Rogue 3

Defo - usually have a book on the go and have a read when the wife puts some reality nonsense on the box!

Various on the shelf, but I do always drift back to a re-read of “The First 15 Lives of Harry August” which is just a great read.

Series I am currently reading is Awaken Online - no highbrow stuff here, just quite a fun series in the style of Ready Player One, but where the lead is playing a dark character in the online world. 

Series 2 now available - watched the first episode this evening and plan to not binge this, but enjoy it over time. See if I can stick to that!

Reading the synopsis, I was wondering if this was the best pick to open the new series up, but that was great fun - Nebula was fantastic and heroic, plus nice support from other less featured characters from the MCU - nice start!

Urrgh yes - the big reset button. With you there pal - hate it!

Hope you all had a good Christmas!

After all the fun with our family and seeing my 5 year old having “The best Christmas ever!”, was nice to settle down in the evening and catch up on the Christmas special - The Church on Ruby Road.

This was Ncuti Gatwa’s first full story as the 15th Doctor and introduced the new companion Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson. Really fun adventure, a lot better than recent Xmas specials for sure. Lots of mysteries that RTD likes to sow the seeds for - who is Ruby’s mum, who is the Mrs Flood?

Strong guest appearances by Davina (recreating her role on her show about tracking down family via DNA), and Anita Dobson coming in as the reoccurring character who knows too much - fascinating look down the camera at the end! Very rare to break the 4th wall in this show!

For those overseas, the song was released as a single with all proceeds going the charity Children in Need. The additional elements for the song with the Doctor and Ruby adding their lines to the song was great fun!

Very nice festive treat! New series coming in May at long last! The specials have helped, but long overdue the new series!

Ahhh. Well that was not quite what I was hoping for.

I quite liked the opening 20 mins or so, then it turned into a Dirty Dozen style recruitment where each character has 5 mins of focus, then next to nothing for the rest of the film. Felt like a lot was cut on characterisation as the ending made it feel like you knew these people better?

I agree that there was a lot of stuff out of focus. Most notable was when the girl and the robot were talking by the stream. Slow mo - jeez man. Enough.

The main lead wasn’t convincing either. Not drawn into any of the characters with the exception maybe of the robot. 

I’m sure I will watch part 2 in April still, but man that was disappointing.

Nice one - hope you enjoy it! I’m looking forward to catching it, think it hits us here in the UK on Friday.

Yes, absolutely agree with the background! Fingers crossed it will be a nice pre-Christmas treat! 

Anyone over in the US gone to see this? Limited theatrical release, so presume everyone is waiting for the Netflix drop on the 21st.

Seems to have got average reviews but critics don’t put me off as it sounds interesting and they seem to have a story fleshed out for the follow up films.

Hopefully will be worth a watch.

Nice one! Just starting a second run doing a Dark Urge on Tenacity level. See how harder that is! Ok so far as I have got the immediate starting area done with Withers recruited & left it saved just after the attack on the Grove. Assassin Rogue class!

My first run was an odd one as I was after the Jack of all Trades trophy, so I had level 1 in everything! Could have respec-ed, but kinda got used to it!
Nice to focus on 1 class on my second run.  I generally used Gale, Karlach & Shadowheart, but swapped occasionally for certain missions for other companions.

1 hour ago, Tank said:

I don’t know how I feel about the bi-generation. Lord knows they have changed the rules of regeneration many times, I’ve never understood the Watcher stuff from the 4th’s regeneration, and this was kind of the reverse of that?

Really it just felt like a way to keep Tennant in the wings whenever they need a boost and not have to explain why he’s getting older. The Doctor has run into himself multiple times, there’s at least six of him in Victorian London at any given time.This is no different only now they don’t have to explain why Tennant is aging.

Absolutely. 40 years on and no one understands The Watcher! But that’s the show - keeping a bit of mystery in there as per the title, so that’s ok with me.
But I agree that eventually that’s what happens (whether we see it or not) as 15 says that he is fine now because of the rehab / semi-retirement that 14 goes through to get him out of the PTSD phase.
I am old school and prefer a normal regeneration, but I thought this was done well.

So he is there and can come back for a future story without the age being an issue, but to give Chibnall some credit, he found a creative way of doing that in his and Jodie’s final story.

15 was great fun in that final 20 mins or so - they are currently filming his second season, so all very positive we can have him in place for a good while! He sounds like he is loving it from interviews!

Finished the game this evening! Simply superb! 114 hours on the clock and did all the side quests I could find - I’m sure there are ones I will have missed, but felt a real good conclusion to the story!

Such a great game - level of detail is astonishing!

Ok, left it a few days to avoid spoiling things! 
Well, that was a finale to the 60th anniversary specials! NPH was mighty in the role of The Toymaker, a villain first (and last) encountered by the 1st Doctor in a story from 1966! Chewing the scenery with relish - good fun!

Good spooky moments with the dolls that I could see being scary for young kids, and great to see a former companion back.

The key “moment” was divisive as expected online, but it’s not totally brand new with elements on this topic having cropped up in both the 3rd and 4th Doctors final stories. I was happy with it and and can’t wait for the Christmas Day episode to see the start of adventures with 15!

Wild Blue Yonder (the second of the three 60th anniversary specials), was very good! Tennant & Tate masterclass - great fun seeing them both back together!

And a good ending to tease us into tomorrow’s story with the return of a villain last seen in the ‘60s, The Toymaker - played then by Michael Gough (superb actor probably best known as the Alfred to Michael Keaton’s Batman), and now played by Neil Patrick Harris.

And it’s now secret how it’s going to end with the 15th Doctor eager to finally get started on the Christmas special!

3 hours ago, monkeygirl said:

Aired where? I love Tennant but hate Tate.

