They’ve continued the habit from previous seasons of writing out fan favourite characters such as Tonga or Wales before the finale, and have decided that the season finale would be a rematch of the one from season one. So what have they added that’s new?

Well, in terms of character development, previous seasons have hinted towards France’s mental instability but this season the writers flirted with pushing them over the edge into insanity. But then the went and bottled it and failed to follow through on this development in the finale itself.

Deciding the make the England character the focus of multi-media spin-offs rather than a core part of the series itself was an odd way to treat a character with such a large fan base and which had been such an integral part of previous seasons.

The running gag about New Zealand fly halves is in rather poor taste and is just ripping off Spinal Tap anyway. And the gag about no one at all being able to kick straight is rather clumsy attempt on the writers’ part to counter criticism of too much kicking in previous seasons.

The finale itself was a rather scrappy affair, almost as if there wasn’t enough budget left for any spectacular special effects sequences. I can’t tell whether having the teams play in black and white was supposed to be some sort of post-modernist statement or not.

All in all not a classic season, but I kept on watching anyway so they must have done something right. I just hope the writing team has some fresh ideas for Season 8.

After being swallowed by a crack in time we’re taken to a museum on Starship UK (crammed full of all sorts of props – I spotted the ‘Schlechter Wolf’ bomb, a life belt from the SS Bernice, Yeti control spheres and a Dalek trooper helmet as well as the headline items pointed out in the dialogue). Whilst in the museum the Doctor contacts us, in specially recorded Matt Smith video clips, and reveals that he’s been trapped in the Pandorica again and needs our help to escape.

The TARDIS materialises and we (or rather any children in the group – once again, little blighters get all the best things) pilot it to the Doctor’s rescue. Until we crash on a Dalek ship. Ooops. Surrounded by new paradigm Daleks ready to exterminate us all. Rescue comes in the unlikely form of some old style Daleks – “The Children of Davros” – which may point at a new Dalek civil war in the forthcoming series.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire as the escape from the Dalek ship takes us through a corridor (lots of corridors in this, which is very appropriate) containing Weeping Angels. Rushing onwards we reach the Pandorica itself and the Doctor does something sonic to teleport himself into the TARDIS. There’s a cool 3D sequence of Daleks, Cybermen and Angels flying at us from the time vortex before the Doctor saves the day.

The second half is more conventional and packed with more goodies than any previous Doctor Who exhibit (certainly more than Earls Court a few years ago or Longleat a lot of years ago) – costumes from all eleven Doctors and all the twenty first century companions. 1980s and 2010 TARDIS exteriors, 1980s and 2005 TARDIS control rooms, six different models of Daleks from 1963 to 2010, three different Sontarans, the Giant Robot, the Face of Boe, and more and more.

It’s not cheap, £20 for adult tickets  and an eye watering £12 for a photo of yourself in the Pandorica chair (I passed on that), but if you’re as much of a Doctor Who fan as me you’ll love every moment of it.

Via the Forbidden Planet Blog.

It’s been a while since my last dinosaur miniatures roundup, so what’s new and exciting?

15mm is where it’s at. Khurasan Miniatures have continued to expand their Mystri Island range including the very nice T. rex “He-Who-Kills” pictured on the right. Also in 15mm, there are a few new additions to the M.Y.Miniatures Ice Age range. Splintered Light have blogged the greens for some raptors and sabre tooth tigers. Finally, Acheson Creations / Primaeval Designs will also be moving into this scale and have posted some photos of greens to their Facebook and Yahoo! Groups pages.

Speaking of Primaeval they now have a UK distributor in the form of Magister Militum. The prices are high as you would expect for imports but at least you don’t get stung by customs and post office charges on top of that. I picked up a few figures (Plateosaurus, Protoceratops, Feathered Utahraptor, Mastodon and both Megaloceros) from their stands at SELWG and Warfare. Now I just need to review them for Ragnarok and get my painting desk set up (ha ha, fat chance, my computer is still on the floor five months after we moved).

And in related news, the new season of Primeval airs on ITV on New Year’s Day.

On Friday a bunch of us from work went to the new-ish oriental buffet, Tuli on Tooley Street. It’s underneath the railway arches and has made great use of the space – it’s light and airy and feels modern. The food was decidedly average – exactly what you’d expect from an all-you-can-eat chinese buffet – and didn’t really seem to live up to the image that they were trying to present. Maybe the teppanyaki or sushi options would be more interesting if we ever went back as a smaller group and/or in the evening.

