"No, Not the Mind Probe!!?!"

...was a fairly whacked-out cartoon they used to show on Children's BBC back in the early 90s. It was about this alien planet (I assume) where there was, well, a lot of ocean. A bit like Earthsea or somewhere. And pirates. And "dark water", which was like this Lovecraftian abomination from the Beyond, one part oil slick one part The Blob, which was slowly eating said planet and generally interfering with the kewl adventures of the various pirates. Oh, and there was some likely young Chosen One looking for lost amulets or something in order to fulfil his Destiny, and possibly do something about the dark water. It was actually better than I've probably just made it sound.

That, however, has little or nothing to do with this week's episode of New Doctor Who...

It is a truth universally acknowledged (well, that might be overstating it a tad) that you cannot truly know yourself until you have been put under some sort of existential pressure. It is only in the moment of crisis, this somewhat overdramatic take on human nature posits, that somebody fully understands who they are and the things of which they are capable. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that I experienced such a moment a few minutes from the end of Dark Water...

( Mucho SPOILERS and raw, emotional truth under the cut! )

Anyway, that's enough from me. Let's wait until Saturday and then you can all watch me trying to eat those last words there. ;)

The mind boggles at this announcement:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/19055342

I'm staring at my bookshelf right now trying to gauge the relative thicknesses of my paperback copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The one is a not particularly thick single volume. The other is three big, fat volumes. Do the math, as somebody from 'tother side of the Atlantic may once have said.

Mind you, I'm sure Peter Jackson's done the math too, and 1.5x the presumably ludicrous amount of money he was already bound to make out of this project seems like very good business, really.

Seriously, the subject of my love/hate relationship with the LOTR film trilogy is a subject for another longer, even rantier post, but all I will say is this: Orlando Bloom shooting CGI elephants with his bow and arrow. Turning the most epic (in the true sense of the word) scene in the entire novel into a sub-Attack of the Clones video game level in the making. Yeah. Expect more of that.



Oh, and I've officially gone from Olympics-sceptic to quite enjoying it all, really. I'm such a sell-out. Probably all those Tories lining up to call the opening ceremony "leftist propaganda" (because it celebrated the NHS and included *gasp* non-white performers, apparently) finally swayed me. Anything that annoys the likes of them has to be alright, if you ask me. Doesn't make the security/ticketing/corporate piracy stuff all right, mind you. Not by a long shot.