Category: Portfolio

Doctor Who: The Robots of Death [DVD Review]

/ Gary Hilson

DOCTOR WHO: THE ROBOTS OF DEATH
DVD / BBC Video / November 2000

“The Robots of Death” is a perfect example of how ageless Doctor Who is when it’s done well.

Originally aired in the late 70s, this four-part story featuring Tom Baker as the Doctor and Louise Jameson as his traveling companion Leela still holds up well when you take a hard look at the story, even if the sets and costumes look rather dated.

The Doctor and Leela arrive on Storm Mine 4, a “sandminer” trawling a desert planet for rare and value minerals. The miner is staffed by a skeleton crew of humans and a complement of robots that handle the mundane day-to-day chores.

When a member of the crew is murdered, no one believes it possible that a robot could have committed the crime – they have numerous fail-safes to prevent it – but of course the Doctor and his companion are immediately suspected of the crime.

What follows is a murder mystery as more crewmembers turn up dead, but also a complex tale that intelligently wonders how people will truly deal with artificial beings, especially when it’s impossible to judge what a robot might be thinking without the benefit of facial expressions and body language.

The supporting cast gives able performances, and the characters are reasonably well-developed. In fact, some are not what they originally appear to be, which adds to the who-dunnit story.

Tom Baker is really on his game as the Doctor, and Louise Jameson as Leela comes across as both simple as her savage upbringing dictates but intelligent at the same time – often plot points are explained through her questions to the Doctor about what’s going on.

As for the DVD extras, they’re average at best. The commentary by writer Chris Boucher and producer Philip Hinchcliffe provides an occasional interesting tidbit, but most of it doesn’t directly relate to the action on the screen and the mind quickly wanders.

Some of the features, such as the alternate beginning of episode one, studio plans and even photo galleries would be much more interesting with some description or commentary.

Overall, as Doctor Who stories go, Robots of Death is one of the best examples of how the series is still relevant in large part due to great storytelling.

Originally published on Outpost Gallifrey

Farscape: Durka Returns / A Human Reaction [DVD Review]

/ Gary Hilson

Farscape: Durka Returns / A Human Reaction
DVD / ADV Films / November 2001

With Space: The Imagination Station and other Canadian stations taking their merry old time rolling out new episodes of Farscape (the third season has aired in the UK, while Canada has only seen the first half of season one in most markets), it makes more sense to shell out the money for the DVDs from ADV Films.

Farscape really gets its groove on with the eighth DVD in the series featuring the episodes “Durka Returns” and “A Human Reaction.”

The first episode is notable for introducing the character of Chiana, played by Gigi Edgley, as well as delving into Rygel’s past. Moya’s pregnancy is having an adverse effect on her systems, and she comes out of starburst just time to collide with an unidentified vessel. Moya is unharmed, but Pilot insists on bringing the damaged vessel aboard.

The first passenger to emerge from the craft is immediately recognized by Rygel as Durka, once captain of the Peacekeeper command carrier Zelbinion, and the administrator of his torture and suffering cycles ago. The man confirms that he is Durka, and it’s John that must hold the enraged Hynerian at bay. However, Durka is not the man he used to be, according to Salis, a Nebari. His brain has been altered over the years – about 100 cycles. For all intents in purposes, Durka has been neutered, but Rygel is not convinced.

There’s a third passenger about the Nebari vessel – another gray-skinned Nebari named Chiana. She’s actually a prisoner, and Durka requests a cell to place her until another Nebari ship meets them. But is Chiana really a hardened criminal or just a mischief-maker? By the end of the episode, it’s still unclear, but she doesn’t stay a prisoner very long. Between her instinct for self-preservation and Rygel’s thirst for revenge, things get out of control very quickly and it’s just a matter of time before Durka shows his true colours.,br>

“Durka Returns” is a fairly strong episode, giving most of the characters some screen time and doing a fine job of introducing a recurring character. “A Human Reaction” is also very entertaining, but one could argue that it’s doomed to be disappointing because of the basic story premise. John, obviously getting rather restless aboard Moya, is recording another message to his father when he’s alerted by Pilot of a phenomenon the Leviathan hasn’t seen since John’s arrival ­ a wormhole! A wormhole that leads to a planet that is without a doubt Earth.

