby and converts him to Christianity. He dies and the pastor smiles as the missionary explains that death is nothing to be sad about because their brother has gone home. We then see that the car that hit the professor was in fact driven by Dean Cain who is the only atheist in the movie not to convert. The movie finishes with Willie Robertson telling the audience to text their friends the phrase “God’s not dead” followed by the Newsboys playing their song of the same name.

          The problem with this movie is not how badly written, directed, and acted it is. The problem is how angry and preachy it is. The movie consists of characters saying they don’t believe in God and characters explaining that God is real and loves them, and then two of the Atheist characters die. This is the problem with movies like this; it comes across as a propaganda piece meant to convince all people who watch it of its message. Worst still is the revenge fantasy that the movie seems to have. Two of the atheist characters die and no one is particularly sad about this. In fact they are happy because God used their death to bring them back to Him. There is a certain smugness in the movie wherein the non-Christians are punished for not believing in God and the Christians are all rewarded with praise and fame.

          I’m not actually of the opinion that Christian movies have to be bad nor do I think that the story concept had to lead to a bad movie. The problem with this, and many Christian movies, is that it’s not trying to tell a story. What it is trying to do is be meaningful and convert its audience even though its audience mostly agrees with it already. It’s only going to be watched by people who agree with it so it should instead focus on telling a story that will be meaningful to its audience. Maybe instead they should tell a story about a kid who goes to college and meets a reasonable and friendly professor who does not share his religious beliefs thus leading him to doubt those beliefs and ultimate choose whether he wants to remain a Christian.[ix] I’m not saying that would be a great movie but it would at least be telling a story about something that actually happens and it might even mean something to some people.

            I have no problem with corny Christian movies, I don’t particularly like them but I’m completely okay that there are people who do. What I do have problems with are movies that are perpetuating terrible world views and movies that are trying to sell a product. God’s Not Dead is not only guilty of an angry vengeful portrayal of non-Christians, it’s also guilty of an insane amount of product placement. There are three things this movie is trying to sell its audience. The first is the Newsboys; every Christian in this movie is shown to be a fan of them, non-Christians hate them, and significant events happen at their concerts. There are posters, t-shirts, and albums with their name on them all over the place throughout the movie. In this case this is product placement, because the Newsboys are not just some group of people, nor are they a non-profit organisation, rather they are a band that sells albums and concerts, and this movie spent an equal amount of time trying to convince me to buy their product as it did telling me about Christianity. The second product was the television show Duck Dynasty; Willie Robertson is in the movie in two significant moments where he delivers the message of the movie and talks about his show. The third product is the movie itself; at the end of the film we are instructed to text our friends the phrase God’s not dead in order to spread the Gospel. The problem is that that isn't an innocent phrase; it’s the name of the Newsboys newest album, as well as the name of this movie. Texting that to my friends is not just annoying, it’s advertising, and if I’m going to advertise a movie and CD then I should at least be paid for my efforts. And that’s the main problem with God’s Not Dead; it’s not a movie, it’s a really angry commercial. 

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[i] http://www.snopes.com/religion/einstein.asp
http://www.snopes.com/religion/chalk.asp

http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp

[ii] Most of the time it’s revealed that he’s Einstein at the end of a story. If anyone ever ends a story with “and that kid was [famous person]" then it’s fairly safe to assume that that story is not true.

[iii] Not Albert Einstein; I was disappointed too. I’m not sure if they deliberately named him after Will Wheaton but I’d like to think so. For most of the movie I thought he was named Joss Whedon which was even funnier but alas I heard wrong.

[iv] This is very disappointing for me. If I had known I was saved by the Newsboys rather than faith I would have bought one of their albums. Actually I’m not sure I would have, but I would maybe have thought about it.

[v] It’s a really bad sign when Kevin Sorbo is the best actor in a movie. Dean Cain is in it too but honestly he was just as bad as everyone else.

[vi] I wasn't going to make the Hercules joke but at one point Sorbo does declare that in this classroom he is a god, so it became difficult not to at that point.

[vii] I had no idea who this guy was, but the movie was pretty clear that I should have heard of him so I looked it up later. I guess good Christians probably watch Duck Dynasty.

[viii] Seriously. There is a brief tangent on how great the expression “y’all” is.

[ix] I think Blue Like Jazz is far closer to what this movie should have been. It was far from great (It wasn't even good) but it was on the right track while this movie isn't anywhere near the right track. 

