Elizabeth Sandifer

About Elizabeth Sandifer

http://www.eruditorumpress.com

Elizabeth Sandifer created Eruditorum Press. She’s not really sure why she did that, and she apologizes for the inconvenience. She currently writes Last War in Albion, a history of the magical war between Alan Moore and Grant Morrison. She used to write TARDIS Eruditorum, a history of Britain told through the lens of a ropey sci-fi series. She also wrote Neoreaction a Basilisk, writes comics these days, and has ADHD so will probably just randomly write some other shit sooner or later. Support Elizabeth on Patreon.

Posts by Elizabeth Sandifer:

October 12, 2016

Comics Reviews (October 12th, 2016)

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Deathstroke #4

Fine such as things are, with the book’s usual problem that Priest’s out-of-sequence storytelling can get in the way. But I’m dropping the book because when I got to page three of Comixology today I found myself staring at Doom Patrol #2 and Britannia #2 and going “well shit, those were both good books but this is already a big week.” Which is an old complaint, but still a big one – a six-book week fucking hurts when $3.99 is the normal price of a book. And when you have three that are $4.99+ it’s brutal. And frankly, this was the disposable one – being a perfectly nice and fairly clever superhero book just isn’t enough. There are addictions I’ll grudgingly feed, but frankly Deathstroke isn’t one of them, and it kept me from being able to afford a probably better book by dint of coming up too early on the list of new releases. So it’s dropped. God I hate comics.

Doom Patrol #2 (Bought by a reader)

The excessive weirdness of the first issue settles out, but it leaves a distinct “Grant Morrison fanfic” vibe in its wake. Inoffensive and even a bit fun – probably a better comic than the first issue by any reasonable standards. But its not even trying to be interesting to anyone who hasn’t read Morrison’s Doom Patrol. Probably done with this. (Oh, and dear reader who bought the comic and wanted to chat with me about it – send me an e-mail if you would.)

Cinema Purgatorio #6

An off issue for me, with the title story not really doing anything for me (or perhaps more accurately doing too many things to actually have any of them land particularly well), Code Pru being weak as well, and the backing two being their usual ballasty selves. Modded’s great, of course, but this is a $6.99 book on a week I’m already bitter as fuck about what my comics cost, so yeah, kinda stuck resenting this for existing this time around.

Darth Vader #25

In no way helped by the delay to its publication, as it means that a somewhat slender conclusion that could have worked coming off of momentous pace and a brilliant, weird previous issue is instead just somewhat slender. Aphra’s resolution is nice. Really, it’s all nice – a solidly OK stick-the-landing conclusion to what’s never been my favorite Gillen book anyway. I look forward to the inherent lunacy of Aphra’s solo series.

Lazarus #25

A solid, focused issue hingeing on a single character interaction between two developed-enough characters that it would be hard to screw up. Sure enough, Ruck and Lark don’t, and if there’s a shred of honesty to Joanna’s spiel to Forever there’s even some interesting ways for the book to move forward from here. I suspect this book is done surprising me, and I admit I’ve gone off Rucka a bit between being sorely disappointed by Black Magick and Wonder Woman, but this is still solid more months than not. …

October 10, 2016

Mr. Robot Season 2: A Furious Defense

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The recently completed second season of Mr. Robot has served as an occasion for critics to put the knife in. As with most critical maulings there’s a sense that the fix was in. Ambitious and genuinely iconoclastic shows like Mr. Robot don’t get to triumph for long before people decide they need to be brought down a peg. But there’s been something darkly amusing about watching critics throw themselves at the task of slagging off Mr. Robot and repeatedly failing to produce anything more insightful than essays that can be summarized as “I wish this literally revolutionary show was more conventional.” Still, as entertaining as it is to watch nominally intelligent people completely fuck up at their jobs, it’s left something of a deficit in actually decent and coherent criticism of Mr. Robot this year, with only the AV Club managing to avoid confusing the show with CSI: Cyber.

Let’s start by puncturing the usual lines of critique, since explaining why they’re wrong-headed is a good way of getting at what’s actually going on here. The big one centers on the seventh-episode revelation that Elliot has not in fact been staying with his mother but has been in prison since the season premiere. We’ll set aside for the moment the basic structural question of why this had to happen (although I’ve got some sympathy for anyone who wishes it had taken an episode less than it did) and look instead at the way in which it’s meant to be read, and particularly at those who have suggested it was a problem that people guessed the twist.

