Raven

The Waters of Mars is going to air on Sunday 15th November at 7pm. Well may you Wooo!

Voice of Phil Archer dies aged 85. I'm genuinely sorry to hear that.

I feel I should come clean at this point, and confess to helping run a Spaced web site . . .

Do! It's very good (although the second series isn't as good as the first and third). Katy Carmichael (Twist) and Julia Deakin (Marsha). I've seen them both in person, and actually have Julia's autograph (and Simon, Jessica, Edgar and Nicks) on my series one DVD inlay!

Hehehe!

I've had problems picking it up . . . (I started it about a year ago, read the first forty pages or so, put it down and never went back to it and I'm not sure why).

Oo! Harsh! It's been a while since I last read it, but I remember Feet of Clay as being quite good. I'll be interested to see what you think of Jingo (I'd recommend saving Hogfather for Christmas!).

I can't think of another book that has made me think as much whilst I was reading it (to the point where I would have to go back and re-read the last few lines because my mind had gone off on a tangent all of its own!).

I managed to pick up a near pristine copy of Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book by Brian Froud today for just a fiver - bargain!

You're right, you have! You can buy Babylon 5 on Amazon for

I can personally recommend: The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells and The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes, both by John Wyndham And although I didn't get on with it (it was a bit too bleak for my liking), The Drowned World, by J.G. Ballard is quite highly regarded by some.

It took me a couple of viewings to fully warm to the idea, but to my mind Star Trek went in the right direction for a movie franchise that is [probably] going to be carrying the Star Trek flag for the next few years (and it was a much better film than Nemesis). Whilst I'd agree that it was thin on intellectual ideas, having re-watched some episodes from the rather po-faced TNG again recently, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. I do think the next film will need to have a bit more meat on its bones, story wise, however. No, but I've heard good things about it and I'm looking forward to it being released on DVD at some point! I'm currently watching SG-1 season 9 for the first time and it's strange seeing Ben Browder and Claudia Black together in a show without anyone yelling "Frell!" every five minutes!

You're not one of the "It's not Star Trek!" party, are you?!

All I'll say is just wait until Star Trek starts making some serious cash again . . .

My money is on Dirty Den, and it being his zombie love child!

I personally don't think this program achieved much at all. The co-opting of the regular Question Time format into a debate on the BNP didn't really serve anyone's interests; and I think the BBC was at fault for not sticking to its usual format. On one hand they were saying we have to be fair and have him on the show because he is now an MEP, but on the other hand they well and truly stacked the cards against him from the outset, and Dimbleby's "I don't want this just to be a debate on the BNP" remark before moving onto Jan Moir's repellent article - with just ten minutes to go out of an hour-long program - was just a joke! I don't have any sympathy for Griffin, he got just what he deserved, but whilst I think the BBC were right to have him on the program, I think they botched it, and that's now given him the chance to play the victim. It was nice to see Jack Straw make a tit of himself, though.

I don't believe I'm being cynical, I just have a good idea of how the game is played. Very few shows are willing to kill off main characters, and Star Trek is probably one of the worst offenders. If there had been another Next Generation film - and there still could be, I wouldn't rule it out - I believe Spiner would have been involved. Data’s death scene was written and filmed, but the get out was in place* - that's all I'm saying. *Thinking about it, in a lot of ways, it's a very similar get out to the one they used in Time's Arrow.

I generally don't regard comics and novels as being part of the Trek "canon" - for want of a better term - as there are so many, and they tend to contradict themselves as much as the TV programs they are based on, but at the same time it was pretty obvious from the moment that Data downloaded a copy of himself into B4 that they had an out for the death of his character. Spiner is on record as saying he doesn't see how he can continue to play an android when he himself is aging, but had Nemesis done better at the box office, and had Stewart and Co. been convinced to come back, I'm sure Data would have been a part of the story, one way or another.

The original cover for 500 Mile Walkies was much better, I'll have to scan and post it sometime!

WHSmiths are currently selling Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett, for

The Golden Compass tanked at he box office - the studio behind it though they would have another Harry Potter on their hands, it didn't quite work out like that and with all the story shredding they would have to do in the next two films, to keep the American right happy, I think they decided to quietly sweep the series under the carpet . . . District 10, perhaps?

He's only dead in the same respect that Spock was dead after Wrath of Khan. If the story is good enough, or the pay packet large enough, we'll see the character again. Personally, I don't think Nemesis is the end of his story (indeed, it isn't, if you've read Star Trek: Countdown).

Now there's a coincidence; I finished Boogie up the River this evening, and here is my review of 500 Mile Walkies from a month or so ago. I've not read The Day Job, I don't even own a copy, but that is something I intend to rectify that shortly!

I don't think Nemesis fully deserves the bad press it often gets. The story is basically sound, and there is a lot to commend it, it just falls down in a few areas and is flawed by being a story general viewers just don't care about. The main problem is the direction is pretty woeful, and was the cause of a lot of on-set friction that didn't help the filming (I think it would have been a better film all round if Jonathan Frakes had directed it). It's certainly a better film than both Insurrection and Generations, anyway.

Good news! Dave seem to have confirmed that they will not be editing any future episodes.