Star Trek Into Darkness: A Review

I have said many times that Star Trek has always belonged on TV, and is at its best in that format. There have been twelve Star Trek films now and three of them have been really good, and the rest have ranged from good to okay to really bad. On TV Star Trek can be about exploring new worlds, but apparently the movies have to be about fighting some sort of super powered spaceship. And that's the real problem with the Star Trek films; they are stale and boring. The first six Star Trek films were all mostly trying to do different things, some succeeded and some failed but they all tried. But at some point they all became a bunch of action movies that tried desperately to be Wrath of Khan. The last five films have had revenge as the primary motivator of either the antagonist or protagonist. The last three films have not only been about revenge, but have also had basically the same plot.

Star Trek Into Darkness has the same plot as Star Trek: Nemesis and a very similar one to Star Trek (2009). All three movies are about some guy with a massive ship threatening the federation. The Federation sends only the Enterprise because that's what the plot needs, and the Enterprise engages the big ship. The villain leaves the Enterprise to go destroy the Earth, the Enterprise chases it down and at the very end manages to destroy the big ship. All three movies have essentially the same plot, just with different jokes, and a different British guy playing the villain. Could we please have a new movie now? Could you please stop repackaging the same boring plot over and over again?

The Scimitar...  I mean the Narada... Um... The Vengeance! That's it. 

Before I start talking about this film directly I'm just going to say what I did like about it since I have a lot more complaints than compliments, and once I start going on about it's flaws I will probably forget to mention its positive aspects. I thought the Enterprise crew were considerably better than last time around, and they mostly all had their chance to shine. McCoy was as good as he was last time, and most of the others were improved. Scotty was funny without being too over the top, and Kirk and Spock both seemed much closer to their original counterparts. I also thought the humour was pretty good this time around. In the last film the humour was campy, annoying, and distracting, but here it seemed much more natural and just fit into the film better. The special effects were good of course but I kind of wish they weren't. If they had a lower budget then maybe they would try to write better scripts since they would be less concerned about attracting everyone to see it.

Star Trek Into Darkness starts with a terrorist attacking the Federation and then running off to Qo'nos (spelt Kronos for some reason) by using a magic teleporter. Why he chose to go to the Klingon home world is never explained in any way, but get used to that since the writers preferred to not even pretend to explain all the stuff that happens. Kirk is given 72 torpedoes by the federation so he can fire on Qo'nos, which Kirk doesn't seem to think is weird at all. Eventually Kirk is persuaded by Spock to capture the terrorist rather than kill him. He captures him only to discover the "shocking" twist that I am now going to reveal so that I can rant about it. If you want to not be spoiled than please read no more.

There are two villains in this film. One of them is Khan and the other is Admiral Marcus. It turns out that Admiral Marcus decided to wake up Khan early so that he can help him build a massive ship in order to attack the Klingon Empire. This whole massive ship plot seems to have become a Trek staple so of course they had to have one. The ship is huge, can go to warp nine, and has massive weapons. It can also be piloted by one person, and they explain that these are attributes they only put in warships since there is no reason an exploratory vessel would need to go fast, or be piloted by one person. The real problem I have is that there is no explanation for how the Federation could have made a ship this powerful, and there is absolutely no reason they wouldn't start using it in all their ships. But this movie does not believe in explaining things but rather they just put stuff in because they think its cool.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan

So I'm going to rant about Khan for awhile now since it seems as good a spot as any. There is no reason to think this guy is Khan Noonien Singh other than that the movie tells us to. First of all he's very clearly English. Yes, I get that Ricardo Montalban was a Spaniard playing an Indian but I missed the bit where people being racist in the past made it okay to be even more racist now. Khan Noonien Singh was an genetically engineered Indian Sikh, but this movie casts an English guy with no explanation whatsoever. And the reboot excuse does not work since the previous film made it very clear that this was not a reboot but rather an altered timeline that veers off directly at Kirk's birth, meaning that a man born in the 1990s should be no different in any way.

