Making cultural references

So, last Sunday I decided to do a Doctor Who referenced children's address. Given the age and sort of children there are at Quarry Kirk, I thought this was a good idea.

That was until I came to deliver said address. Though 10.2 million people watched "The Day of the Doctor," only 2 members of the congregation had (that included yours truly). And none of them were the children. Joy.

So, lesson from Sunday. Be careful when trying to make a cultural reference and, if it looks like no one will get it, have a back-up plan.

The Doctor's Name

Last night was the finale of the current series of Doctor Who. Without giving anything away, I have one word.


AWESOME!

Model Tardis that's bigger on the inside!

And how he did it is here.

I am mighty impressed...bit late to ask for one for this year's Christmas, I suppose?!

Drive out hate with love

[Spoiler alert: contains references to last night's Doctor Who]

In the episode, Amy Pond lost her wrist band which protected her from the Daleks in the asylum. Over time, the nanoparticles would remove all love in her for hate. Substitute love for hate. In Skaro, the Daleks tell The Doctor it is hate which feeds them (in a round about way). Hate drives out love.

There's just so many parallels with life, with society, with the church and why Jesus came. Hate of 'the other' what ever 'the other' may have been (the woman with bleeding, the Samaritan, the daemon possessed man across the lake) had driven people away from God; had removed people from God's community of his chosen people; was preventing the chosen people being the light in the darkness for the whole world. All because hate had replaced love.

So God sent love to the world, in Jesus. Love was shown to those that had been denied love; those who had treated with contempt and hate, he brought love. Because love is a light which drives out hate.

I wonder if the church manages this? It's not prefect, but I pray wherever I serve love is the greatest.

And Amy showed Rory, at last, that she did love him as much as he loves her. And hate was driven out.

An American Doctor

When you get a group of geeks talking, the conversation will get onto their fantasy scenario regarding a sci-fi series or film. In the pub last night, we started imagining who would play the "quintessentially English Doctor", if it started from the beginning as an American series.

Coming up with male actors wasn't too hard (I know, I here you cry, but the Doctor is often played by a relative unknown, but this was our game and our rules!). Thinking of female actors was a much harder. This is the list friend Chris forwarded me. It's pretty much what we discussed:

Doctors
-------
John Lithgow - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001475/ As 2
Kevin Spacey - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000228/ As 9
Jonathon Frakes - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000408/ As 3
Dean Stockwell - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001777/ As 1

Chris Evans - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0262635/ as 5
Jim Parsons - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1433588/ as 11
Edward James Olmos - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001579/
Joe Pesci - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000582/ as 7
Christoph Waltz - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0910607/
John Cusack - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000131/

Non Actor Tom Merrit - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Merritt

Assistants
----------
Kim Pine - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0683467/
Allison Mack - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0532928/
Jewel Staite - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0821612/
Cote De Pablo - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1580243/
Pauley Perrette - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005306/
Sara Gilbert - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004960/
Joan Cusack - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000349/
Charlize Theron - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000234/  - who I think would make a brill baddy too!

Non actor Molly Wood - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Wood


Other Enemy
-----------
Dean Stockwell - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001777  - I thought he'd make a great Master, having seen him in the new Battlestar Galactica, where he plays the most menicing of the Cylons!
Philip Seymour Hoffman - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000450/

Other Friend
------------
Bruce Boxleitner - http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000310/

Unfortunately, most of our suggestions are sci-fi actors already (nothing like type-casting!), especially with the women.  


I'd also suggest James Stewart as a Doctor, Humphrey Bogart as The Master or The Doctor and Katharine Hepburn and Mary McDonnell as assistants.


Well, the way The Doctor is going of late, maybe a US reboot is needed (oh, I never thought I'd say that!)...Feels like the 80s all over again.

Has The Doctor lost his way?

I really want to like Doctor Who. I've been a fan since the Tom Baker days. The first half of this series was looking so promising. It was scary and funny and complicated. Just how The Doctor should be. It even looked that Matt Smith was being his own Doctor,  rather than trying to fill David Tenant's shoes. And the acting had improved.

But since the start of the second half of the series I've been increasingly disappointed. The last couple of episodes have felt more like filler (lets give the main actors a bit of a break during filming type thing). That's okay for 1, but 2 or 3. Come on, Stephen Moffat, what are you playing at?

Saturday night's episode I found especially disappointing. What was the point? I mean, really? The only thing that seemed relevant to the story arch was the final scene. I didn't need 45 minutes of a poor story with actors who didn't seem like they cared for 2 minutes (if that) of the scene we actually needed for the series story.

Maybe, once the series is completed, all these episodes will make more sense. I hope so, otherwise it looks like Doctor Who is loosing it's momentum and heading into the territory of 30 years ago. And we long-term fans know what happened then.

He's back

At 19:10 tonight. And I am at candidates' conference. There's always iplayer.

Sweet

I'm a bit of a Doctor Who nerd (I'm just old enough to remember Tom Baker). Looks like the children of my supervisor have realised that too. They let me pick a sticker from their Doctor Who sticker sheets. How cool is that?! They hadn't taken any off themselves yet, so it looked as though I had first dibs. It was really sweet of them too. I must be an okay grown-up then. I don't know, I always appreciate children making small gestures like that. They're completely sincere.

Of course, I couldn't get the sticker to actually stick to anything - typical, eh! I'm going to make it into a bookmark, so I can keep it. Yeah, I'm a little sentimental like that.