Saturday was the Crystal Palace Overground Festival and Lettice and I braved the drizzle to take a look. Spread out round all three sides of the triangle were stalls selling exactly what you’d expect from the good people of Crystal Palace – cupcakes, handmade greetings cards and antiques. There was also music and kids’ activities going on. With the events spread out both geographically and temporally, coupled with the poor weather, it all seemed a bit difficult to get into the spirit of things. Maybe if it’s sunny next year we’ll make the slightly longer trip up from Croydon.

And then round to miss_newham‘s for the annual Eurovision party. Alcohol, scorecards, yelling at the telly, and some truly dreadful music. I seemed to be the only person who liked the Albanian entry; the winner of our voting was Greece, which matched the winner of the UK phone vote so we must have been in tune with the national psyche. Not sure why the UK bothers entering – everyone hates us and we always enter rubbish songs. Ben Dalby’s Doctor Can would have been a better entry and some sexy nurses would surely have garnered a few votes.

There’s a new art gallery in West Norwood – The Portico Gallery is very close to us and full of a wide variety of pieces in varied styles and media. I’m rubbish at writing about art (“and everything else,” yells the audience) so there’s not much more to say except that that’s where we were on Sunday afternoon.

And today? Nothing much at all.

• Had my photo used in a (gay) mockup of a what our Valentine’s Day homepage could look like.
• Had lots of fun combining Ajax, JSON, RSS, JSP and jQuery in various combinations.
• Moved the breadcrumb trail from just inside the main content area to just before it … in many, many templates.
• Wondered whether any of the ARIA landmark roles was suitable for a block that contained a breadcrumb trail, a print button and an RSS feed button. contentinfo or nothing seem to be the options.
• Told my boss that I needed to refactor all the JavasScript (that I had written in the first place) on the whole site.
• Wasn’t ill enough to go home to bed, maybe tomorrow. (Damn this really quite good immune system!)
• Boggled at the photos of Ben Dalby in a straight jacket!
• Spent most of Survivors thinking about the benefits of CGI vs something actually decent looking when it came to collapsing buildings.

Then I went out and bought another two graphic novels… But it must be said that most of the comics I’ve read this year came from West Norwood library, and now that I’ve exhausted most of their good ones, and some of their bad ones, I think 2010 may be slightly less weighted towards graphic novels.

How many of my 2009 books have you read?

Available as a poll over on Live Journal (you don’t need an LJ account to vote, just an OpenID account which means an account from WordPress.com, Google, Yahoo, Blogger, etc.)

Any of these Doctor Who books?

• Doctor Who: Bunker Soldiers
• Doctor Who: The Sleep Of Reason
• Doctor Who: The Tomorrow Windows
• Doctor Who: More Short Trips
• Doctor Who: The Iron Legion
• Doctor Who: The Tides of Time
• Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell
• Doctor Who: The Forgotten
• Faction Paradox: Warring States
• Faction Paradox: Warlords Of Utopia
• Faction Paradox: Of the City of the Saved…
• Time, Unincorporated 1: The Doctor Who Fanzine Archives

Any of these Star Wars books?

• Star Wars: Agents Of Chaos 1 – Hero’s Trial
• Star Wars: Agents of Chaos 2 – Jedi Eclipse
• Star Wars: Balance Point
• Star Wars: Edge of Victory I: Conquest
• Star Wars: Edge of Victory II: Rebirth
• Star Wars Tales: Volume 4
• Star Wars: Crimson Empire

Any of these Fables graphic novels?

• Fables: Legends in Exile
• Fables: Animal Farm
• Fables: Storybook Love
• Fables: March of the Wooden Soldiers
• Fables: The Mean Seasons
• Fables: Homelands
• Fables: Arabian Nights (and Days)
• Fables: Wolves
• Fables: The Mean Seasons
• Fables: The Mean Seasons
• Fables: War and Pieces
• Fables: Dark Ages

How about a bit of Alan Moore?

• Saga of the Swamp Thing
• Promethea Book One
• Promethea Book Two
• Promethea Book Three
• Promethea Book Four
• Promethea Book Five
• Skizz
• DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910
• Captain Britain

Have you read these DC Superheroes?

• Superman and Batman Vs. Aliens and Predator
• Superman: For Tomorrow v. 1
• The Kingdom
• Kingdom Come
• JLA: Riddle of the Beast
• All Star Superman: Vol 1
• Batman: Year One

Or these Marvel Superheroes?

