The 100: Wanheda Part II Review

Clarke, for once without anything to say. But actions speak louder than words, and it's Clarke, so… this guy is gonna get a head butt or knife in the gut...

Now this is what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Part one was awkward setup. This episode, the ball gets rolling.

And we get one of those great The 100 conundrums: a Grounder warrior is mortally wounded by the evil Ice Nation, but he's a friend of Guy-Who-Takes-His-Shirt-Off, so he's taken to the medical station. They don't have what they need to save him at the fallen space station, but if they go to Mount Weather, they can use the Vampire President's medical gear and blood supply to save him. To top it off, traveling there might also threaten the peace, as it means traveling through enemy territory. Or something like that. My memory on that point is fuzzy. Anyway. They have to decide if the risk is worth it, and if it is ethical to use the lab of The Mountain People, who stole their blood supply from the Grounders. The injured soldier would be benefiting from tainted blood, so to speak.

And someone (Guess who!) gets their ethics all up in a knot.

I love that sort of stuff.

The episode has betrayals, new characters FINALLY being killed off (It's already episode two! I mean, talk about slacking), and people having reunions with old friends thought long dead, to expand the cast so, obviously, more can be killed off. And these new people say great stuff like, "We're Grounder killers, one and all. Boo-yah!" to people traveling with, and allied to, Grounders.

Awkward!

  

"I'm digging this obviously fake Utopia."

Sure, the Arkers should all be dead, their station should have broken up on reentry, but the show would be much less interesting if it had.

Clarke is being hauled about by the studly bounty hunter Roan (Or so I'm told. Has he taken his shirt off yet? I don't remember, I get distracted by Clarke's heaving bosom).

Arkers almost catch up to them, but the reunion is dashed by the appearance of the Ice Nation army, which is on the march.

More difficult choices follow.

In the end, Clarke is delivered to Lexa, who wants Clarke's help. Clarke, being Clarke, spits in her face, because this is The 100.

War and character based conflict are coming.

All I can say is, yeah, baby, bring it on!

Battle of the Blurbs: Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom Blurb Bash

 

Wondering which sounds better. Never mind which is more accurate, I'm trying to sell books here.

When a giant prairie squid delivers an unconscious android to the door of Pleasurepit Five, everything changes for Magnum Thrax, the King of Kick-Ass and Lord of Rocket Launchers. As leader of a team of fiesty, combat repurposed fembots, he's used to defending The Pit against mutants and legacy ad memes. This time it’s different: the android brings word of an unstoppable, rogue amusement park that is expanding at an exponential rate, threatening to rewrite the world on a subatomic level into sanitized, G-rated blandness.

To stop it, Thrax’ll need help from the technowitches, but the only way to reach them is across The Death Zone.

And no one who has entered the zone has ever emerged alive…

That's the short version. Here's the long:

In a post apocalyptic world overrun by mutants, death bots, and legacy ad memes, there remains only one last bastion of human civilization: Pleasurepit Five, a former sex emporium and edifice to all things carnal. It is mankind's last hope in a hyper-predatory dark age.

The defense of the installation falls upon young Magnum Thrax, a genetically engineered warrior-god and king of rocket powered kick-ass who’s otherwise rather clueless.

His world is turned upside down when an enormous, bloated prairie squid delivers an unconscious android to the Pit’s door. The artificial man brings word of a new threat rising in the East: an unstoppable rogue amusement park. Expanding at an exponential rate, it threatens to rewrite the entire post-world on a subatomic level into sanitized, G-rated blandness.

Nothing living will remain, not even a three-eyed atomic rat.

The Pit is sent into a tizzy at the prospect of both imminent doom and song worthy adventure. Inevitably, it falls upon Magnum Thrax to lead an ultra-deadly team of combat repurposed fembots, armed with deadly weaponry and impractically scanty attire, on a mission to save the wretched remains of the Once-World. Joined by his programmer buddy Kal, who provides the brain-power and angst, they’re humanity’s last line of defense.

