In Memoriam: Elisabeth Sladen

I just heard the news and I'm shocked. It's unbelievable how saddened I am to hear of the passing of someone I've never met. I didn't even know she was sick, and I'm not alone. Even her former co-star, Tom Baker, claims he was taken completely by surprise.

Crazy. Utterly crazy. 63? Really?

Yes, this is a forum for mostly RPG-type stuff, but I couldn't let my little corner of cyberspace go without some sort of tribute to the amazing actress who portrayed Sarah Jane Smith...

I know Doctor Who has the reputation for being a children's show. Or maybe it's derided for being "just genre stuff" or (in the 60s through 80s) cheaply-made. But when it was good, it was great. And I mean great television, period. Above-and-beyond any other consideration.

And there was no better era of Doctor Who than the one which featured Lis Sladen. Sarah Jane was my favorite companion and she traveled with my favorite doctor. She, Tom Baker, producer Phillip Hinchcliff, and script editor Robert Holmes put together the most amazing era of Doctor Who ever, and I still get great enjoyment watching the episodes those four (and others, of course) put together.

I'm not alone, of course. The most recent testament to her popularity among Doctor Who fans is that she above all other classic companions was chosen to return for the new series. She was also picked to star in one aborted spin off and one successful one. She was chosen to return for the 1983 Five Doctor special. It seems every time Doctor Who looked to its past for a popular companion, Lis Sladen was the obvious choice.

And now she's gone. The world no longer has Sarah Jane in it. I still can't believe it.


PS: While reading the copious testaments to Lis Sladen, I learned that Nicholas Courtney, aka the Brigadier, also died a couple months back. It seems it's been a bad year for fans of the classic Doctor Who era, and we're not even half through it yet. R.I.P Nick Courtney.

Maps Done!

The title says it all. 53 out of 53 done. It feels pretty darned good to have such a massive piece of the module done for once and for all. The final map is of a small village built into some hills. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Progress Matrix
It's been a while since I updated the progress matrix, but with this milestone now out of the way, it makes sense to take another peek. I'm going to hit the Act III blueprints next. I have a list of 100 creature blueprints and a dozen or so item blueprints I'll need, and, given the number of hours I seem to be working lately, I estimate that'll take me about 7-8 days to finish off. After that, I have a list of 18 to 25 loadscreens I want to make up. I've never done my own loadscreens, but the process doesn't seem too hard, so I'm hoping that will go fairly quickly as well.

Wrapping those up will allow me to "check off" the two boxes with red zeroes in them, and then I can hit the Act III dialogs hard. I've only got about 13.2% of them done in the toolset, but I probably have another 20% - 25% done in MS Word format, so that portion will go quickly. The rest, however, still need to be written from scratch.


Doctor Who: The Poison Sky
Well... another finale that keeps an adventure from being a true classic. I guess the writers just don't know how to get out of the jams they get the characters into without resulting to "magic wands." At least this wasn't as bad as previous attempts.

And what is it about Helen Raynor that makes her want to write the Doctor with a death wish? It was outright pathetic in "Evolution of the Daleks" when the Doctor literally begged to be killed. Only slightly less pathetic was the Doctor's desire to commit suicide in finishing off the Sontarans. As Luke Rattigan asked, why not put the device on a sort of timer? I know the Doctor in the most recent series has to be shown giving everyone a chance to act right and leave, thereby justifying him when he finally destroys them. Normally, I'm OK with this. However, with the Sontarans, it is outright lame. It's as if he's never met one before! Hell, by that point, he had even met that specific one before... not that it matters, of course. They are all clones of each other bred within the same society under exactly the same circumstances. They are therefore likely to give exactly the same answer. Is it too much of a stretch to think the Doctor would just assume the answer when the alternative is sacrificing himself?

But the real pisser is that even if he just had to give the Sontarans their chance, there was a communication device in the Rattigan Academy. We know this because it was used by the Sontarans to communicate with Luke in the teaser to "The Sontaran Strategem." Did no one think of this? Bah!

Hey, Doctor, if you just absolutely have to die, put a gun in your mouth and be done with it.

That's not to say the episode was without merit. The three principals acquitted themselves well, and Tennant was a bit less hammy than normal. There were some nice family moments with Donna, though it is now clear that three companions in a row have had a shrewish mother. Russell Davies simply has to get some new ideas here for companion #4, whenever that is.