Obviously the thing to look back to is the equivalent “Elliot’s perceptions as revealed to the viewer are misleading” twist of season one, which, recall, was considered such a massive bombshell that it was treated as a pre-commercial cliffhanger, lampshaded with the line “are you really going to make me say it out loud,” and guessed by essentially everybody as of the first or second episode of the season with the only tension being “are they really just building to a Fight Club rip-off?” Which is to say that complaining that you could see the twist coming rather misses the point. Indeed, the whole adage about “fool me once, shame on you” springs to mind, especially with this season’s gleefully disingenuous promise not to do it again after the reveal.

In other words, if you’re imagining Mr. Robot as a show whose twists are first and foremost about surprise you’re doing it very, very wrong. Indeed, aside from its various narrative purposes (which are substantial), the major point of the “he’s actually in prison” twist is to scream, as loudly as possible, at any audience members who are watching the show without actively questioning what is and isn’t being shown to pay attention. It’s not just “not a surprise,” it’s an overt warning that the audience should expect this kind of thing. Sam Esmail has all but said as much in interviews, asking reporters what about the season they guessed and agreeing with them when they identify the major twists.…

October 9, 2016

The Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Poll Wrapup

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All right. Let’s go through those extra questions, then we’ll get on to some overall thoughts on this ridiculous endeavor.

Favorite Doctor

First the options that got one vote, namely Arabella Weir, River Song, The Curator, The Other, and “The one in the early Target books, written by Dicks, Hulke, and Letts.” But of those getting multiple votes…

Jon Pertwee: 3

Clara Oswald: 4

Splendind Chap, All of Them and Variations: 5

Colin Baker: 8

Peter Davison: 9

William Hartnell: 11

Paul McGann: 11

David Tennant: 17

Christopher Eccleston: 24

Matt Smith: 47

Tom Baker: 50

Patrick Troughton: 52

Sylvester McCoy: 62

Peter Capaldi: 63

Best Companion

Single votes were cast for the Brigadier, Cass, Elisabeth Klein, Ian Chesterton, Izzy S, Kamelion, Katarina, Lucie Miller, Mickey Smith, Molly O’Sullivan, Nyssa, Peri, Rigsy, Sara Kingdom, Shayde, Tegan Jovanka, and Zoe Heriot

Fitz Kreiner: 2

Frobisher: 2

Steven Taylor: 2

The TARDIS: 2

Wilf: 2

Liz Shaw: 3

Captain Jack Harkness: 3

Charley Pollard: 3

Vicki: 3

K-9: 4

Jamie McCrimmon: 5

River Song: 5

Evelyn Smythe: 6

Rose Tyler: 6

Martha Jones: 6

Jo Grant: 7

Bernice Summerfield: 9

Rory Pond: 11

Leela: 15

Romana: 16 (One specifying Mary Tamm, Nine specifying Lalla Ward, Five not specifying, and one specifying both. I count them separately, personally, but there you go.)

Amy Pond: 16 (Votes for Amy/Rory as a combo were split equitably, though one voter was adamant that was what they meant.)

Barbara Wright: 17

Sarah Jane Smith: 39

Donna Noble: 44

Ace: 46

Clara Oswald: 76

Classic vs New Series

Classic Series: 112

New Series: 165

The Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Poll Results: The Top 50

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And now for the grand finale. Though not before I make one last stab at pointing out that if you want Class reviews and don’t back the Eruditorum Press Patreon, you’re gonna want to change that, as there’s no way those are going to happen if you don’t.

50: Kill the Moon (57 Points, 8 First Place, 8 Last Place, 13 Downvotes)

This may be the Marmite king of the poll. I know at least some of the last place/downvotes were openly trolling me, which is a bit aggravating, if only because I’m genuinely curious how it would have done without that. But it made the top 50 by the skin of its teeth and I’m perfectly happy with that. Frankly, I wouldn’t want my favorite story not to be a bit Marmite.

49: Alien Bodies (58 Points, 1 First Place, 44 Non-Televised)

Lawrence Miles’s best placing, as well as the highest-placed BBC Books novel. Or if you’d prefer the highest-placed Faction Paradox book, but to be fair, not even the Faction Paradox Wiki counts it as such.