But to defeat The Amusement Park of Doom, they’ll need the help of a mysterious girl who lives with the dread technowitches. Wielding dark powers beyond imagination, these fetching yet demur witches will turn inside out (literally) anyone who intrudes upon their placid realm uninvited.

Worse, the only way to reach their holy monastery is across the aptly named Death Zone, from which no one has ever emerged alive…

Thinking that I'll try them out with the chapter postings, as lead ins... so you'll be seeing them again.

Who's The Doctor's Best Companion Ever?

From the Blastr Article

Best Companion of The Doctor… Evah.

This is it: Companion Smack Down. The top contenders go in, only one comes out.

I’m going to rate the best of the best.

Romana

Not Tom Baker in drag.

A fellow Time Lord assigned to work with The Doctor in order to find The Key to Time by a guy with a pigeon stuck to his forehead, she adopted the appearance of a princess after her first season, and went on to marry Tom Baker. Briefly. Sharp witted and resourceful, Romana’s an equal in every way to The Doctor. You’d think he’d prefer to shack up with her as opposed to a former chips shop worker he’s 47 times older than, but no. What’s the age of consent on Gallifrey, anyway?
Score: 8

Captain Jack Harkness

"That's not a bomb. I'm just glad to see you."

Rogue time cop and pansexual omnivore, Jack’s always the most interesting person in a room. A preening narcissist who makes Captain Kirk look modest and self-effacing, Jack was less a companion than a competitor. He’s better off with his ego on another show.
Score: 3

Leela

"Oh please let me kill it, Doctor!"

Leela grew up on a planet that was royally messed up by The Doctor’s earlier (off screen) meddling, which resulted in a kind of extreme social experiment. A savage warrior, foxy lady, and indomitable spirit, Leela was the perfect foil for the pacifist Doctor. Raw animal sexuality combined with predator instincts were an inversion of The Doctor’s detached, sophisticated, peaceful personality, as her first answer to every problem was to kill it. Based on a Palestinian resistance fighter Leila Khaled.
Score: 9.5

Rose Tyler

"I can make chips!"

A young Londoner who ran into The Doctor during an invasion by killer shop mannequins. Rose was Russell T. Davies’ obvious favorite and likely stand-in (R.T. and R.T.D.). An uneducated former gymnast who worked in a chips shop, it has to be said that she was a real go-getter and kept The Doctor on his toes, but she had the depth of a shallow puddle and was a little on the young side for him.
Score: 6.5

Sarah Jane Smith

"I do not approve of this sexist Medieval social order and shall start a revolution forthwith."

Blessed with insatiable curiosity, Sarah Jane was always getting herself in trouble in pursuit of the truth. A journalist by trade, and a born revolutionary, Sarah Jane stirred shit up wherever she went in time and space. By the end of her run, she’d led more rebellions than Princess Leia, Che, and Lenin put together. We never met her family, but thanks to Elisabeth Sladen’s portrayal, she felt more real and had more depth than any companion in New Who, with one exception. Also a crack shot with a rifle. Because Sarah Jane!
Score: 9.4

Amy Pond

"No, stupid, I haven't made up my mind. Stop looking at me. Stupid."

A sexy-gram delivery girl who grew up with a rift in time beside her bed, she’s had a life long connection to The Doctor and witnessed his… tenth(?) regeneration. Got stranded in New York in the 1930’s, and apparently could never interact with The Doctor again, even though she’d naturally travel out of the Thirties into the Forties and presumably the Fifties and Sixties, in which The Doctor was rather active. Whatever. Her life was intertwined with The Doctor’s in novel and clever Moffat-esque ways, but her personality was a lacuna. Unlike Rose, I can’t think of anything to even complain about with her. She’s just relentlessly bland.
Score: 6.5

Ace

Okay, she gets points for the RPG.

A young explosives expert and punker from the… You know, I have no idea. She was an over-the-top, wish fulfillment cartoon character who grated on the nerves. Walking, talking sandpaper armed with a baseball bat and explosives. Her idiosyncratic colloquialisms fell flat with mind boggling relentlessness. Small wonder the show was cancelled.
Score: 5

Donna Noble

She got sass.

