Rugby moves in Macbeth ; bodily fluids in Misfits ; embarrassing faux geekiness in EastEnders ; and more
MISSED DROP GOAL OF THE WEEK
Anybody catch that fantastic pilot for a new fantasy show on BBC4 on Sunday? The witches were great. Good to see Patrick Stewart back in the telefantasy fold as well. Shame his character, Macbeth, was killed off at the end, but we reckon he’ll be back as a ghost. Hell, everybody else was. Not sure about all the rhyming couplets, though. At times it was like watching a bloody version of Rupert The Bear . But that Shakespeare, guy – we reckon he’s a shoe-in for SFX ’s Hope For The Future award at the Weekender in February. The SFX übermind was amused by the ending, though, when Macduff was holding the severed head of Jean-Luc Picard and looked for all the world like he was about to kick a drop goal, especially when he took a few steps back and threw the thing in the air!
WORST HENRY V IMPRESSION OF THE WEEK
While we’re on the subject of Shakespeare, last week we were praising Arthur in Merlin for his Henry V moment, rousing the troops, and this week, it was Prince Caspian’s turn in The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader . As the crew of the ship readies itself for the final battle, Caspian gives a decent enough speech, but actually seems genuinely surprised when it’s greeted with a hearty chorus of “For Narnia!” What did he expect? Rotten tomatoes? It hardly imbues a sense of confidence.
IMPRESSIVE BATTERY LIFE OF THE WEEK
So, on Dirk Gently , a guy takes an iPhone back in time from the present to 1994. The phone’s then hidden away for 16 years, before being rediscovered, apparently on standby mode judging by the speed at which it boots up. That’s an impressive battery life. We’re lucky if our iPhones last the day. And we’re very impressed that it managed to find an O2 connection so quickly as well…
TRIP UP OF THE WEEK
Poor old Katerina Graham – Bonnie in The Vampire Diaries – had a slip of the tongue this week, referring to Elena as Nina by mistake a few minutes into the episode (Elena, is, of course, played by Nina Dobrev).
THEORY OF THE WEEK
You may want to skip this one if you’re not up to date with Fringe ’s latest goings on, but we just loved the earnestness with which Walter speculated on a knotty problem facing Peter this week (highlight below to read):
“You haven’t told Olivia, have you?”
“No, actually, I did.”
“How did she react?”
“Surprisingly well.”
“Really? Do you think possibly they replaced her with a robot?”
NEW WORD OF THE WEEK
triple (verb) To come, puke and shit yourself all at the same time ( origins - Misfits ). We just checked on Urban Dictionary , and it ain’t there yet. We’re guessing it might be soon. Your mission for this week: try to use it in polite conversation with visiting relatives.
FRUSTRATING PUZZLE OF THE WEEK
This week’s UK episode of Chuck gets two awards, and the first goes to Timothy Dalton. Not, however, because of his simply stunning performance as crime boss Volkoff (the way he was all sweetness and light one minute, then cold, ruthless killer the next was spinechilling at times, especially his lesson in how to deliver threats). Instead, he’s been getting us all confuddled because we simply can’t work out what he was trying to mime during that game of charades. We thought it might be a 007 in-joke, but we don’t remember a three-word Bond film called Dancing Gun Fist… Or Horse Punch Shimmy… Suggestions welcome!
CONTORTIONIST OF THE WEEK
And secondly on Chuck , while the Die Hard -riffing scene with Morgan being unable to reach the gun he’s taped to his back was achingly funny, you do have to ask yourself: if he couldn’t reach it to take it off, how in heaven’s name did he manage to stick it on in the first place?
More Spurious Awards on the next page
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UNCONVINCING GEEKY CONVERSATION OF THE WEEK
Doesn’t it make you cringe when actors who clearly wouldn't be seen dead in a comics shop are called on to suddenly become geek experts, and it’s painfully obvious they haven’t got a clue what the scriptwriter’s given them? Great example in EastEnders last Friday (spotted by sci-fi-lycra_angel on the SFX forum ) when Lauren has to explain the great “DC versus Marvel” debate. She manages to say Green Lantern and Nightwing like she’s learnt the words phonetically, then makes matter worse with “It’s either one or the other. And I’ll always stay true to Bruce, Diane and Clark.” Diane? Diane ? After much debate on the forum, we assume she must mean Wonder Woman (who is, of course, Diana Prince) and just didn’t read her script properly.
SIGNATURE OF THE WEEK
It’s got to take some guts to legally change your name to Captain Awesome. You’re just inviting criticism from laydeez who find you anything less than awesome. And to be fair, you’ve got to assume that anyone who wants to call themselves Captain Awesome is probably covering for something. But that’s exactly what unemployed Oregonian cabinet installer Douglas Allen Smith Jr, has done, naming himself after the legendary character in Chuck (who is awesome), according to a report in the Washington Post . And he’s gone further still in his newfound awesomeness. He’s also legally altered his signature. After determining the name change wasn’t for fraudulent reasons, a judge granted Smith permission to use a picture instead: right pointing arrow, smiley face, left pointing arrow ( pictured above ). So, any single woman out there fancy being Mrs Awesome?
ANTHROPOMORPHISM OF THE WEEK
College Humour, a site that offers us so much Spurious potential, this week posted a series of five book covers, showing what fave SF franchises would look like as children’s literature. To be honest, most of them are a bit naff, but we have to admit the likeness on this Adama Bear is downright uncanny.
“It’s a logical continuation of the original, although you need not have seen Tron to understand what's happening now. Strong performances by Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde and Michael Sheen should prevent the kind of complaints about wooden acting that surrounded the original movie. The result delivers an unexpected emotional impact, especially at the ending.
“Perhaps the emotional ending influenced my final reaction. As the credits rolled, I had to fight off tears… I walked out of the theatre to my cold truck, determined to not let my feelings show. Nobody there would have understood.” Actually, we think they would.
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
This is just genius. There’s not much more to be said…
AGONY COLUMN OF THE WEEK
Comics Alliance’s Chris Sims has clearly had a fascinating time in recent weeks, trawling through 30 year’s worth of the now-defunct “Sage Advice” columns from Dragon magazine. This was an help service for players of Dungeons & Dragons, primarily concerned with sorting out issues over the finer points of gaming. But, it seems, occasionally it felt more like an Agony Aunt column. Sims had listed 11 of the silliest questions ever submitted to the column, and while some are just plain dumb (“How much damage do bows do?” Answer: “None. Bows do not do damage, arrows do”), a surprising number are concerned with characters getting pregnant and/or married. Sims reckons that, “Writing into a magazine about D&D to ask how you should handle an unplanned pregnancy is basically the greatest thing anyone has ever done with their life.”