48: Inferno (61 Points, 1 First Place, 2 Downvotes)

Still overrated.

47: Dark Water/Death in Heaven (61 Points, 3 First Place, 3 Last Place, 6 Downvotes)

Highest-placed Cybermen story.

46: Turn Left (63 Points, 2 First Place, 1 Downvote)

45: An Unearthly Child (64 Votes, 4 First Place)

Highest-placed Hartnell story. Which… OK. I did say people could vote for it on the basis of the first episode alone, I guess.

44: Paradise Towers (65 Points, 3 First Place, 2 Downvotes)

Highest-placed Kangs story. This was 230th in the Doctor Who Magazine 50th Anniversary poll, twelfth from bottom. Not the only low-ranked story to do way better here, but obviously the one I’m happiest about.

43: Human Nature (67 Points, 1 First Place, 41 Non-Televised)

This one’s tricky – I pretty much had to give it any and all votes cast for “Human Nature,” but every single TV two-parter had multiple votes submitted under the title of its first episode, which means that some of these votes were intended for the TV version. As a result, this surely has a slightly inflated placement while the TV version has a slightly lower one. Personally I think it’d be more accurate if you just swapped their places, but oh well. Highest-placed Virgin book, in any case.

42: Torchwood: Children of Earth (71 Points, 59 Non-Televised)

Highest-placed spin-off. I can’t imagine I have to link it.

41: Enlightenment (71 Points, 2 First Place)

40: The Robots of Death (73 Points)

39: The Chimes of Midnight (74 Points, 2 First Place, 56 Non-Televised)

Highest-placed McGann story.

38: Gridlock (74 Points, 3 First Place, 1 Downvote)

Delighted this one did so well – it was firmly mid-table in the Doctor Who Magazine poll, and strikes me as an almost textbook example of the sort of story this crowd likes more than average.

37: Vincent and the Doctor (77 Points, 2 First Place, 4 Downvotes)

36: Jubilee (78 Points, 2 First Place, 51 Non-Televised)

Highest-placed Big Finish story, non-televised story, and Colin Baker story.…

October 7, 2016

And I’m Not Young; I’m Closer to Death Than Birth (Yoshi’s Island)

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There’s only one way to begin this.

In a sense of course that’s a lie – there’s a vast and multifaceted history of side-scrolling platformers to which Yoshi’s Island was the momentary apex, countless aspects of which could be used as ways into the game. But I mean it simply in the literal sense that unlike its nominal predecessor, Yoshi’s Island does not have any sort of forking path in its initial worldmap, offering a straightforward and unambiguous “first level,” and indeed a wholly linear level structure through the entire game.

This is the difference between it and Super Mario World in a microcosm. The earlier game is a demo of the Super Nintendo – an advertisement for its supposedly infinite potential, and opens accordingly with a choice so as to signify the breadth of what can happen. Yoshi’s Island, on the other hand, exists deep in the twilight of the Super Nintendo, and less than a year before Super Mario 64 transitions the Mario franchise away from the side-scrolling mechanic that had defined it for its first decade. It is not a game about showing off possibility, but rather a late masterpiece – a final demonstration of the form before it passes into history. Its structure is fixed because it demonstrates perfection, not potential.

[Here’s a secret history for you. A retcon to Nintendo’s mascot, a new first adventure for him that predates not only his first discovery of the Mushroom Kingdom in Super Mario Bros., but all the existing prehistory of Mario as a carpenter, cement mixer, and monkey fighter. The already heavily frayed notion that Mario was ever just an ordinary Italian plumber gives way. Now he is always already bound into the history of the Mushroom Kingdom, his battle with Bowser now truly eternal, defining him from the very moment of his birth. His sibling relationship is also now set in stone from the first instant, Luigi always secondary, Mario always the adventuring hero.

But what’s inserted into the narrative is not just Mario’s role as a video game protagonist, but his relationship with Yoshi (like Toad at once a singular character and a species), who turns out not to have been a random dinosaur met at the start of Super Mario World but a guide and protector who has served throughout Mario’s life.]