Ricardo Montalban as Khan

The other excuse for this casting is that Benedict Cumberbatch was so good that they decided to go with the best actor rather than the correct race. There is obviously the problem that is clearly silly since there are many Indian men who are equally good at acting to Cumberbatch, but let's ignore that so that I can talk about Cumberbatch's performance. I know that it is a crime to ever criticize Cumberbatch these days but I honestly thought he was pretty bad. Cumberbatch has great stage presence and always seems very intimidating but that's about all he brought to the role. He had no emotional range at all, he had no depth, and he over enunciated every syllable so much that sometimes I wondered what was going on with his face. At one point his character cries but he had showed so little emotion at all that it seemed almost laughable to see a tear fall down his cheek. I honestly do not see what every one saw in his performance, I thought it was easily the worst in the movie. When Montalban played Khan he clearly showed a depth and sophistication  as well as a clear intelligence and charisma, with an anger and pride hidden behind his more friendly charade. Cumberbatch's Khan was really strong, and seemed angry all the time, but that was about it.

Ricardo Montalban as old Khan.

I also didn't get why they changed him so much. Khan used to be very strong and very smart, but here he heals, is super strong and has magic blood. In Original Star Trek, Khan desired to rule over all people, he was described as an Alexander or a Napoleon. He was a cruel dictator but he was not insane. In this movie Khan apparently desires to stamp out all life that he considers inferior to himself. In original Star Trek, Khan is described in the following way:

Kirk: They were hardly supermen. They were aggressive, arrogant. They began to battle amongst themselves.
Spock: Because the scientists overlooked one fact: superior abilities breed superior ambition.
Kirk: Interesting, if true. They created a group of Alexanders, Napoleons...

Superior ambition. Not a desire to wipe out all inferior life, but rather a desire to rule it. Why change it? Why is Khan now a Hitler rather than an Alexander? The only reason I can come up with is that they thought it would be cool.

The main writing style for this movie seemed to be that they would try to come up with stuff that they thought was cool and shove it randomly in the movie.  Qo'nos is shown at one point with an exploded moon? Why would its moon have exploded 30-40 years early? Because they thought it looked cool. Why do the Klingons look different again? Because they thought it would be cool. Why is there a super powerful ship? Because they wanted there to be one. Why does Carol Marcus take off her clothes in one scene? To please their predominately male audience. Why is the Enterprise under water? Because it looks cool. Nothing in this movie is explained properly because there never was a reason for anything. The majority of events in this film were simply done for the sake of doing them, without even pretending to have a reason. The whole film was just a series of action sequences and cool explosions with no thought behind it.

Klingons have pointy ears now for some reason.

I'm trying to finish up here but it would be wrong not to briefly talk about the end. I will spoil it since it would be difficult to discuss it without doing so. Kirk dies in the same exact way that Spock dies in Wrath of Khan. They even include most of the same lines that are in Wrath of Khan. There is a thin line between homage and direct rip off and in my opinion this crosses it. Its not their own writing, its sloppily inserted and it has little reason to be in the movie. Kirk is then resurrected five minutes later with pretty much no reaction from anyone. And how do they resurrected Kirk? By using Khan's blood. Apparently Khan's blood can raise the dead. So there had better be a reason in the next film for why Star Fleet does not have warp nine capabilities, Starships that can be manned by one person, and the secret to immortality. Because there is no way people would find a way to resurrect their officers and not start to immediately synthesize and mass produce it.

What I would have done if I had to do a film adaptation of Space Seed, is actually adapt Space Seed. I would have had the Enterprise encounter the Botany Bay floating in space and bring the leader of the cryogenically frozen crew aboard. I would have them at first think maybe Khan could be trusted and then have Khan turn against the crew and take over the ship. I wouldn't do the terrorism angle, or the massive conspiracy plot. But what I would rather them do is neither. Why reuse plots that already worked? All I ask of them is that they try to write their own stuff. Come up with your own ideas and create your own stories. Use Kirk and crew but don't have them flying through a series of the greatest hits of Star Trek.
I have been told many times that if I want more Star Trek then this is the only way I can have it. People say constantly that the franchise would be dead if it wasn't for these movies. But the truth is that this movie was dumb, sloppy, and stale. And people should feel insulted that this is apparently the only way everyone will like Star Trek. If its this or nothing then I would gladly take nothing.

The Other Q Source Hypothesis: A Different Interpretation of Star Trek

Nest week the new Star Trek film will be released, and even though I do not have high hopes for it I still feel an odd excitement. This shows that all you have to do to interest me in a movie is throw the name of a franchise I like on the cover, since these Star Trek movies don't really share a lot in common with Star Trek other than the character names. But since this movie is coming out next week I have decided to do Star Trek themed posts in honour of it (Judging by how often I post, this will probably be the only one). I would like do one before the movie comes out, explaining my problem with the portrayal of James T. Kirk in the new film but who knows if I will get to that. I may also do a review of Star Trek Into Darkness after I see it. So the next while may only be Star Trek posts, but this is my blog and I can obsess over Star Trek for a couple weeks if I want to. But none of this is certain to happen, so we shall see.