A mouthy lady whose wedding The Doctor interrupted, Donna had more personality and sass than ten other companions combined, but was unfortunately saddled with a dreadful end to a wonderful character arc. In her last episode, her brain was overstimulated, necessitating a mind wipe. Her personality was reset, undoing everything she’d learned, which was a particularly sad end for a such great, standout character. She deserved better. Someone should write her in again.
Score: 9.1

River Song

Never bring a banana to a knife fight. Leela 1, Song 0

First appearing as the leader of an expedition to a library planet, she was later revealed to be much more (and thus less) than that. Initially interesting, she became a mugging, one-note ’Spoilers!' cliché. I think of her like an irritating grain of sand in an oyster that forms over time into a pearl, only instead she just becomes more irritating. A psychopath grown and groomed by a secret organization to be the perfect assassin and meant to kill The Doctor, he went and married her. Yeah. That’s messed up.
Score: 6

Martha Jones

The awesome Agyeman

Jones is an actual doctor, as in a physician, and she pined away unsuccessfully for The Doctor. The man was blind. Martha was smart, educated, beautiful and competent. Alas, she was never terribly popular with audiences, or The Doctor for that matter (who preferred younger, less educated and less intelligent chip shop workers), but had more substance and was less superficial than the overrated Rose. Did I mention the BBC shielded prominent pedophiles from prosecution and covered up their crimes for decades? Just saying.
Score: 7.6

Jo Grant

"Uh… could you explain that again, Doctor?"

Assigned to be the assistant of Jon Pertwee’s Doctor by The Brigadier, she replaced the less popular but highly intelligent scientist The Doc had been hanging with earlier. A sweet heart who looked great in short shorts but was unfortunately a bit on the dense side. Thoroughly lovable nonetheless, Jo was a great stand in for little kids, who could always identify with her. At least I could. She was pretty awesome. I’ll not stand anything negative being said about her. So there.
Score: 7.2

Peri Brown

Because of course you do.

An American who got sucked into The Doctor’s TARDIS while wearing a bikini, Peri was a stunningly beautiful brunette with a figure that just wouldn’t quit. She frequently dressed in said bikini (see above), or similar nothing. What’s not to like? Her voice was a high pitched whine and she lacked much in the way of personality that wasn’t annoying. The only companion The Doctor ever tried to literally strangle. I’m not sure what that says and probably don’t want to.
Score: 36 24 36

The winner: Leela.

Why?

Because drama.

What is the source of drama? Conflict.

What drives conflict? Character.

Which companion offered the most in-built conflict with The Doctor? Hands down, bar none, Leela. He's a hyper-educated, sophisticated Time Lord and moralizing pacifist. She's a savage warrior woman who's always ready and eager to employ lethal force. Leela had an alternate way of doing things, and wasn’t afraid to say, or do, so.

It was like The Odd Couple, only with time travel, deadly Janus thorns and a gender switch.

And yet Leela was intelligent, always learning, and willing to be essentially tutored by The Doctor. That offered room for growth, for a clash of values that could ultimately change them both. So much the show runners could have done here and ultimately didn’t. They achieved a lot, but certainly could have taken it much further. Why they've never revisited this sort of combination I'm not sure, but I imagine it would be seen as too extreme. Too controversial for safe spaces.

The only other character to push the envelope as much as Leela is Donna Noble. An argument could be made that Jack Harkness pushes it as well, but he’s just malignant narcissism with a mouth and a mirror shagging himself.

So there you go: Leela is the best companion in Doctor Who.

QED.

Chapter 11 of Magnum Thrax and the Amusement Park of Doom

It's that day again. 

Time fo' mo' Magnum:

Thrax woke to find himself standing in a vast, empty amusement park wearing his favourite Tarzan pajamas.

Before a castle of gleaming silver stood the android, in a state of much better health than he’d been in a moment before. The synthetic man strode down towards Thrax. To the right, upon a great pile of gold treasure, lounged a red dragon. It looked down upon them with evil eyes. White wisps of smoke drifted from its flaring nostrils. To the left was a tree village populated by dead eyed elves silently smoking long, thin pipes and eating soft tortilla chips.