Is it perfect? Well… no. It’s fun, certainly, and there are some good levels, but it ends up feeling like a collection of one-shot ideas – mechanics that are entertaining for a level (or, more often, a subsection of a level) but that can’t support much more than that. It’s not so much a boutique showcase of levels as a clear-out sale of ideas that were almost good enough for previous games.

In this regard it is also significant that the game is appreciably shorter than Super Mario World, which had 74 levels and 96 total exits to find. Yoshi’s Island has a mere six worlds of eight levels each, all with single exits, along with six bonus levels unlocked if you find all the items within a world, which is a grindy tedium for only the most obsessive of players.…

October 7, 2016

The Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Poll Results: 100-51

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At last we come to the top 100. Let’s dive in.

100: The Gunfighters (19 Points, 2 First Place, 1 Last Place, 2 Downvotes)

The “Jeremy Bentham” point of view went unrepresented until the last set of votes counted. I am disappointed in whoever cast that vote. DISAPPOINTED.

99: The Face of Evil (19 Points, 1 First Place)

98: The Husbands of River Song (19 Points, 1 First Place, 2 Downvotes)

97: The Romans (19 Points, 1 Downvote)

96: The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar (19 Points, 4 Downvotes)

95: The Girl Who Died (20 Points, 2 Downvotes)

94: The Lodger (20 Points, 4 Downvotes)

93: Dead Romance (21 Points, 1 First Place, 7 Non-Televised)

Alternatively, this could be the highest-placed Faction Paradox book.

92: The Curse of Fatal Death (21 Points, 4 Non-Televised)

This is another of those ones where the order is really funny.

91: The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit (21 Points, 1 First Place, 2 Last Place, 3 Downvotes)

90: The Edge of Destruction (22 Points, 1 First Place, 1 Downvote)

89: Planet of the Ood (22 Points, 1 First Place, 1 Downvote)

88: The Green Death (23 Points, 1 First Place, 3 Downvotes)

87: The Invasion (23 Points)

86: The Sun Makers (24 Points, 1 Downvote)

85: The Also People (25 Points, 18 Non-Televised)

84: Terror of the Zygons (25 Points, 1 First Place, 1 Downvote)

83: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone (25 Points, 1 Downvote)

82: The Waters of Mars (25 Points, 1 First Place, 2 Last Place, 3 Downvotes)

81: Castrovalva (27 Points, 1 First Place)

80: The God Complex (27 Points, 1 Downvote)

79: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (28 Points, 3 First Place, 4 Last Place, 13 Downvotes)

This was 6th in the most recent Doctor Who Magazine poll. One of the people to put it in first place apologized for doing so. Another person both upvoted and downvoted it. Personally, I’m pretty happy with the fact that it was beaten by

78: The Ambassadors of Death (29 Points, 1 First Place)

One voter went with The Ambassadors… OF DEATH. Another went with the even more emphatic The Ambassadors [Ker-Chow!] OF DEATH.

77. Flatline (30 Points)

76. Father’s Day (32 Points, 1 Last Place, 1 Downvote)

75: The Aztecs (32 Points, 2 Last Place)

74: Utopia (34 Points, 1 Downvote)

73: The Seeds of Doom (35 Points, 3 First Place, 3 Downvotes)

72: The Pyramids of Mars (35 Points, 2 Downvotes)

The two most overrated Hinchcliffe-era stories finish level on points and pleasantly far down.

71: Face the Raven (35 Points, 1 Last Place, 1 Downvote)

70: Horror of Fang Rock (36 Points)

69: The Evil of the Daleks (37 Points, 2 First Place)

68: The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon (37 Points, 1 First Place, 2 Last Place, 5 Downvotes)

67: The Three Doctors (38 Points)

66: Scherzo (38 Points, 31 Non-Televised)

65: The Night of the Doctor (38 Points, 16 Non-Televised)

Paul McGann’s highest “televised” story.

64: The Holy Terror (39 Points, 36 Non-Televised)

63: Mummy on the Orient Express (40 Points)

62: Rose (40 Points, 1 Downvote)

61: Snakedance (41 Points, 1 First Place, 1 Last Place, 1 Downvote)

The person who voted for “Dances with Snakes” flummoxed me until very late in the counting.…

October 6, 2016

The Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Poll Results: 200-101

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And now at last to the meat of the poll.

