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op is clearly confused & is actually ranking their favourite fish

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The Power of the Daleks

happy november 23rd to all who celebrate. if you have dr who brain rot like me, perhaps you too like overthinking lost TV episodes from the 1960s & enjoy reading people overthink lost TV episodes form the 1960s

Hey, so, uh, it’s been a while. Main big life update: for the past… bit over two years, actually, have had regular non-writing work which has meant less time available to spend on The Blog. I’m sorry there’s been a long hiatus but well long hiatuses and Doctor Who kinda go together so #brandsynergy or whatever the kids are saying these days? Do have a draft of The Highlanders that’s almost…

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So RE: 20-24 episode long seasons, I swear that one of the reasons why this model existed in the form that it did was because it made it quicker to put together a package of episodes to sell for syndication. After all, once you've done two seasons that's enough episodes for a network to buy the rights and either have a show they can broadcast weekly for an entire year *or* that they can broadcast weeknights at 9pm or something for two months, and that can really help fill out a TV schedule. & in the US, which is a *huge* country geographically speaking, you've historically had a lot of local stations that will have had to pay for programming to fill out their schedules. But something that's changed a lot of that lately is streaming - instead of doing like 5 seasons of a show with 20/24 episodes a season where you make money then selling it on to other networks, now you can make a show and just immediately use it to fill out your streaming library. And because you can now watch what used to be shows broadcast on television with your computer (or laptop or phone), you're not as reliant on what programming your local station can buy up now - you can just pay like $14 a month and watch whatever you want. & as has been brought up in the past RE: Netflix, shows which don't continue to see substantial increases in viewership aren't worth the expense of continuing to produce the show (after all, you don't want to just hold onto the paying subscribers you already have - you want to get *more* subscribers. And once a show is in your library, it's still there.)

With broadcast TV if you wanted to rewatch something you'd have to either tape it, buy the VHS/DVD boxsets, or keep an eye out for repeats in the schedule. So there was value in airing repeats - if people liked a show that was one of their ways to rewatch it. So networks would continue to pay for the rights to broadcast repeats, meaning syndication continued to be a way to make money off of a show & the more episodes of it produced the bigger package a network could buy to fill out their schedule. In a way, it benefited viewers, it benefited networks (big and local), and it benefited the production studios making the programmes.

So basically I think streaming has changed the way that television works, and the most obvious way we can see this is that the material conditions that incentivised longer seasons (and even renewing shows for 3 or more seasons) don't really exist anymore.

I miss u 20-24 episodes long seasons, I miss u openings mixed with season footage, i miss u weekly releases, I miss u person who videotaped the episodes I missed

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i think its really funny when people say they don't like political media and just want something 'cozy' and 'discourse free' then the media theyre talking about is like. miyazaki movies. or the moomins

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If you fall for a social media prank, do you reblog/pass it on to your followers?

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nixon-proof bottle

cmon child safety lid you know it's me

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In loving memory of Bernard Cribbins 1928-2022 ↳ 14x01: The Star Beast || 14x02: Wild Blue Yonder

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“Mom’s gay friend from her thirties had a mental breakdown so he’s going to live in our backyard for awhile until his antidepressants start working” is the funniest ending any of us could’ve hoped for God bless

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So, since I didn't really promote anything while I was sick with Covid, shamelessly sharing this book I put a lot of work and love into. It's a (free!) novel written to celebrate Arcbeatle Press' 10th Anniversary. You don't need to know jack shit going into it, and other people tell me parts of it are deeply moving. Deals a lot with mental health. Also features Chris Cwej from the Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures because why not (and he's legally licensed to appear!). So yeah. Go enjoy it. It's free. Have fun.

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The X-Files + Scully’s Darkness Falls Jacket

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Let's engage in a bit of self-promotion here, considering news that the Toymaker isn't just appearing in the 60th anniversary specials (played by Neil Patrick Harris), but that his first appearance in the lost 1966 serial The Celestial Toymaker will be given an animated reconstruction.

Basically, all things Toymaker are in vogue right now so why not dust off an old blog post digging into The Celestial Toymaker and give it a fresh audience?

So let's get the ball rolling. Who is the Toymaker, and how does he fit into a broader understanding of Doctor Who in the mid-1960s? What might his relationship with the Doctor be, and what does that relationship say about the Doctor's background before the first appearance of the Time Lords in 1969? Just what kind of ideas are there within the surviving frames and audio of The Celestial Toymaker which Davies might tap into for "The Giggle"?

Maybe I don't have any answers, but it's still fun to think about: http://chairwithapanda.home.blog/2020/12/01/the-celestial-toymaker/ NOTE: I try to be good and cite the writers that I'm working from, but in the original blog post I did not credit Paul Williams (even though I quoted from his work extensively). His chapter "Race, War and Apocalypse before 1945" in Race, Ethnicity and Nuclear War: Representations of Nuclear Weapons and Post-Apocalyptic Worlds is basically the key text I referred to when writing about mid-1960s Doctor Who.

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We need to bring back private rail cars as the cool, sexy, exclusive way to travel, so instead of dumping the carbon budget of a small nation in the global south on private jets, celebrities have to attach their luxury pull an cars to the back of an Amtrak. Then the celebrities will lobby for Amtrak lines to be better

Seriously when did this

Become sexier than this

Like isn't it nice to watch the scenery, to be able to open a window and have fresh air, to be able to stand up all the way, not have your ears pop?

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With the hbomberguy plagiarism video on fire right now I want to share my favorite example of egregious plagiarism.

I’m a marine biologist. Currently getting my PhD. I’ve done a lot of scholarly writing. Many classes I took as an undergraduate had big writing components. I took limnology at one point as an elective. This course had one such big writing assignment.

The professor told us a story. He said he once got a student paper that absolutely blew him away. It was way beyond what he’d expected from the class. This was before we had online tools to check for plagiarism. The paper impressed him so much that he brought it home to show it to his wife. She began reading it and then set it down, looked at him, and said, “Dan, you wrote this.”

This student was dumb enough to not only copy a published paper verbatim, but to copy a paper published by the professor of the class.

AND HE NEARLY GOT AWAY WITH IT.