Fannish Ramblings

It’s been a while since I spent an evening watching YouTube, but a few nights ago the Cowgirl Coder sent me a link to a video of an alternate A-Team opening featuring the TOS crew. And there I was, off watching videos again.

The TOS A-Team

Captain Jack Harkness as Flash Gordon

I haven’t seen season three of Torchwood yet (ditto for season four of Doctor Who or any of the Sarah Jane Adventures – I’m waiting for Netflix on the former and just not the target audience for that last) but this has enough scenes that I’m looking forward to seeing them (well, maybe not the Sarah Jane Adventures)

And just to be completely silly….

Star Trek: The Love Boat

What with some long hours at the office lately, it wasn’t until shortly before Farpoint that I found an opportunity to watch Starship Farragut’s “A Rock and a Hard Place”. In the episode, Captain Carter takes a shuttle on a prospecting mission, accompanied by an old girl friend. The episode is 17 1/2 minutes long, but most enjoyable nonetheless.

A few thoughts came to mind after watching the episode:

1. The best line of the film: “That’s a moodbreaker.”
2. What’s a picnic without a few Klingons? (Klingons, ants, is there a difference?)
3. It’s not just the Enterprise. You can’t trust any starship captain with anything that has a back seat.

Actually, what struck me most about the episode is something that’s been missing from a lot of fan films. I’m not quite sure how to describe it, but it sometimes feels fan films tend to take themselves far too seriously. I don’t think fan films need laugh tracks (unless maybe they’re doing an SF sitcom I guess) but making every episode deeply serious with a somber ending, just doesn’t work for me.

With “A Rock and a Hard Place” I think Team Farragut managed to hit the mark just about right. The episode (or is it a “minisode”?) had its relatively serious moments, but overall, it felt like a classic TOS episode with just the right amount of humor.

I hope they can manage to continue.

Last night’s data entry session didn’t quite get me caught up, but everything below was submitted in the past week. This evening’s new/updated list entries are:

ARCON
The Klingon Bloodwine Festival
Browncoat LARP & Shindig
Outlantacon (New Guests)
Timegate (New Guests)
Animeland Wasabi
Animeland Vegas
Creation
PaleyFest
Vidcon
Necronomicon
Go Play Peoria

One of the more interesting costumes from last weekend’s Farpoint was a rather authentic looking Alien, that looked like it came straight out of the Sigourney Weaver movies.

Very cool looking outfit, but I can’t help thinking it must have been rather warm. Nonetheless, he was in that costume for a while on Friday evening and most of Saturday afternoon and evening. He was having great fun with it though, “stalking” his prey (other attendees) and just generally acting the part.

I happened to be in the men’s room when the Alien walked in (thus settling the question of the gender of the person in the costume). He hissed as he walked past, and vanished into a stall.

The first thing to cross my mind was, “Now there’s a scene that didn’t make it into any of the movies.” The next thought was, “What if it had been an Alien in the next stall that Senator Craig had tapped toes with?”

I mentioned this series of thoughts to Todd Brugmans and in no time at all, his pencil was a flyin’.

This evening’s new/updated list entries:

10th Planet
Tekkoshocon
TorchSong Chicago
Forge Midwest
National Halloween Convention
Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention
Arcana
Arkansas Anime Festival
TusCon
Random Con
Marcon
Browncoat Ball
Kamikaze Con
Philadelphia Comic-Con
Shoff Promotions Comic Book & Nonsports Card Show
ConCarolinas
Odyssey

Mutagenic radiation: bad for you, bad for the environment.