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Toxic Custard newsletter transport TV

Sense8’s public transport. Can you name the cities?

I’m always interested to see portrayals of public transport in popular culture. I’ve been watching the Netflix series Sense8 — I’m a bit over halfway through it. (And I just realised the Wikipedia article includes spoilers, so watch your step if you’re planning to watch it). It’s pretty good — at least, I’m intrigued enough  ... [More]

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Doctor Who Photos from ten years ago Toxic Custard newsletter

Photos from March 2005

In my continuing quest to post ten year old photos, I went looking for good stuff from March 2005. There isn’t much of interest, alas. It was the month that the new revamped rebooted Doctor Who started — on 26th March 2005 — and I did find this photo of Jeremy — not watching from  ... [More]

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Toxic Custard newsletter TV

The West Wing and widescreen

This is one of those blog posts which is mostly for my own interest. We’re up to the start of season 2 in our West Wing DVD (re)watching. That season 1 cliffhanger is brilliant… only spoilt by the excessively perky end theme music (I love the opening title music, but I’ve never liked the ending  ... [More]

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Toxic Custard newsletter TV

SVOD: Stan, Presto, Netflix, Quickflix

I’ve been pondering Streaming Video On Demand (SVOD) services. The thinking goes like this: Let’s say I want to watch Breaking Bad. I’ve heard great things about it, and I love high-quality long-form drama that good television provides. Blu-ray is the best way to watch this type of drama, for the ultimate in (domestically-available) quality  ... [More]

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Toxic Custard newsletter TV

The West Wing looks ahead to the 21st century

In my house, we’re re-watching The West Wing, after I bought the box set cheap last year as a present to myself. It’s just as brilliant as it ever was, and once again leaves you wishing that Barlet actually ran the White House… or if he wasn’t in the White House, then maybe in The  ... [More]

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Culture Doctor Who Melbourne Toxic Custard newsletter

Geek central, Melbourne

They say geek is the cool, right? Geek central in Melbourne must be the corner of Elizabeth and Little Collins Streets. Why? Because within a few metres are no less than three pop culture shops: Firstly, there’s the Doctor Who “popup” (eg temporary, until January) shop. Actually it has Sherlock merchandise too, which probably makes  ... [More]

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Toxic Custard newsletter TV

Why does the government want to kill Community TV?

It takes a special kind of cunning to first nobble the National Broadband Network, that if fully implemented might have been able to reliably deliver realtime high-definition video into homes… …and then cancel community television licences, and demand those stations go online instead. This seems like a bad idea in many ways, not the least  ... [More]

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Film Toxic Custard newsletter TV

Doctor Who breaks new ground for television

It would seem Doctor Who is breaking new ground in some interesting ways. They’ve engineered a “world tour” which involves the show’s stars jetting around the world for live appearances in 6 cities around the globe over about a week. It’s just about finished now… I’d imagine they’d be suffering horribly from jetlag by the  ... [More]

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Culture Doctor Who Toxic Custard newsletter

A day at OzComicCon

We went to OzComicCon for the first time on Sunday. Here are some photos. It was at the Exhibition Buildings, and pretty much filled the space, both upstairs and downstairs, plus a couple of big tents outside, one of which included the main stage. Parts of it got quite crowded, and it was kind of  ... [More]

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books Doctor Who Film Retrospectives Toxic Custard newsletter TV

Before home video

In the days before home video, we had to resort to other means to re-live movies and TV shows. Novelisations of productions were common. I knew people who had hundreds of Doctor Who novelisations — virtually every story had a book published. I had perhaps a dozen. Other books made it into publication — scripts,  ... [More]

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Retrospectives Toxic Custard newsletter TV

Who remembers Infinity Limited?

Sometime one morning in 1983 (I think) I was walking through Elsternwick Park on my way to the bus stop to go to school (year 7), when I saw a hot air balloon at low altitude. On the basket appeared to be a Penrose triangle — the logo for Infinity Limited, the ABC’s science show  ... [More]

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TV

RIP Rik Mayall

BBC: Rik Mayall, star of The Young Ones, dies aged 56 I’m quite upset by this news. As a teenager, I grew up with – and adored – the shows he was in… The Young Ones of course, but I went hunting for those that people may have since forgotten (or never seen, because they  ... [More]