200: The Sixth Doctor: The Last Adventure (6 Points, 1 First Place, 1 Non-Televised)

199: The Turing Test (6 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

198: The Tides of TIme (6 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

197: Seeing I (6 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

196: The Marian Conspiracy (6 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

195: The Dying Days (6 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

194: The Time Travellers (6 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

193: The Room With No Doors (6 Points, 5 Non-Televised)

192: Lucie Miller/To the Death (6 Points, 7 Non-Televised, 2 Downvotes)

191: Just War (6 Points, 4 Non-Televised)

190: The Seeds of Death (6 Points)

189: Black Orchid (6 Points, 1 Downvote)

188: The Christmas Invasion (6 Points, 2 Downvotes)

187: Frontier in Space (6 Points, 1 Last Place, 1 Downvote)

186: TARDIS Eruditorum (7 Points, 1 First Place, 2 Non-Televised)

I’d have had fifteen points if I’d counted all the things that were entries of TARDIS Eruditorum here. Keep that in mind when we get to 138th place.

185: This Town Will Never Let Us Go (7 Points, 1 First Place, 1 Non-Televised)

184: Master (7 Points, 7 Non-Televised)

183: Davros (7 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

182: The Iron Legion (7 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

181: The Well-Mannered War (7 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

180: Deadline (7 Points, 5 Non-Televised)

179: Set Piece (7 Points, 5 Non-Televised)

178: The Year of Intelligent Tigers (7 Points, 5 Non-Televised)

177: Shada (7 Points, 1 First Place)

176: Death of the Doctor (7 Points, 3 Non-Televised)

175: Planet of the Spiders (7 Points)

174: The Tomb of the Cybermen (7 Points, 1 First Place, 11 Downvotes)

This was 23rd in the most recent Doctor Who Magazine poll.

173: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? (8 Points, 1 First Place, 3 Non-Televised)

172: Festival of Death (8 Points, 7 Non-Televised)

171: …ish (8 Points, 7 Non-Televised)

170: Dark Eyes (8 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

169: The Book of the War (8 Points, 6 Non-Televised)

This is arguably the highest placed Faction Paradox book.

168: The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot (8 Points, 5 Non-Televised)

167: Full Circle (8 Points, 1 First Place)

166: The Keeper of Traken (8 Points)

165: State of Decay (8 Points)

Something of a consensus regarding Season Eighteen there.

164: The Curse of Peladon (8 Points, 1 Downvote)

What do you reckon the odds are that the downvote was aiming for Monster of Peladon and missed?

162: Campaign (9 Points, 1 First Place, 3 Non-Televised)

163: The One Doctor (9 Points, 8 Non-Televised)

161: The Daleks’ Masterplan (9 Points, 1 Downvote)

160: The Name of the Doctor (9 Points, 1 Last Place, 5 Downvotes)

159: The Infinity Doctors (10 Points, 8 Non-Televised)

158: Hide (10 Points, 1 Last Place, 3 Downvotes)

157: A Good Man Goes to War (10 Points, 2 Last Place, 12 Downvotes)

156: The Eleventh Doctor Comic (11 Points, 11 Non-Televised)

Combined a bunch of votes for individual issues and various parts of the series here.

155: The Scarlet Empress (11 Points, 1 First Place, 6 Non-Televised)

154: Continuity Errors (11 Points, 10 Non-Televised)

153: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street (11 Points, 8 Non-Televised)

152: The Macra Terror (11 Points)

151: The Day of the Daleks (11 Points, 1 Downvote)

150: The Dæmons (11 Points, 3 Downvotes)

149: Terror of the Autons (11 Points, 1 Last Place)

148: The Daleks (11 Points, 5 Downvotes)

147: Asylum of the Daleks (11 Points, 1 Last Place, 2 Downvotes)

146: The Web Planet (11 Points, 1 Last Place, 6 Downvotes)

145: Smith and Jones (12 Points)

144: The Time Warrior (12 Points)

143: Doctor Who and the Silurians (12 Points, 1 Downvote)

142: The Space Museum (12 Points, 1 Downvote)

141: Boom Town (12 Points, 2 Downvotes)

140: The Unicorn and the Wasp (12 Points, 2 Last Place)