• Captain Britain and MI13: Secret Invasion
• Captain Britain and MI13: Hell Comes to Birmingham
• Captain Britain And MI13: Vampire State
• Civil War: Iron Man
• Iron Man: Haunted
• Iron Man: Director of SHIELD
• Heroes Reborn: Captain America
• Marvels (Kurt Busiek)
• Mighty Avengers Volume 2: Venom Bomb
• New Avengers Volume 1
• New Avengers Volume 2
• Spider-Man, Peter Parker: Back in Black
• Thor (J. Michael Straczynski)
• Thor: Ages Of Thunder
• Ultimate Origins
• House Of M Prelude: Excalibur
• House Of M
• X-Men: Messiah Complex
• X-Force/Cable: Messiah War
• X-Men: Original Sin
• X-Men: Fairy Tales
• Wolverine: Get Mystique
• Wolverine: The Death of Wolverine

Other Superheroes

• Astro City: Life in the Big City
• Astro City: Local Heroes
• Astro City: Confession
• Brit: Old Soldier
• Ex Machina: The First Hundred Days
• Ex Machina: Tag
• Ex Machina: Fact V. Fiction
• Planetary Vol. 1: All Over the World and Other Stories
• Planetary Vol. 2: The Fourth Man
• The Authority : Under New Management
• The Authority: Earth Inferno and Other Stories
• The Authority: Harsh Realities
• The Authority: The Magnificent Kevin
• Sleeper: Season One
• The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite
• The Boys Vol. 1: The Name of the Game
• The Boys Volume 2: Get Some
• The Boys Volume 3: Good for the Soul
• The Boys Volume 4: We Gotta Go Now

Random assortment of graphic novels

• John Constantine Hellblazer: The Roots of Coincidence
• John Constantine Hellblazer: Scab
• John Constantine Hellblazer: Chas The Knowledge
• Midnight Nation
• Ocean (Warren Ellis)
• Scarlet Traces
• Scarlet Traces: Great Game
• The Dreaming: Through the Gates of Horn and Ivory
• Y: The Last Man – Unmanned

• The Walking Dead Book 1
• The Walking Dead Volume 3: Safety Behind Bars
• The Walking Dead Volume 4: The Heart’s Desire
• The Walking Dead Volume 5: Best Defense
• Negima!: Magister Negi Magi Volumes 1-10 (‘cos I can’t be bothered listing them all)
• Angel: After the Fall, Vol. 1
• Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 4: Time Of Your Life
• Buffy The Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 5: Predators And Prey

Some Novels

• Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett
• The Folklore of Discworld by Terry Pratchett and Jacqueline Simpson
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• Cartomancy by Mary Gentle
• Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
• Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
• Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
• Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay

Historical Novels

• Outlaw by Angus Donald
• Sharpe’s Devil by Bernard Cornwell
• The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell
• The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
• Clarissa Oakes by Patrick O’Brian
• The Wine-dark Sea by Patrick O’Brian
• The Commodore by Patrick O’Brian
• The Yellow Admiral by Patrick O’Brian
• The Hundred Days by Patrick O’Brian
• Blue at the Mizzen by Patrick O’Brian

And finally, have you read any of these?

• The Book of Bunny Suicides by Andy Riley
• Barcelona (Lonely Planet City Guide)
• Barcelona and Catalonia (DK Eyewitness Travel)
• Belching Out the Devil by Mark Thomas
• How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World by Francis Wheen
• Thank You for the Days by Mark Radcliffe
• Even Faster Web Sites by Steve Souders
• The Big Book of "Top Gear" 2009
• The Big Book of “Top Gear” 2010
• Socks’ Feline Miscellany

Now you’ve seen what I’ve read in 2009, recommend one book that I should read in 2010 in the comments.

I’ve been passing the time between parts one and two by dipping into the festering mire of DW fandom to see what crackpot speculation people have come up.

( Spoilers and Speculation )

So there you go, I’ve proved that almost everything that could happen in part two has already been done in the novels, and that I’m as anal and crackpot as any other fan.

I suspect that the reality of part two will be even more sane/crazy, predictable/unpredictable, clichéd/original than the above.

Very True Mood:  cranky

Um, no. I have no problem with the ending per se. I thought it was rushed, but only to the degree that the last four episodes needed to be six or seven episodes (it struck me that characters like Tyrol and Helo jumped in and out of the storyline over the last few episodes).

( I'm trying to avoid outright spoilers but those of you who want to remain unspoiled should click away now. )

It was one of the best pieces of television that we’ve had. Possibly the best ever in the SF genre. For all its faults, in the ending or in any part, I can’t think any less of it. If you haven’t watched it, do so; if you have, I hoped you enjoyed it as much as I did.