After a few strained and tearful good-byes, John sets out in his module and manages to crash land in Australia. However, he’s not given a warm welcome home ­ commandos quickly arrive and imprison him. The military is suspicious of John and his motives. The presence of the nano-translators in his body doesn’t help his case. But John wants answers too, and he’s not cooperating. He finally gets an ally when his father Jack (played Kent McCord, last seen in the pilot) turns up and uses his own test to verify that John is his son. John gets to stretch his legs out, but even then, Jack assures him, he’s being watched.

Turns out the wormhole the swept John to his life aboard Moya never disappeared ­ at least not at Earth’s end, putting the planet on high alert. John promises he’ll tell all about his adventures, but the base is put on higher alert by the arrival of Moya’s transport pod, carrying Rygel, Aeryn and D’Argo. They claim they were just checking out the edge of the wormhole, not intending to follow John.

Regardless, the military won’t take John’s word for that the aliens pose no harm, and soon one is dead and another taken away to another military installation. At this point, it’s pretty clear that John isn’t really home. The fun lies in how John figures out the puzzle before him.

However, this is the kind of the story that can’t really deliver the satisfying ending the beginning demands, but its still reasonably good. If anything, the major disappointment has more to do with the production values of the closing scene.

“A Human Reaction” is an emotionally packed, entertaining episode of Farscape, and does a deft job of demonstrating what the show’s mandate is all about: John Crichton’s quest to get home. It also illustrates how John has changed – he has new loyalties and friendships.

Overall, these two episodes are the beginnings of Farscape’s direction in later episodes, both in terms of story and quality.

As for the DVD extras, there isn’t a whole lot: the previews are for non-Farscape products from ADV. The only real highlight would be the interview with Gigi Edgley out of makeup, but even then there’s no behind the scenes footage of her interacting with co-stars and crew. It is important to note that these episodes are longer than the ones broadcast in North America by about five minutes.

“Durka Returns” – 7/10
“A Human Reaction” – 7/10
DVD Extras – 5/10

Doctor Who: Four to Doomsday [VHS Review]

/ Gary Hilson

Doctor Who: Four to Doomsday
BBC Video / VHS / September 2001

High concept science fiction stories were a hallmark of the Peter Davison-era Doctor Who.

“Four To Doomsday,” an early fifth Doctor adventure now available on VHS in North America is no exception, but unfortunately it lacks the thrills and “edge” the SF series is renowned for throughout most of its run.

In this four-part story, the TARDIS materializes inside a vast starship with a multiracial crew from Earth’s distant past. Downloaded into computer chips are the memories of the three billion survivors of the Urbankan race, and the Earth is to be their new home. The Urbankans are led by Monarch, a giant green frog-thing, who wants to travel back to the Big Bang to meet God, who he is convinced is himself.

There are a lot of ideas floating around in Four to Doomsday, but none of them are really addressed in any sufficient depth. Neither are the Doctor’s companions for that matter – three companions in the TARDIS is just too many.

Adric is more annoying than Wesley Crusher, Tegan spends most of the time whining or hysterical, and Nyssa, the most levelheaded of the bunch, doesn’t really get much to do at all.

It’s also clear Davison is just getting the hang of his persona as the Doctor, as are the writers. Throughout the story, he comes off as sarcastic, rather than the compassionate, thoughtful Doctor in later stories.

The Urbankans are kind of neat to look at, but Monarch doesn’t seem to be that much of a threat, and while most Who episodes end with a cliffhanger, Four to Doomsday falls short on even those standard thrills. That BBC Video is scratching at the bottom of the barrel would be an exaggeration; however, Four to Doomsday is not best of the Davison era, nor the series as a whole.

TV Review: Tracker (Series Premiere)

/ Gary Hilson

T is for Tracker. T is also for tedious.