139: Shada (Gareth Roberts Novelization) (13 Points, 13 Non-Televised)

As promised, all non-televised votes for Shada went to this, which made it Shada’s highest placing.…

October 5, 2016

Comics Reviews (October 5th, 2016)

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Jessica Jones #1

An adequate first issue, although annoyingly hard to square away with Jessica Jones’s recent appearance in Spider-Man just a couple of weeks ago, which makes sense, as it’s obviously difficult for two writers to square up their plots in two different books, especially when there’s a major crossover going on that’s throwing all sorts of books out of sync. Oh wait, both books and the crossover are by the same writer who’s consistently a fucking trainwreck when it comes to this sort of thing. Anyway, it’s very “yes this is an issue of Alias Jessica Jones” that dumps a bunch of premise in a pile on the floor and promises to come back later and do something with it. Coin flip whether I bother to do so.

Shade the Changing Girl #1

Good premise and good art, but nothing that’s quite sparking for me. The alien weirdness, not unlike Doom Patrol, feels a bit forced – like an homage to a particular style of comics zaniness rather than something that’s actually extending out of the creative team’s interests. I suspect this is going to be the crux of my problem with the Young Animals stuff – the sense that it’s mostly the borrowed fire of twenty year old comics done with a contemporary gloss.

James Bond: Eidolon #10

An absolutely rock solid comic. Ellis moves his pieces around the board deliberately, with each of the scenes building tension and complexifying the situation until the final one, which gloriously upends everything and kicks the plot into high gear. Can’t wait for the denouement to all of this.

Shipwreck #1

Surreal, unsettling, and not entirely clear about what it’s doing yet. At the moment this seems to be Ellis in the same vein as Supreme: Blue Rose, but with Phil Hester in place of Tula Lotay. This means less avant garde art, but isn’t really a problem – Hester’s a rock solid and clear storyteller, and his jagged figures are haunted things that look like they staggered out of a fever dream. This is playing its cards close to the chest, and it’ll be a good few issues before it’s possible to declare for sure that it’s brilliant (remember how long Injection took to get to a boil?), but by all appearances it’s another triumph for late phase Ellis. …

October 5, 2016

The Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Poll: 364-201

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And with the introductory sections done we finally get to things that at least two people voted for. This’ll be the last day to be overwhelmingly non-televised material as well.

363: Doctor Who and the Fangs of Time (2 Point, 2 Non-Televised)

Wait, wasn’t this on yesterday’s list? Yes, briefly, until I noticed that in addition to the person who had entered the title as “Doctor Who and the Fangs of Doom” there was someone who’d voted for it correctly, meaning that it got two points and that I had to renumber half the damn entry. So this gets put last among the two-pointers because I now literally hate it more than anything that isn’t The Celestial Toymaker.

362. Cuddlesome (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

One voter specified the Audio-Visuals version. While it would have been funny to put the story in the 120-way tie twice because of that, I didn’t.

361. They Say (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

Wack’d was sad yesterday that the bulk of his votes for stories by lyricwritesprose were in the big messy 121-way tie, so for the record, apparently “A Problem of Background,” “Boxing Day,” “Lies Told to Children,” and “See Ye Not That Bonny Road” are also good. (Addendum: Apparently Wack’d wasn’t one of the voters for this one.)

360. Because We Want To (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

I’d somehow never seen this before. It’s genuinely astonishing how much of the Russell T Davies era is accurately anticipated by it.

359: Borrowed Time (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

One vote specified that this was for the novel. The other didn’t, and there’s technically a comic story with the same title, but I’m going to guess they meant the novel too.

358: Fear of the Dark (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

357: The Feast of the Drowned (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

356: The Fourth Wall (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

Nobody specified whether they meant the Big Finish story or the comic story, but as I remember banging on to someone or other about how obvious an idea using the Boneless in comics was, I decided it gets to be the comics story.

