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Leela’s last few stories were by no means my favorites of the short Tom Baker run we had growing up—I remember scratching my head seeing Sarah again after Invasion, being disappointed when it happened a second time, then a third, fourth… but maybe it was for the best, considering what actually followed. Wouldn’t it have been great if it turned out that Romana was Leela all along, gentrified by Time Lord society? Killing her off wasn’t the right call (imagine the effect on the Doctor, though), but a time skip definitely would’ve worked.

Crazy that they were actually thinking of doing it in The Sun Makers, which I admit I like now more than I did back then, when I was far too young to relish the overthrow of a corporatocracy, however cheaply dramatized. As if the BBC would air a group of terrorists tossing a government official off a building anymore, much less greenlight a companion named after a Palestinian freedom fighter! Underworld also suffered from trying to present an epic with a shoestring budget, but I’ve always had a soft spot for takes on Greek mythology, those shield guns were as cool as anything in Star Wars, and Leela truly had her final best moments under (and after) the influence of the Pacifier Gun. Orf was not a beautiful name.

One banger after another, leading to arguably the pinnacle of the franchise (Talons, which I revisited recently so I may skip this time around, you know, allow the nostalgia gauge to refill, try and appreciate newer work like Evil that’s the only thing to come close), the inspired costume design, no-nonsense whodunnit, and dialogue Davies ought to try harder to emulate:

“You mean you can’t control this machine?”
“Well of course I can control it! …Nine times out of ten. Well, seven times out of ten; five times—look, never mind, let’s see where we are.” [Heads towards exit. Leela takes Tesh rifle from previous episode. In hindsight, probably more effective against those vocs than her knife.]
“You won’t need that.”
“How do you know?”
“I never carry weapons. If people see you mean them no harm, they never hurt you …nine times out of ten.”

I had just about given up on Disney Who after that entire episode written around a single brilliant (better) moment between Harry and the Doctor from “Genesis of the Daleks”, but I’m a sucker for time-skip stories like “73 Yards”, though I think Black Red Mirror’s “Demon 79” did something similar (and again, better). The next two felt like the inevitable reminders Gatwa’s both Black and gay and were serviceable enough, but damn, was that finale ever a twisted abhorrence to this long-time fan. For an all-new series, it sure does rely on marvels of its past; even that homage to a scene from “Pyramids” in an earlier outing was a pale imitation, amidst hokum appropriate for mid-to-later-era CW Flash. At least nonagenarian Gabriel Woolf got paid in 2024 money.

Stuck in the hotel on my latest trip to the Twin Cities I got to explore the free offerings on Pluto TV, one of whose channels ran ad-supported Britbox reruns of the Pertwee era, more or less in order until it got to Baker, and never was the popular term “peak” more apt. I fear my Doctor’s not long for this world, so allow me to praise his performance in those first few seasons we had on PBS, including in Leela’s debut, when he was at his most ruthless and egomaniacal.

It’s been a trip, living long enough to see a gay Black Doctor. (No doubt Disney will try to make it Harry Potter rather than allow It’s a Sin.)
I fear, however, no shot at outlasting evil cunts like Sunak and Braverman who want to ship migrants off to the actor’s home country of Rwanda.

There was a brunette stewardess with an eyepatch; a vest hanging on the wall moved, indicating the presence of a ghost, whose solid but invisible body the boy and I proceeded to hit with poles, but weren’t sure what effect it was having. Oh, and I had a bunch of floppy diskettes I packed into the only available box, folding some of them in a way that at least the 3½-inchers couldn’t and definitely shouldn’t be. It was his birthday, and Rush were guests, Geddy Lee offering a wall display of their cables and adapters for his friends to pair with their electronic equipment, then finishing with a set where Neil Peart (RIP) set up his kit outside the screen door, he and Alex Lifeson (whose name I got right, but they insisted was “Eric”) used exotic pedals and keyboards instead of directly handling their guitars. To my bewilderment, our young player added “Thunderstruck” to the jam, which the group surprisingly incorporated deftly, equipment levels flickered, and I scrambled for my phone to capture the moment.
But maybe it took being wowed by a Constant-caliber bottle episode of The Last of Us to trigger truly once-in-decades appearances by Elaine Benes and Clara Oswald in our best ages, the former way out of my league though she deigned to lead me as she stomped through the huddled masses of the university halls; I stopped for a quick greeting as we cross paths with the latter, then later received a call from her jealously (!) asking me if that was “Lucille from the restaurant.”