And unfortunately, that’s the verdict on the syndicated series starring Adrian Paul in the title role.

After Highlander, I was expecting a lot more from Mr. Paul, especially since he was also filling the role of executive producer, but Tracker comes off as more as grade B fare in the vein of Highlander ripoff The Immortal than anything else.

Paul plays an alien who arrives on Earth to track down some bad guy, but is a mumbling idiot throughout the whole episode because unlike his enemy (played by wrestler chick Chyna), he didn’t co-opt an existing human body. He’s aided in his transition by woman who’s recently inherited a bar where she’s employed her cousin, which isn’t really relevant to the story.

Eventually Paul’s character and Chyna come to blows, but the fight sequences are horrible. Again, it’s impossible not to compare this series to Highlander, and the intended dramatic ending is somewhat eclipsed by the indelible impression of Chyna’s humongous jiggling breasts.

Even though the series has an interesting premise and a more than capable lead actor, Tracker was so annoying the first time around I probably won’t give it another chance.

Originally published in the online magazine The Leisure Hive as part of its fall 2001 science fiction television preview.

Royal Bank rewards in real time [Portfolio]

/ Gary Hilson

With its launch of a year-long pilot program in B.C., Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is upping the ante in the credit card customer loyalty game by providing selected Visa cardholders with instant rewards when they make purchases with their cards.

Powered by point-of-sale (POS) technology developed by Ernex Marketing Technologies, a Vancouver-based firm acquired by RBC last year (see “Royal Bank buys loyalty program provider,” Strategy DirectResponse, July 19, ‘99), the Royal Rewards program is said to be the first program of its type to be offered by a North American bank.

Selected Royal Bank Visa Gold Preferred and Platinum Preferred cardholders in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland of B.C. are eligible for enrolment in the Royal Rewards program, which debuted Sept. 1.

The program allows shoppers using RBC-issued Visa cards to get instant loyalty point status updates on their cash register receipts, and to redeem their points for instant rewards from participating merchants. For the first three months of the pilot project, cardholders can accelerate their points-earning capability by making repeat purchases with participating merchants. The program also incorporates a Swipe ‘n’ Win component (currently offering a grand prize trip to Hawaii) and custom-couponing capabilities.

The RBC program marks a departure from the standard approach of many retail-oriented loyalty marketing programs, which require customers to wait for their monthly statements to see their points status.

Marlene Thompson, vice-president, value-added programs at Toronto-based RBC, says the Royal Rewards program creates a win-win situation for both the bank and participating merchants because it builds loyalty among the bank’s cardholder base, while providing merchants with an effective tool to attract and retain customers.

“We always want to build loyalty for our products,” she says, adding that RBC had examined the possibility of implementing more traditional promotions – such as coupons – but decided it would be best to develop a loyalty program that would be simple and attractive for customers and merchants alike.

Vancouver was a logical location for the pilot, says Thompson, since it’s a sizable city and Ernex was already well-entrenched there – many of the 74 merchants participating in the pilot already have their own in-house loyalty programs powered by Ernex-enabled point-of-sale terminals.

“It really fit well for building Ernex business with Royal Bank business,” Thompson says.

The development of a new loyalty program for credit card holders can hardly be viewed as a response to declining credit card use, since, according to Visa Canada, there were 22 million active Visa cards in Canada in 1999, up 12.8% from the year before. However, there has been pressure from other fronts. Most notably, perhaps, U.S. MasterCard issuers MBNA and Capital One have both moved north in recent years, flooding the market with introductory offers of low interest rates.

“There’s a lot of competition and, in the last few years, it’s exploded in the Canadian marketplace,” says Thompson.

That may be so, but at least one analyst believes the threat from MBNA and Capital One is less serious than some might imagine.

Michael Szego, a retail industry consultant with Toronto-based J.C. Williams Group, says Canadians are smart consumers, and while many sign up for the cards to take advantage of the low introductory rates, lots of people are quick to dump them as soon as those rates go up.

He says that building long-term loyalty among cardholders, such as RBC is doing, is a much better strategy.

Szego says that, to date, no other Canadian credit card issuers are offering anything comparable to the Royal Rewards program.

“The key is the program’s real-time element,” he says. “Instant gratification is always better than deferred gratification.”

But it’s not just the structure of the Royal Rewards program itself that makes it stand out. Ernex technology also provides valuable consumer data that can be leveraged by Royal Bank and the participating merchants.

According to some of those participating in the trial, the Royal Rewards program has already created some new marketing opportunities. Superstar, a sporting goods retail chain with 25 outlets in B.C., says the program has provided the company an opportunity to broaden its reach beyond its core base of hardcore sporting fanatics.

According Joe Calvano, vice-president of Superstar, the Royal Rewards program is a great way to entice new customers and keep them coming back.

“Once they shop with us once,” he says, “they’ll continue to do so.”

Originally published in Strategy Magazine, October 9, 2000

Doctor Who: The Janus Conjunction [Book Review]

/ Gary Hilson

Doctor Who: The Janus Conjunction
By Trevor Baxendale / BBC Books / October 1998

“The planets Janus Prime and Meridia are diametrically opposed in orbit round a vast Red Giant star. But while Menda is rich and fertile in the light of the sun, Janus Prime endures everlasting night, its moon causing a permanent solar eclipse.

When the Doctor and Sam arrive on Janus Prime, they find themselves in the middle of a war between rival humans colonizing the area. The planet is littered with ancient ruins, and the Mendans are using a mysterious hyper-spatial link left behind by the planet’s former inhabitants. But what is its true purpose?

The Doctor and Sam must piece together a centures-old puzzle. How can Janus Prime’s moon weigh billions of tons more than it should? Why is the planet riddled with deadly radiation? As the violence escalates around them, will the time travelers survive to discover the answers?”

I really liked The Janus Conjunction because it doesn’t strive to be anything more than a straightforward Doctor Who adventure and succeeds.

The Doctor and Sam arrive on a planet, get separated, thrown in prison, get caught between two factions and have a puzzle to solve in the process. Nothing that hasn’t been done before, but it’s well executed. The guest characters don’t take over the story, but are well developed enough that their motivations are understandable, even the villains.

While the recent outing Seeing I had a lot to do about looking at the Doctor and Sam’s relationship in depth, here they are just Doctor and companion working together with really well-written dialogue. The Doctor is the Doctor I’ve always known in any regeneration: the hero that takes charge of the situation.

There’s nothing groundbreaking about The Janus Conjunction, but it’s very functional, entertaining and moves along briskly.

 

Doctor Who: Seeing I [Book Review]

/ Gary Hilson

Doctor Who: Seeing I
By Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman / BBC Books / June 1998

Sam is homeless on the streets of the colony world of Ha’olam, trying to face what’s just happened between her in the Doctor. He’s searching for her, and for answers. While she struggles to survive in a strange city centuries from home, the Doctor comes across evidence of alien involvment in the local mega corporation, INC – and is soon confined to a prison that becomes a hell of his own making.

Where did INC’s mysterious eye implants really come from? What is the company searching for in the deserts? What is hiding in the shadows, watching their progress?

Faced with these mysteries, separated by half a world, Sam and the Doctor each face a battle – Sam to rebuild her life, the Doctor to stay sane. And if they do find each other again, what will be left of either of them?”

I was expecting a lot from Kate Orman, who wrote some of my favorite New Adventures, but Seeing I doesn’t quite deliver in the end. However, it’s still well above average.

At the beginning of the book, Sam and the Doctor are already separated, so there is a lot of Sam development going on. In fact, she ages years, not days or months, in this story. Meanwhile, the Doctor is stuck in a prison that even he can’t escape.

For the first two thirds of the book, Seeing I is a departure from most Who novels as it explores the plight of the Doctor and his companion on a psychological level. However, the last third of the book turns into a straightforward Who adventure. That’s not to say it isn’t well done, but it doesn’t quite deliver the ending as promised with the earlier character trials.