355: The Red Lady (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

354: The Spectre of Lanyon Moor (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

353: The Two Masters (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

352: The Dead Line (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

351: The Cruel Sea (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

350: The Cold Equations (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

349: Legend of the Cybermen (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

348: Something Inside (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

347: The Last Doctor (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

346: The Council of Nicaea (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

345: The Church and the Crown (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

344: The Cabinet of Light (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

343: Sympathy for the Devil (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

342: Prisoner of the Daleks (2 Points, 2 Non-Televised)

I was more than slightly releived, when Googling for the link there, that I was wrong and this was not the Dalek porn thing, which is called Abducted by the Daleks.…

October 4, 2016

The Eruditorum Press Doctor Who Poll Results: The One Point Club

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Today we get the vast swath of the list that clocked in at exactly one point. The overwhelming majority of these are things that got exactly one vote, and indeed one vote off of the non-televised section. Indeed, if you want to jump straight to televised stuff, skip ahead to 382nd place. Also, I should admit that my tie-breaking ranking in these lower recesses of the charts is less careful than my adjudication of the larger extremes, generally based on mild whimsy. Which also brings us to the one tie of the poll – the one point non-televised stories that I was sufficiently unfamiliar with or indifferent to that I had no views whatsoever on what their order should be. But before that we have a one point non-televised story that I felt strongly should come in below all of them.

626: Death Comes to Time (1 Point, 1 Non-Televised)

Yes, yes. I wish you’d thought to downvote it too. Which brings us to our tie.

507: 118-Way Tie (1 Point, 1 Non-Televised)

That’s a tie among A Good Dalek, A Groatsworth of Wit, A Problem of Background by Lyricwritesprose, Almost Perfect, Beautiful Freak, Born again, Boxing Day, Brave New Town, Children of the Revolution, City of the Damned, Cloud of Fear, Corner of the Eye, Cradle of the Snake, Crusade, Dead of Winter, Death And The Queen, Death Takes a Holiday, Death’s Deal, Deep Time, Devious, Doctor Who Quiz Book of Dinosaurs, Dreams of Empire, Ecce Medicus Donnaque!, Fade Away, Fall to Earth, Flight of the Darned, Gods and Monsters, Grand Theft Cosmos, Ground Zero, Hiccups, Jago & Litefoot: Beautiful Things , Kingdom of Silver/Keepsake, Lies Told to Children, Master of Spiders, Night of the Whisper, Night Thoughts, Nothing at the End of the Lane, Now or Therabouts, Oblivion, Only the Monstrous, Outrage of the Zygons, Paper Cuts, People Used to Dream About the Future, Picnic at Asgard, Pitter-Patter, Pull to Open, Pureblood, Revolution Man, Rise and Fall, Robot Gladiators (The K-9 series’ only appearance in the poll), Second Chances, See Ye Not That Bonny Road, Sisters of the Flame/ Vengeance of Morbius, Son Of The Dragon, Space in Dimensions Relative and Time, Survival of the Fittest, Technophobia, Terry Nation’s Dalek comics, That video of Phil playing Soldeed that was offered as a Kickstarter bonus, The 12 Doctors Play DDR, The Auton Stratagem, The Autonomy Bug, The Brood of Erys, The Claws of Santa, The Crossroads of Time, The Crystal Conundrum, The Cybermen, The Dalek Chronicles, The Dalek Factor, The Death of Death, The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories, The Doctor and the Dalek, The Doctor Trap, The Doomwood Curse, The Eleven, The Eleven-Day Empire / The Shadow Play, The Eleventh Doctor: Conversion, The Elixir of Doom, The End of the World (the Big Finish story, as opposed to the television one), The Golden Ones, The Hero of Three Faces, The House of the Dead, The Indestructible Man, The Last, The Last Day, The Last Dodo, The Last Post, The Lost Ones, The Monsters Inside, The Nameless City, The Never Was, The Pair o’ Docs Paradox, The Reaping, The Resurrection Casket, The Scapegoat, The Shadow Planet, The Ship of a Billion Years, The Sleep of Reason, The Sontaran Ordeal, The Stalker of Norfolk, The Stockbridge Showdown, The Tomorrow Windows, Infernal Devices, The Way through the Woods, The Weeping Angels of Mons, The Widow’s Assassin, The Worlds of Doctor Who, Things They Talked About in the Playground, Time Reaver, Trading Futures, Twice Upon a Timelord, UNIT: Extinction, Urgent Calls, Valhalla, Vampire of the Mind, We Are The Daleks, Wirrn Isle, and Yellow Fever And How to Cure It. As you’ve noticed, I’m not linking those for you.…

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