…Of course that’s followed up by one where I’m still in a school somewhere, accompanied instead by two cases of Mountain Dew Pitch Black, a few 20-oz. bottles of a brighter flavor, maybe Maui Burst, some loose cans and unable to move the lot at once, I opted to leave the boxes on the floor and come back for them, my arms full, as I slowly made my way down a wide stairwell. This is why I don’t deserve control of my subconscious, it’s full of insecurity and greed. Seems only a complete clearing of all my fucking hangups makes my dreams come true.

Sexagenarian series seems only good for reminding us how old we are anymore, what with all there being to the new stories hyperkinetic visuals and characters who run around trying to explain them, surely not the stuff of later fan service …Of course I’m being a hypocrite, as I’ve criticized the lackluster serials during Janet Fielding’s tenure, even if it was very nice of them to bring her and her Doctor back for their latest Master+Daleks+Cybermen+kitchen sink special. Honestly, Baker’s including “The Invasion of Time” and afterward were hardly memorable, either, so maybe it was a drop in quality that accompanied the end of the seventies among many peaking creatives; see also Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd.

Even the Doctor said Trump was inevitable (in contrast to the optimism that Superman is), but I worry about living to see a day when we as a people can look back and heaven forbid, learn why. It’ll also be interesting to try and trace—forensically, of course—where some of his nonsense originated, whether it was Q-scripted and fumbled, anyway, or the product of a media-muddled “mind.”

I just realized that all the links to audio and video files in these shitty WordPress blocks will probably break when I inevitably change things around again and I’ll have to clean them up like I did for years of images (and am still trying whenever I come across more of them, mostly on the old sites), God, I’m an idiot sometimes.

Here’s a B-side from a 45 I sheepishly thought I was the only one who had; dig how the 80’s synth cuts into a beat that’s got to be inspired by 1972 Krautrock masterpiece, I wish a short-run underappreciated BBC series had accompanied this theme music. I got it: three astronauts return from a mission and realize they’re not the ones who were originally sent to space but in fact are alien beings from a distant planet—now they must choose between subjugating humanity with their strange abilities or joining them against the larger invasion force to come!

“I can’t sit in traffic. I’m—I’m too smart. I’m not like these people. You have to have done something stupid to be in traffic. I don’t belong here.” With every season and three or four years that passes, the laughs come fewer and further between, more forced and familiar as ever, but there’s an occasional banger from him even at this advanced age. It’s nowhere near one of his most original or insightful grievances, and he did just admit being responsible for his very own predicament, though of course what sets Larry apart from the rest of us who might have the same thought is that he can so easily extricate himself from it (keywords in this week’s Doctor Who were “quantum extraction”), walk the fuck away and not give any, he’s got the money, fallout with a half-life of only an episode, and above all, the willingness to do so without compunction.

Dream the other night had all my usual conundrums, debilitating fear of heights, frustration with commonplace expectations, and one that a quick search reveals I haven’t mentioned much if at all despite being a fairly regular concern, my slavish observance of the bus schedule. My return ride was always around 8-ish or else I’d miss a transfer and face a long walk home, never mind modern conveniences such as Uber. (I wonder if in a few-odd years when drones will come pick you up anywhere, my subconscious will update then?) The others in my group led the way to a higher platform, effortlessly traversing the gap over a ravine of white stairwells, while I froze; the steps on the other side were so narrow, I wasn’t sure I would land on them safely before attempting another leap upward—it was a wall-jump, fucking videogames! Eventually I determined my only solution was to be forced onto the ledge, which I somehow managed by inserting myself in front of another uninhibited procession. The balcony opened into a dark hall lined with warmly lit, classically decorated sitting rooms, each occupied with well-dressed snobs who seemed offended by my inspection. Lurking in the shadows beside me was Peter Capaldi the Doctor, looking a little worse for wear, but amenable nevertheless for a selfie, but try as I might, I couldn’t get the phone not to overlay dinosaur stamps on the camera.

This morning I found myself in an office building among a band of survivors of an apocalypse. Three of them who looked like members of the high school chess club decided that a Vietnamese girl Binn present would satisfy their pent-up urges. She complied and completed her duties promptly, and I tried to find her to express my sympathies, but instead I ran into an old colleague who seemed to remember me and called out my name. He wasn’t anyone I knew from my past, but he did seem familiar, like an actor who played the role of computer salesman in the 80’s, except his hair was gray and he was missing his right arm. We sat down at a table and he explained that he had been drafted for his expertise with the “Lexor-9” system, whose pre-Internet standalone capabilities made it especially useful in these times. I left by telling him to contact me if they needed help with the modems, which was apparently something for which I myself had a reputation… but as Silver Spear reminds us, “some reputations are false.”