First Impressions: Torchwood

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CSI: Cardiff. I’d like to see that. They’d be measuring the velocity of a kebab.

I realize that I’m coming somewhat late to the party, but I’ve just begun watching the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood, which recently came out on Region 1 DVD.

Torchwood Logo

Featuring Captain Jack Harkness, one of the Doctor’s occasional companions, and his band of alien chasers and tech scavengers, Torchwood is a much grittier and mature show than its parent program. It’s refreshing to watch science fiction with a bit of an edge, particularly in the television/episodic format. I often wonder what a show like Babylon 5 would have been like without the particular strictures of network television.

There’s a fine line between gratuitous and developmental, though. When a show pushes typical boundaries to tell a story more fully, then adding a more adult “sheen” serves a purpose. But adding adult contexts to a show merely to titillate cheapens the storytelling and the show in general. Does Torchwood burnish or tarnish the whole Doctor Who franchise?

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Idiot Rules: The Nuclear Option

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Over at Zone of Influence, Matt Kirschenbaum has a nice piece on what may be the ultimate in Idiot Rules, the “nuclear die” (“Roll a D6 for Armageddon”):

What I like about this mechanic is that it breaks the frame of the game. By forcing the player to risk something very real—not just prospects for victory, because every wargamer wins and loses lots of games—but the time and experience already invested in setting up and playing the game and all the potential play that still remained.

Most Idiot Rules try to keep the wargamer in line by threatening the possibility of victory in some way—don’t cross this line or your opponent gains x amount of Victory Points, don’t abandon this city or you forfeit y number of reinforcement steps. The gamer has, at times, a choice and can balance the possible cost against the potential benefit.

Contemporary and Cold War wargames need to include the nuclear, chemical, and biological aspect, particularly in any hypothetical NATO/Pact conflicts. Leaving them out detracts from the sense of reality, but to allow their use without any penalty is equally unrealistic.

Boom.

The solution, as Matt points out, is to put something more than victory or defeat at stake. When games model nuclear escalation via the “nuclear die,” players leave to chance the possibility that a strategic nuclear exchange can occur. Lob that tactical nuke if you must, or use that chemical or biological strike to bump up an attack to the next odds column, but if you do, there’s a possibility that it’s game over.

No winner, no loser, just finished. Pack the counters back in the Plano.

Given that it’s a fair investment of time and effort to set up a wargame and play through it, being forced to stop the game is a potent deterrent indeed. Only an idiot would risk it, which is a fair model of the use of nuclear weapons as well.

Doctor Who Project: Marco Polo

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I find your caravan most unusual, Doctor.

With the Fast Return Switch unstuck, the TARDIS lurches back from The Edge of Destruction and deposits our intrepid travelers on the Roof of the World, the Himalayas—Earth, albeit in the Thirteenth Century. But nothing can be easy, because the TARDIS promptly breaks down again, depriving them of heat, light, and water, miles from civilization of any sort. Luckily, though, they get a tow:

Need a lift?

Marco Polo just happens to be traveling by and gives the Doctor’s “caravan” a lift and his name to the seven-episode story. “Marco Polo” (Story Production Code D) is the first of the “historical” Dr. Who stories and, alas, the first of the stories that no longer exist in filmed form.

D'oh!

For reasons of frugality, shortsightedness, confusion, and bureaucratic bumbling, the BBC erased, discarded, and destroyed the video tapes holding either directly recorded or “telerecorded” episodes of many stories from the William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton eras. Film cans with master recordings were also destroyed. Fire hazards, I suppose. Only slowly did prints sent to other countries for broadcast, plus privately purchased recordings and even, as in the case of “Marco Polo,” audio recordings of the broadcasts, begin to return to the BBC. Richard Molesworth’s 1998 article for Doctor Who Magazine on the state of the Dr. Who archives provides a fascinating look into the complexities, quiet tragedies, and minor miracles surrounding the early stories’ loss and (partial) recovery. So this look at “Marco Polo” is based on a remastered (and abridged) audio recording of the story, accompanied by production photographs, put out by the BBC as a special feature on the DVDs of the initial three Hartnell stories.

So just what did the BBC destroy when they trashed “Marco Polo”?

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"The Game is the Thing": Gary Gygax on Rules

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Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away on March 4, 2008. His influence on role playing games of all types is inestimable.

61-68 gets you an Otyugh!

One of the richest sources of his thinking on rules and games is the original Dungeon Masters Guide (TSR, 1979). The DMG, while a thick book of rules itself, contains many exhortations to use the rules as tools to further the game rather than as constraints. Yet he was also mindful that too loose an interpretation of the rules could undo the base consistency he felt players had a right to expect from the game.

A collection of Gary Gygax’s thoughts on gaming and rules from the DMG follows.

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Philly Pork Passion in the Post

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In what might be a first, and almost certainly will be a last, Movement Point has scooped the Washington Post!

In today’s Post, we find a paean to the Philadelphia roast pork sandwich, essentially replicating the findings here at Movement Point a full month ago about the superior quality of the roast pork sandwich as compared to the cheesesteak. It’s hard being a trend setter . . .

Oblique View of Roast Pork Sandwich from DiNic's on Flickr.com

Tim Warren’s article, “Gee Whiz, Cheesesteak Isn’t Philly’s Best Sub,” nicely describes the life-altering experience of his first roast pork sandwich encounter:

But when the transformative moment came for me, when the broccoli rabe mingled with the provolone and pork and juices in my mouth, it was easy to move on. Going from cheesesteaks to roast pork sandwiches was like listening to whatever pop music was on the radio, and one day discovering a station that played Sinatra and Duke Ellington.

Welcome to the fold, Tim.

Doctor Who Project: Inside the Spaceship/The Edge of Destruction

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Have you any idea where we are, Doctor?
Where is not as important as why, young man!

That little incident with the Daleks behind them, our time travelers hop back on the TARDIS and promptly get stuck “Inside the Spaceship” (Story Production Code C). You’d swear that the inside of the TARDIS really did conform to the dimensions of a police box, the way being cooped up in there begins to affect them:

Bad Hair Day, with Scissors

This two episode story, also known as “The Edge of Destruction,” takes place entirely inside the TARDIS, the only story so confined and the only story solely featuring the Doctor and his companions. But while just William Hartnell (the Doctor), Carol Ann Ford (Susan), Jacqueline Hill (Barbara), and William Russell (Ian) are credited, one must make the case that the TARDIS becomes, for the first time, a character in Doctor Who as well. “Inside the Spaceship” is as much about the four travelers growing stronger as a team as it is about the mysterious workings of the TARDIS itself, even if the plot does hinge on a wonky spring.

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