Tag Archive: A Christmas Carol

Episode 477 – A Christmas Carol, Revisited

In this episode we go way back to the beginning, No, we’re not talking An Unearthly Child, The First Doctor, or even the beginning of Doctor Who itself.

We go back to our beginnings and revisit the very first Doctor Who material that we ever reviewed, Ten years ago, and way back in Episode 1 we gave you our thoughts on A Christmas Carol featuring the Eleventh Doctor.

And now we tell you what we think of the story all these years later.

 

Enjoy!

Scheduling Victorious: Chapter IV

Cpt 4

Sprong.

With a rippling of its mighty engines, the golden Osirian Pyramid ship rends the fabric of reality asunder and pops into existence in THE DARK TIMES.

Arissa stares at the viewscreen with a mixture of amusement and disbelief, both that the ship actually arrived in THE DARK TIMES, and that the author allowed it to happen without killing her.

And that he continues to type THE DARK TIMES in all capital letters.

And that the Osirian Pyramid ship, technological marvel of the 35th Century, actually makes a “Sprong” noise.

What can she say? She is easily amused.

She fiddles with the view screen to get a look at her surroundings, and despite the desperate circumstances, feels a weight of relief at no longer being in the year 2020. The jokes and internet memes had started early, but if humanity only knew the depths to which time travelers actively avoided the year, they might feel better about having survived it.

Assuming, of course, this was THAT timeline. There was after all, still a couple of weeks to go.

The sensor readings bounce back to her display, confirming the worst: Major temporal disruptions. Arissa always thought of time (incorrectly) as the surface of a lake. A temporal disruption was like dropping a rock in the middle of it, sending ripples and waves out in concentric rings that changed the surface reflection. These readings indicated someone had dropped a dump truck full of gravel over the water, seeding it with minor blips and ripples that were cascading back and forth into each other before being wiped out by the impact wave when the truck itself fell in.

Time was tearing itself apart as forward moving paradoxes begat backward traveling paradoxes.

She hadn’t seen anything like this since The Time War (which, she notes, only warrants capitalization of the first letters, not the whole title). The sensors also show her a myriad of wreckage outside. The Pyramid ship had materialized in the middle of a debris field. And quite the interesting on at that. She detects pieces of Dalek saucers, hull fragments of Arkanian star liners, the burned-out hulks of Draconian battlecruisers, and what appeared to be stonework from the monolithic Cathedral-Class Coffin ships of the Great Vampires. Very few of these races occupy the same plot of history as each other, and yet here they all are, mingling in yet another paradox mixer as the flotsam and jetsam tumble endlessly in space.

These wrecks did not belong here, not in this when. Had they been pulled to their destruction by the paradoxes? Or had they arrived intact and fought amongst themselves until only scrap remains? She backs away from the monitors and sensors intending to step out onto the terrace and see the devastation firsthand, to see if the distortions are visible to the naked eye. Pyramid ships are quite capable of holding an atmosphere over their ray-shielded observation decks—when her heel strikes something, sending her suddenly tumbling over backward.

At this point, there was any number of things Arissa was prepared to accept, but a gigantic stone tablet was not among them. Her fingers snaked out to caress the tablet, which is covered with a combination of hieroglyphics, runes, symbols, and pictograms, all deeply etched upon its surface.

“Is this High Galifreyan?” She asks, knowing the author will not reply, but unable to stop herself. She’s rusty but manages to decipher a few pieces of the tablet while the Rosetta circuits embedded behind her eyes and ears translate the rest.

TTV #477 – A Christmas Carol Revisited, Eleventh Doctor Chronicles “The Top of the Tree” (Big Finish Audio)

TTV #478 – TLV: The Last Message, Mission to the Known, (Eagle Moss / Hero Collector short stories), Mutually Assured Destruction (Big Finish Audio)

TTV #479 – Revolution of the Daleks

TTV #480 – TLV: Exit Strategy, Genetics of the Daleks (Big Finish Audio)

TTV #481 – TLV: Tales of the Dark Times Episodes 4 & 5 (Comic Maker), All Flesh is Grass (Novel)

“Really? There’s no one here who could possibly listen to your podcast. Why would you send me your schedule to post…” She trails off, suddenly understanding. “You really have no control over this, do you? I suspected as much, but this bloody well confirms it, doesn’t it?”

She rises, moving back to the controls. If things are this bad, she has less time than she thought. Scouring the debris for salvage would have to wait. Arissa transmits the schedule—because despite it being a worthless gesture that would not gain them listeners, she had been contracted to do the job, and therefore it was going to get done—and fiddling with the sensors, slaved them to the navigation controls and set a new course. As the Pyramid ship moves off, she heads to the wardrobe.

You can’t save the universe wearing a silk robe, no matter what the movies say.

The Schedule Awakens

Playing hunches abounds in our Friday Night Who choices to finish out this season, so without further ado, here’s what we have on tap for those of you that like to follow along at home…

Friday Night Who on 11/27 is the 5th Doctor Peter Davidson starring “Arc Of Infinity.”

Our show for episode #257 will have our thoughts and reviews of “Heaven Sent.”

FNW on 12/4 is David Tennant’s 10th Doctor in “End Of Time” and “End Of Time, Part 2”.