 

In the UK it was on BBC, elsewhere it’s available on Disney+ to watch. 
Looking forward to this weekends one - so little has been revealed in comparison to the other 2!

First of the 3 specials for the 60th anniversary aired last night! Great fun - so good to have Tennant & Tate back and clearly having so much fun! It highlights how poor it has been in recent years. Shiney new TARDIS interior as well!

Clever plot to address historical issues with how we left Donna. This one was a classic Who story to kick things off and next weeks is supposedly a much darker story - hardly any clips have been shared, the trailers have all been on the first and third episodes.

We also had a 5 min special a week or so ago as part of the charity Children in Need. You can grab that off YouTube if you fancy - just search Doctor Who Children in Need.

The specials are all dropping weekly on Disney+ for those outside the UK!

Anyone else get to see this yet? Really good fun! First episode a familiar to kick things off, and then we go off into new territory.

Great to have everyone back!

BG3 is my key focus at the mo. Awesome!

Before that, I finally got round to playing the first Spidey game which was great fun, Jedi Survivor, and Elden Ring - enjoyed both immensely! Plus a bit of polishing up trophy hunting on FF7 Remake.

I have Spidey 2 to play (recent birthday gift), and that should time nicely for FF7 Rebirth coming out in late Feb.

Agreed - it would take away from what his 2 versions of Loki have experienced and done.

Ok, yeah. That was a final episode!  For me - loved it! Great concepts, fantastic from Tom Hiddleston, and a satisfying conclusion. Time travel with a Groundhog Day element! Beautiful!

Mini update - good way through act 3 (probs loads left, but I have been here for a while at least!), really loving this game, best I have played on PS5 for certain and definitely one of my all time favourites - so vast and variable! Amazing!

Just taken out the hag Ethel for the second time and searching out for my missing companion that Orin has nabbed. But so many side quest distractions, main plot could probs be done much quicker if I wanted, but it’s just so enjoyable exploring!

Playing though on the middle difficulty and currently level 11, but going for “Jack of all trades” achievement, so have multi-classed each level up - next play through it will be good to focus!

Not seen any real bugs in act 3, so think the patches have done the job. Just had 1 boot out when I was levelling up one time.

Semi off topic, but if you get a chance, try the TV series “The Lazarus Project”. 
Just finished a rewatch in prep for the 2nd series/season (whichever you prefer).

Excellent concept, and handles time travel really well - both the good and bad sides of it. 

Have to agree - I sometimes feel I am watching it for the sake of it and not wanting to get too far behind.

Since Endgame, I enjoyed Black Widow (very much in the style of the Phase 1 origin films) & Spidey - the other films have been nothing special.

From the shows, WandaVision was very inventive, enjoyed that a lot, but having said that, I have no urge to rewatch it particularly. Loki I do enjoy - mad for sure, but good cast and well, it’s time travel so it’s my bag. The What If series is also something I liked a lot.

Otherwise, nothing that really jumps out. Moon Knight maybe the next best?

Final Countdown - good call! I remember seeing that a long time back, so will have to get hold of that one to refresh myself.

Yes, I liked what they did with TT in Azkaban (and later on in the stage play which is superb), but it does hang over the other films. “You had that thing, but no good guys or bad guys can use it again as it’s very naughty!” 

15 hours ago, captainbleh said:

The faceless angels and their enslaver in Les Maitres du Temps are nightmare fuel

Big style! And the ending blew my mind as a young kid!
Same thing happened for 2001 weirdly. Too young maybe, but that final “beyond the stargate section” where he see’s himself age swiftly messed me up! Horror films never really bothered me, so why did that?? Mad!

Perfect summary! Mad last episode - but am hooked!

I had a recommendation on Twitter to watch “Safety not guaranteed” the other day and I really enjoyed it. Nice film.

Got me thinking as to what others are out there where it forms a key part of the plot. Being a Dr Who fan since the early ‘80’s, all films with a time-travel element get a bonus mark for me!

So we have the obvious ones:

BTTF trilogy
Star Trek IV (and it’s lesser buddy, First Contact)
Avengers Endgame
Terminator series 
Bill & Ted trilogy
Twelve Monkeys
X-Men: Days of Futures Past
Austin Powers trilogy
Deadpool 2
Harry Potter : The Prisoner of Azkaban 
The Time Machine (2 versions)
Men in Black 3
Flight of the Navigator

(plus a certain big name film this year from a franchise that I’ll skip naming as the disks aren’t out yet. Spoilers! Ha ha!)

Then the indie / cult films:

The Butterfly Effect
Donnie Darko
Evil Dead 3
Looper
The Time Travellers Wife (awesome book, average film)
Hot Tub Time Machine
Time after Time
About Time
Time Bandits

And then lesser known ones:

Primer
Time Crimes
The Girl who leapt through time (manga)
Les Maitres du Temps (French animation dubbed in English as “Time Masters”)
Safety not guaranteed
Idiocracy
Predestination (mad one!)
Biggles Adventures in Time (awful, but can’t take my eyes off it!)

Then the “Are they Time Travel movies?” category:

Tenet (yes and I love it so there)
Interstellar (iffy - mostly going forward in time, but a connection to the past is there, so yes! And I also love this one!)
Groundhog Day (yes - moving back in time is the impossible thing, so has to count)
Edge of Tomorrow / Live, Die, Repeat (yes - see Groundhog Day)
Run Lola, Run (no as she is not fully aware but in the style of the 2 above and definitely worthy of mention)
Palm Springs (yep, timeloop)
Next (yep, loop)
Source Code (yep, loop)
Deja Vu (yep, loop)

Tons of others I will have watched, but just going by what’s on my shelf or in my head at the mo!