The Enterprise represents the current state of the Star Trek  franchise.

If there is one thing that people universally respect and admire it is fan theories. And so I give to you my only "fan theory" or at least the one I have put the most thought into. I call it the Q Source Hypothesis¹ because I think I am funny, but unfortunately that may only be a delusion. The hypothesis itself originates from a scene in Star Trek: Enterprise² which closely mirrors the final scene in the movie Star Trek: First Contact. Basically what happens is that humanity is greeted by Vulcans and instead of reciprocating the greeting they shoot all the Vulcans and rob their ship. This of course turns out to have happened in the Mirror Universe, which is a alternate universe in Star Trek in which everyone is a jerk.

So lets forget about the whole Mirror Universe thing for a second and instead go to Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the very first episode, the Enterprise encounters a being who claims to be omnipotent. He is referred to as Q. He also claims that humanity is a dangerous savage child race. This is very offensive to the Enterprise crew since if there is one thing that the Next Generation characters are sure of it is their general superiority over everyone else. So they explain that humanity is good and progressively getting better. Q drags them off to a barbaric trial from the dark ages in Earth's 21st Century. They are given a chance to prove that they are better than they appear and Q lets them go. After this Q appears in two distinct modes; he sometimes comes to the ship as a trickster and other times as a teacher.³ For the sake of this interpretation, I will maintain that even when he was being a trickster he was actually testing the crew. In his second appearance, for example, he offers Riker a chance to become a Q. Eventually Riker turns him down when he realizes that his powers are already corrupting him. One could interpret this as Q actually inviting him to become a Q, but I think it makes more sense to see it as Q testing his resolve and convictions in the face of absolute temptation.

"Judge Q, to you."

The next time Q appears it is to introduce them to the Borg. The Borg are made up of many alien species who have been made into cybernetic organisms and seek to add all technological and biological distinctiveness to their own. They seek out anything that they think will make them stronger and add it to their collective. The Enterprise escapes the Borg without much trouble but later runs into them again when they invade Federation space. This time Picard is briefly assimilated by them and while he does get restored back to his former self, it is not without a certain amount of emotional damage.⁴ I'm now going to skip to Q's final appearance on the show in which he tests Picard by sending him backwards and forwards through time so he can fix an anomaly before it prevents life in the universe from coming into existence. This isn't too important except for the way that Q's test's penalty is the destruction of the universe.

Alright, I am almost done here. This now brings us to Star Trek: First Contact in which Picard chases the Borg back in time to prevent them from destroying the human race. Once there they send Riker to help Zefram Cochrane bring a ship to warp speed. While there Riker teaches him about all those wonderful Federation values.

Locutus of Borg: For some reason a hive mind with no concept of
individuality still thought Borg Picard needed a name.

Which brings us to the whole point of this post. My theory is that the Star Trek universe is not the prime universe but rather the Mirror Universe is. The Mirror Universe is the natural progression of events from where we are today, but Q was unhappy with the way the Galaxy was so he created a Utopian pocket universe. Then he introduced himself to his creation and challenged their right to exist. Q needed to know that the Utopia he created was as good as he thought it was and so he did it by choosing a ship of people and tormenting them. First he tempted Riker to ensure that he could change Zefram Cochrane into a man who wouldn't murder Vulcans, and then he introduced Picard to the Borg so that he would become obsessed with them. By doing so he set up the events that would eventually lead to Star Trek: First Contact. But first he still needed to be certain, so he created a final test for Picard that if failed could destroy the universe he created. Picard passes the test meaning that Q is now ready to allow the universe he created to cause its own creation, as circular as that may be. The Borg invade Federation Space and Picard chases them backwards in time, in which they meet Zephram Cochrane and help him to become a better person thus leading to the creation of the Star Trek Universe itself.

Only through divine intervention could this man create a Utopia.

The truth is that the Star Trek Universe is somewhat silly. At some point humanity became so great that they no longer had poverty, greed, or crime, and had no need for primitive things like currency. I maintain that this could not come about naturally and could only exist through some form of intervention. In conclusion, the Star Trek Universe only came into existence because Q wanted it to.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9TdvN07ZWI
3.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwoEXlTph0
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuzoxcErOc8