Category: Portfolio

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.

Doctor Who: The Dying Days [Book Review]

/ Gary Hilson

Doctor Who: The Dying Days
By Lance Parkin / Virgin / April 1997

The Dying Days is an apt title for the last New Adventure featuring the Doctor, in any incarnation. It’s a story of endings and beginnings, and unlike many of the NAs featuring the Seventh Doctor, this novel featuring the Eighth Doctor is a straightforward adventure story, reminiscent of the television series.

Bernice Summerfield is waiting for the Doctor to arrive at his house. He’s late, which Bernice thinks is rather unacceptable, since he is a Time Lord. When he does finally show up, he has changed a little.

So begins the story that will launch the continuing adventures of Bernice Summerfield, while the Doctor continues on in the new BBC line of books. Before the story ends, you will reacquaint yourselves with old friends such as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and the Ice Warriors.

Lance Parkin does a fine job with this novel, sticking to tried and true storytelling techniques, while incorporating elements from the FOX TV movie to maintain continuity.

The ending is rather interesting as well.

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

Doctor Who: So Vile A Sin [Book Review]

/ Gary Hilson

Doctor Who: So Vile A Sin
By Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman / Virgin Books / May 1997

‘If you step into history,’ said the Doctor, ‘I won’t be able to protect you.’
‘This isn’t history,’ said Roz. ‘This is family.’

The Earth Empire – the Imperium Humanum, upon which a thousand suns never set – is dying.

The Great Houses of the Empire manoeuvre and scheme for advantage; alliances are made; and knives flash in the shadows. Out among the moons of Jupiter, another battle is just beginning, as an ancient brotherhood seeks limitless power and long-overdue revenge

The Doctor returns to the thirtieth century, searching for the source of a terrifying weapon. He fears a nightmare from his own past may be about to destroy the future. Nothing must be allowed to get in his way.

But the Doctor has reckoned without the power of history – which has its own plans for the wayward daughter of the House of Forrester.

The fact that this book was rushed to publication so fast was probably the most vile sin of all. Delayed due to Ben Aaronovitch’s hard drive crash, Kate Orman stepped in to finish this much anticipated New Adventure, which heralds the death of a companion.

The book has a promising start, but deteriorates into a muddled mess of a narrative. It’s not like I hated the book; I was just very disappointed.

There is so much happening in the novel, and it is very difficult to follow. There were even times where I couldn’t figure out why certain parts of the story were there in the first place. So Vile A Sin is definitely full of great ideas and great moments, but put together, it seems that it deserved a little more polishing before going to print.

Although So Vile A Sin was a disappointment and a difficult read, it is probably a must for those who have followed the New Adventures loyally. And while I may have panned this particular effort by the authors, I must say that Aaronovitch’s The Also People was brilliant, and I have enjoyed every New Adventure I have read by Orman: The Left-Handed Hummingbird, Set Piece and Sleepy.