“Where am I?”

“The Land of Wonder,” replied the android calmly. “The Worlds of Tomorrow Entertainment Complex and Amusement Park. Heart of the Engines of Creation, realm of the Dark Lord. The big bad, as it were. Our mutual enemy, Mr. Thrax.”

Thrax looked over the android. “You look better.”

“I am dying,” replied the artificial man with a wan smile. “But then, so are you.”

“Me? Nah. I feel fine,” said Thrax with false bravado.

“You won’t, soon enough” said the android. “The synvirus will dissolve you in seven days time. It will not be a pleasant death.” The android shrugged. “Sorry.”

Thrax punched Eight-Oh-Nine in the face. The android stumbled back, then righted himself, undamaged. He looked at Thrax with pity. “Do you feel better? You may hit me again if you like.”

“Why? Why the hell me?” Thrax asked.

The dragon laughed, rumbling laughter shaking its elephantine belly and causing vibrations to course through the ground.

“Chance. The general injustice of existence. But there is a way to avoid a horrible fate. A cure.”

“Peachy. What?” asked Thrax, skeptical.

“If you infect the Dark Lord, the virus will leave you unharmed. And save the world.” The dragon turned its head like a bird and focused a vast yellow eye on the android.

“Planet’s pretty screwed up as it is,” snorted Thrax. “But I get it. Do or die.”

“Yes. Look,” said Eight-Oh-Nine, gesturing at a man imprisoned in a medieval stock.

“Hello, Thrax,” said Darwin, waving glumly.

Thrax rounded on the android. “What have you done with Darwin?”

“I’ve overridden him for the time being. My consciousness,” said the android, “will be coming along with you.”

“Let Darwin go,” demanded Thrax. “Or no dice.”

The android shook his head sadly. “I will activate every pain receptor in your body on a randomized schedule until you cooperate.”

Thrax punched the android in the face again.

The android took the blow, then continued calmly, as if he was dealing with a disobedient and unruly child. “It need not be entirely unpleasant. As I can punish, so too can I reward, by stimulating the pleasure centres of your brain.”

Thrax felt a tingle. “Holy!”

“Like so. I also noticed your reaction to the female technowitch.” “You mind your own business, pal.”

“Her name is Mindy. She’s young. Powerful. Combines the gene lines of ancients who had high level command nanites. A clear threat to the Dark Lord. But inexperienced. Unfocused. Vulnerable as a catepillar in a cocoon. Alone, on her own, he will win. She needs your help as much as I.”

Thrax gave it some thought. She was pretty hot. He couldn’t leave her hanging. Wouldn’t be chivalrous. Hell, this was the kind of heroic rescue mission he’d always wanted. A world to save, a beautiful princess to rescue.

Purpose.

Who could ask for more? And, honestly, there didn’t seem to be much choice. “Okay, like I said, I’ll do it. But I think you’re a jerk wad. You could have just asked nicely.”

“Perhaps. And yes, I will release Darwin the instant the Engines of Creation are destroyed.”

Eight-Oh-Nine held out a hand.

They shook.

“Are you ready to go back, Mr. Thrax?”

He nodded, then remembered as the world began to swim. “Wait, wait! The dodecahedron!”

“Oh, yes.” The android smiled mischievously, his image distorting with his surroundings. “That will be our secret. Tell no one else. Give it to the girl, when you find her. It will give her the power to defeat The Dark Lord if the virus fails. Always have a backup plan, Mr. Thrax. Now?”

“Yeah,” replied Thrax. “Your guts better not have stained my pants.”

As the world dissolved around him, it occurred to him that in the great joke that was life, he’d just become one of the punchlines.

****
Panting, Ghatz rolled off of Jez and stared at the blood red ceiling.

“That was incredible,” he gasped, drenched in sweat.

Jez leaned over him and ran a finger around his left nipple.

“I told you it would be worth it,” she purred, and gave the nipple a sharp squeeze. Ghatz gasped and she planted her lips over his open mouth, kissed him hard, whipping her tongue about, tasting his tonsils, then shoved him away. She slid to the side of the bed. She was still wearing her thigh high boots and bustier. She slipped on her latex bikini and stood up.