TTV #258 sees us finish out series 9 with “Hell Bent.”

Friday Night Who goes back to old school on 12/11 with the 2nd Doctor Patrick Troughton in “The War Games”,  Parts 1-5.

And just in time to finish up your christmas shopping, our third Fun & Games episode will take a look at Doctor Who Trivial Pursuit, and Lego Dimensions: The Dalek Extermination Of Earth in TTV #259.

FNW 12/18 finishes “The War Games” with Parts 6-10.

More book reviews in TTV #260, including the Lethbridge-Stewart short stories: Ambush, Legacies, and One Cold Step, and our “Spoiler filled” Book Review of Lethbridge-Stewart: The Schizoid Earth by David McIntee.

Returning to where it all started all those years ago, Friday Night Who on 12/25 is Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor in “A Christmas Carol.”

And our last episode of the year will have our thoughts on the (as of this writing) still unnamed 2015 Christmas Special in TTV #261.

Next year, we’ll start back up with our series of looking Beyond The Doctor, more Big Finish Audio adventures, more Comic and Book Reviews, and we’ll start looking into the lost episodes through reckons. And of course we still have many episodes left to review. Thanks again to all our loyal regulars for sticking with us, and thanks to all our non-regulars who stop in from time to time to check in with us. And if you’ve just discovered our cast, thank you as well!

Side Trip 1 – Christmas Party!

Welcome to our first Side Trip, and this one is our (soon to be annual) Christmas party!

As our gift to you, we thought we would give you a special episode. It’s full of special holiday greetings from our friends, and a special commentary that you can listen to while watching last year’s Doctor Who Christmas special, A Christmas Carol.

We hope you enjoy, and HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Friday Night Who 12/23/11

Tonight’s Friday Night Who is our first with Matt Smith, as we watch last year’s Christmas Special, “A Christmas Carol.” Please join us for the tweet-a-long, as we’ll be recording live audio commentary for the episode as part of our Christmas special podcast! (And if you’d like to have your Christmas greetings included, there’s still time to send them to us via our Google Voice Number!  Follow @vortexshaun, @VortexKeith, @vortexglenn and @travelvortex and look for the #FridayNightWho and #AChristmasCarol hashtags.  We push play at midnight, CDT.

Down The Vortex Way Come Christmas

As 2011 winds down, we’re getting all wound up.  This week’s Friday Night Who closes out David Tennant’s series four with the E P I C two part story “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End”, which will be the topic of discussion for episode 51. (And barring any more Doctor Who episodes rescued from the lost and found, should result in a lively, if shorter discussion this week than last week’s behemoth-lurking-as-a-podcast anniversary special.)

The following week is Christmas, and how appropriate that for Friday Night Who (which since we start at midnight on Friday technically means first thing Christmas Eve) we’ll hit the most Christmassy of all Christmas specials with “A Christmas Carol.”  It’s the eleventh Doctor’s first time on FNW, so join us for some fun!  Also, a special note.  We will be doing a “LIVE” recording that night, putting together a special Christmas episode.  40% podcast, 50% audio commentary on the episode, 30% candy canes and all kinds of fun (Wonka math, gotta love it!)  So be sure to join us on Twitter for the Tweet-A-Long and we’ll read your comments out on the podcast.  This is not our normal show, (or part of the podcast line up) just holiday greetings from us to you!

Since we’ve already reviewed “A Christmas Carol” (all the way back in episode 1!) Episode 52 will in fact cover Matt Smith’s NEWEST Christmas special, “The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe”, as it airs on Christmas day and we’ll be recording Christmas night!

The following week is New Years Eve, and what better way to spend Friday Night Who than with Paul McGann’s eighth Doctor, ushering in the millennium in “Doctor Who: The Movie”?  Again, we’ve already reviewed it, (see episode 7) but its a perfect primer for episode 53, our first foray into the world of Big Finish Audio.  And who better to hold our hand for the transition, than the eighth Doctor?  In true Traveling The Vortex style we plan to skip around their universe a bit too, but we’ll be reviewing the first three McGann stories from the main line; “Storm Warning”, “The Sword Of Orion”, and “The Stones Of Venice” (numbers #16, 17, and 18 in the chronology).  So you’ve got two weeks to listen!

And the new year has plenty of good stuff on tap, including an Adversary Archive on the Ice Warriors, a farewell to David Tennant as we conclude the specials, a full blown look at the Time War, more Big Finish audio, and the return of the Black Guardian. I’ll go into more details later, but for now can only say “Spoilers.”

 

12/16 – Friday Night Who: “The Stolen Earth” / “Journey’s End”

TTV #51 – “The Stolen Earth” / “Journey’s End”

12/23 – FNW: “A Christmas Carol”

TTV Christmas Greetings (With our audio commentary for “A Christmas Carol”)

TTV #52 – “The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe”

12/30 – FNW: “Doctor Who: The Movie”

– 2012 –

TTV #53 – Big Finish Stories #16 “Storm Warning”, #17 “The Sword Of Orion”, #18 “The Stones Of Venice”

1/6 – Friday Night Who: “The Seeds Of Death”

 

Hope you can join us for the fun, and as always, THANK YOU for listening!