All in all a definite must read.

Doctor Who: Dreamstone Moon [Book Review]

/ Gary Hilson

DOCTOR WHO: DREAMSTONE MOON
By Paul Leonard / BBC Books / May 1998

“Sam is on her own, but here distance from the Doctor doesn’t make for a trouble-free life. Rescued from an out of control spaceship, she finds herself on a tiny moon which is the only know source of dreamstone, a mysterious crystalline substance that can preserve or dreams – or give you nightmares.

 Pitched into the middle of a conflict between the mining company extracting dreamstone and ecological protesters, Sam thinks it’s easy to decide who the good guys are – until people start dying, and the killers seem to be the same species as some of her new friends.

 Meanwhile, the Doctor has tracked Sam down, but before he can reach her he’s co-opted by the Dreamstone Mining Company and their sinister military advisors. Suddenly, it’s war – and the Doctor is forced to fight against what he believes in. He alone suspects that Dreamstone isn’t what it appears to be. But nobody’s listening – and nobody could dream who the real enemy is…”

After my first BBC Books Doctor Who outing, The Eigtht Doctors, I really needed to read a *good* Doctor Who book. Dreamstone Moon by Paul Leonard didn’t quite deliver, but it wasn’t bad either.

First off this is a Sam book – the Doctor and his companion were separated several books ago, I assume. It isn’t entirely a bad thing because at this point I wanted to get to know the Sam character. But I also read Doctor Who novels to read about the Doctor, and role in the book is very wanting. When he does have scenes in the story, he doesn’t seem on the ball about anything.

The story itself is really predictable although quasi-interesting. It didn’t really grip. Nothing about it really did. The one observation I can make is that Paul Leonard is skilled at creating truly alien characters.

In the end, I don’t know if like Dreamstone Moon or not, so it’s probably worth deciding for yourself.

Star Trek New Frontier: Fire On High [Book Review]

/ Gary Hilson

Star Trek New Frontier: Fire On High
Peter David/Pocket Books/April 1998

Fire On High isn’t Peter David’s best work, but it still proves how his Star Trek: New Frontier setting is so much more entertaining then Voyager ever was.

This is the second full-length novel since the debut of the initial four novellas, and while the story stands on its own, there are subplots that have been going since previous books. Fire On High revolves around the reappearance of Lt. Robin Lefler’s supposedly dead mother and a deadly ancient weapon. It actually takes a while for those events to get under way, but in the meantime, Doctor Selar deals with the consequences of her recent Pon Farr, and there are various other character bits percolating.

Overall, the story isn’t exceptional, but the crew of the starship Excalibur is just as lively and interesting as any crew that’s graced either the big or small screen. And they’re definitely more fun than Voyager.

Doctor Who: Lungbarrow [Book Review]

/ Gary Hilson

Doctor Who: Lungbarrow
By Marc Platt / Virgin / March 1997

This is it folks. The last New Adventure to feature the Seventh Doctor.

Lungbarrow attempts to answer the main questions raised by the Sylvester McCoy incarnation of the Time Lord, which it does well for the most part.

A warning, however: this is a book you have to read carefully to understand the ending. I don’t think this is Marc Platt’s fault. In this case, I think it’s my own. A second run through cleared up most of the questions I had.

Some high points, besides explaining much about the Doctor’s origin, are the reappearance of past companions, including Ace, Leela and K9. The book also introduces the Doctor’s ‘family’, who play a key part in the story.

There were some disappointments, however. There’s a nice goodbye between Ace and the Doctor, but Chris Cwej sort of just disappears at the end. Bernice doesn’t even appear in the novel, so there’s no real closure between her and the Seventh Doctor, although she does play a major role in Lance Parkin’s The Dying Days, which introduces the Eight Doctor.

If there is one thing Lungbarrow illustrates, it is how the character of the Doctor has evolved since the The New Adventures debuted in 1991. Oh, the last page is a hoot too!

Originally published in The Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy Resource Guide.