“We’re going to make a great team,” said Ghatz, admiring her buttocks.

“We?” repeated Jez, a shadow crossing her cruel features. She turned about. “There is no ‘we’. There’s only me. You’re a clerk, a front man, commander of this mission in name only. You’ll take my orders. Is that understood?”

“Please.” Ghatz propped his head up on one hand. “You’re squad leader. Andromeda is no longer in command, just like you wanted. But don’t push it. I lead this mission. You’re nothing but an android.”

Jez jumped on to the bed, straddling him, and belted him in the face. Snatching a knife from the bedside table, she pressed it to his throat.

He looked up at her and for the first time, fear in his eyes. Even Jez was a little surprised.

Control engrams should have prevented her from going this far.

“How...?” Ghatz sputtered, frozen in place.

She pressed her face into his.

“Personality over programming,” she sneered, half speculating. “You humans think you’re in control. But you’re not.” She turned the knife. “Are you?”

“Release me. At once,” he said sternly, using command tones.

Jez froze for a moment. Started to withdraw. Then pressed the knife back, hard enough to draw a speck of blood. She laughed. “I don’t think so. Not this time. Not anymore.”

Ghatz swore under his breath. “You’ve got a serious discipline problem. This mission is the biggest opportunity of my life. Lacus himself gave me command. It’s my core competency. I’ll die before I give up control!” He glared up at her defiantly. “You’re just going to have to kill me. See what that gets you.”

Jez considered this for a moment, then shifted the knife down below, to his blood engorged staff. “I could do worse.”

“Go ahead, I’ll have a new one grown in an hour.”

They glared hate at each other for what seemed like an eternity. With a laugh, Jez broke the tension and sat up. Relaxed. Smiled.

She tapped him gently on the chest with the tip of the knife. She’d have to be indirect, clever, but properly handled, this mission could result in her, Jez Lykopis, android, ruling the planet as its immortal, beautiful, undying queen. She just had to sell the team out to The Dark Lord, then seduce him. Turn him into her sex slave. Armies would be no defense. She had the skills to make any man she wanted whimper and beg. The possibilities felt so close, so powerful, she could explode. This Ghatz creature would be a stepping stone leading, eventually, to ultimate power. “You’ve more balls than I’d have given a worm like you credit for.”

“Fuck you. You’re colder than a witch’s tit.”

“Yes,” she said, putting the knife aside and pulling down her bikini again. She rubbed her bubble like buttocks against his quivering meat rod. “I think we’re going to make a good team after all.”

And she slipped him inside her and thought of Thrax.

Stay classy, my friends, so I don't have to.

The 100 Season 3 Premiere: Wanheda Review

The most attractive Post-Apocalypse since the Eloi.

The Post-apocalypse 90210 is back, baby!

And it's off to a rocky start.

Some details are jarring: there are broad, flat and possibly graded roads now for jeeps (yes, they have jeeps). Who made the road, and why? There are no cars. Well. Now there are. But come on, do you see Grounders doing road work? They wear skulls for decorations. They'd be more likely to eat the road crew.

But that's just nit picking.

The episode starts a couple months after the end of the last series. The passage of time is shown through Murphy's eyes, who's been locked inside a bunker for eighty days (giver or take) and is on the verge of insanity, watching the same video over and over again until he can quote it verbatim. It does give the writers a chance to info dump about the fall of human civilization and the role possibly played by the mysterious AI in a red dress.

Funny how AIs always represent themselves as foxy women in red dresses.

I'm not complaining.

Anyway, crazy former commander Jaha lets Murphy out after the opening credits, and tells him about the City of Light. It's real, but virtual, or really virtual. Virtually real? Take the blue pill, Murphy. Have a juicy steak with Agent Smith. They hint at a Matrix like angle, and if that's the case, it opens up a pile of possibilities for scenes set in our current world, with all the budget savings that has to offer.

Commander 'Gonzo' Jaha has teamed up with the AI, who may, or may not, have destroyed humanity. There are hints both ways. Jaha and Red Dress have gotten a nuclear reactor going, and just in time. It can provide the power for the hot showers Clarke's going to need.

Clarke's been living in the woods, feral style, wrestling black panthers and selling meat to a trading post. Because that's what you do in the future. She looks like she hasn't bathed in three months, and she's gone Ginger. Or is that mud?

Apparently, Clarke's being hunted by everybody, who want her Mean Mama Mojo.

Feeling lonely despite all the panther snuggling, Clarke and the young lass managing the trade shop have some hot, steamy and arguably gratuitous sex. Then Clarke's off again, only to fall… into pushing the plot forward. Because something has to happen in the episode.

"I'm a star now, I don't have to bathe!"

Young Jasper, in the meantime, has gone over-the-top bananas over the loss of his one true love, Vegan Vampire Girl, and repeatedly manifests a death wish. He's so annoying about it you just wish they let him do it.

But no. Jasper's dragged along on a mission by Beefcake (Bellamy), Worrywart, and Lame Leg Lady. They drive a jeep across fields… which clearly show the lines of cut grass made by sweeps of modern machinery. CUT GRASS, people. In the Post-Apocalypse! I had no idea there would still be landscaping. Makes it much more appealing.

The 100 is going for epic on a shoe string, so you have to accept this sort of thing. They gotta cut cost corners somewhere, and the grass got it. Just use your imagination and think of Love Canal.

Where did they get a jeep? Best guess is Mount Weather, because why would you have one on a space station? Yet the Weather folks didn't seem to use them. Could be wrong. Not important, a throw away line later will cover it, no doubt.

Otherwise, more of the same. War is looming on the horizon, because stuff. Adults are proven wrong and praise the superior wisdom of teenagers. A real life pop singer makes an appearance to sing and play the piano. Two hunky guys fight with their shirts off.

It's fun and gleeful, but even more preposterous than usual.

The combat skills and abilities of some characters, who spent their entire lives in, essentially, antiseptic closets, are now elite warriors, which kinda makes the savage Grounders look incompetent and needlessly lame. Maybe they wear skull ornaments to compensate. They'd be ten times more dangerous and competent if they were teenagers. Their leader, Doe-Eyes (Lexa), is a teen, after all.

It's still the CW.

The premiere is only the opening salvo.

It's packed with set up and teen tropes.

All the better to subvert and kill them later.

Here's hoping.

"I have to go do ab crunches."

Micro-Reviews: Cop Car, Tomorrowland, and Focus

Cop Car is a low budget independent film, but the story was built for that. Felt kinda slight, but well done for what it was. Two kids steal a crooked cop's car, tool about, get in trouble, find stuff they shouldn't in the trunk. Unfortunately I found my attention wandering. Might be more me than the film. It stars Kevin Bacon, who does a bang up job. He's making interesting choices; I quite liked him in Super, too.

 

Tomorrowland was awful. Worst Brad Bird picture by far. I thought it was shockingly bad for him. It suffers from the opposite problem of the far superior Cop Car: Tomorrowland's just jam packed with too much damn stuff. It's disjointed, cluttered, unfocused. More a diatribe than a story. Yes, I know I am criticizing a film making overman, but I do this as an entitled consumer, not a creator. Has Brad Bird lost his mojo? Does he need Austin Powers to help him go back in time and get it back? There's his next movie. You're welcome.

Focus was… better, but not great. Con men and women playing games. Derivative, manufactured genre material. Just chuck in the stock con artist movie bits and stir. More of an excuse for Will Smith to make out with Margot Robbie than a movie. What can I say? I can't exactly blame the guy.

I'm getting so jaded in my old age.

The 100: Season Three Inbound

Season Three is on the horizon, and it looks to be filled with lots of lovely detritus.

"Season three synopsis: Season three picks up three months after the events of season two. The war is over and the battle against Mount Weather has been won. The prisoners have returned home to a world seemingly at peace but a sense of normalcy is short lived. Threats old and new test loyalties and push limits."

And there's a trailer:

This pleases me.

Let the killing of the teens begin again. Death match 90210!