UNIT was handled relatively well also. Colonel Mace makes a worthy successor to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and there's even the briefest hint of pain (?) on his face when the Doctor let's slip that he's no Brigadier and Mace admits that "Alistair is a fine man, probably the best." As I said before, the Sontarans were well characterized, though slightly less so than in "The Sontaran Strategem." I thought their plan of rendering the copper-coated bullets useless was quite clever - unusually so for the current crop of scientifically-challenged writers, but I swear those nifty suits of armor they wear are next to useless if steel bullets can pierce them. I mean, even humans have Kevlar vests that take the punch out of bullets. Can a race capable of interstellar travel and maintaining a 50,000 year war with the Rutans not stop a bullet? As with so many other episodes in the new series, there's a lot that's good, but there's just enough for me to regret what might have been.

Next Up: The series takes on a long-standing question in "The Doctor's Daughter." Though some have since tried to discredit their relationship, it seems clear from interviews with the original creative team that Susan was meant to be the Doctor's biological granddaughter, so he must therefore have also had a son or daughter at some point. I'm not so sure how thrilled I am that the series is "going there," but we'll see what's in store.

Interestingly enough, the role of the Doctor's daughter seems to be portrayed by Georgia Moffett, another complete unknown here in the States, though she has some modest fame in the U.K., having appeared in, among other series, The Bill. Georgia Moffett is the daughter of Peter Moffett... who's stage name in the industry is Peter Davison. A clever bit of casting to be sure.

Steady Progress

Podcast Interview This Friday!
I mentioned this a little while ago, but now it's almost upon us! This Friday is the release of my interview with the NWN Podcast team. Find the interview at their website here and listen to me sound important for a day!

Maimed God Progress
I have spent the last week finishing off all the maps. Yes, it seems like I've been doing this forever, but NWN2 maps are a very different animal from NWN maps. I've revised all the "completed" maps from Acts I and II, handled the two walkmesh issues I mentioned last time, and gone on to create one of the two remaining maps. I have now completed 52 out of the 53 I will need, and the last one is (barely) started.

I'm including two pictures from the latest map I'm calling "The Ruined Village." Something destroyed it as you can see... something dangerous! Gee, I wonder what that is! Actually, this is one possible outcome to one of the choices you make, so not everyone will see it on every play-through. I'm not going into it further except to say that this is an example of my commitment to having choices matter in this game. Make certain ones - maybe even one you think is correct at the time - and villages get wiped out.

The Sontaran Stratagem
I'll refrain from commenting (much) on the latest episode until next week. Helen Raynor (the writer) has had excellent opening episodes before (see last year's "Daleks in Manhatten") only to then fall flat in the conclusion. In general, the new Doctor Who is great at setting up impossible situations for cliff-hangers that are only resolvable by the most implausible means. We'll see next week.

That aside, I can say that I appreciate the characterization of the Sontarans in the latest episode. As I said last time, they're absolutely my favorite Doctor Who villains, and their mythos was well-handled. Little touches like General Staal lamenting that the Time War "was the greatest war in all history and we weren't even allowed to participate!" go a long way towards fleshing out the race. They were always militaristic, but we now see that it is not necessarily forced upon them by their conflict with the Rutan Host. Notwithstanding their commitments against that enemy, they actually longed to participate in a war they saw as grander in scale than theirs!

Anyways, more next week, but if the conclusion holds up to the introduction, I'll be very happy indeed.

Meandering Thoughts...

Who'd have thought the Vikings would be winning both polls... Eh, we'll see when May 1st rolls around.

Lots of Maimed Work
I had a fantastic day of work today on TMGS... FINALLY! Tomorrow looks to be equally promising, and I'm going back again after I post this update. I completed and revised several maps, and I can now say that I'm 100% done with the maps for Act III. That's 19 of them. I had originally planned 21 for Act III, but one of these was a generic road where a chance encounter would take place. There are no other suitable maps already in Act III, but it so happens that I have a perfect map already in Act I. I was trying to have each Act be its own module in the three-module campaign, but I'll port the player back to the first module briefly to avoid increasing the size of the files further with a one-encounter map. The final map I had planned is for a sidequest that would extend off that encounter, so I'll also add that into Act I so the player is sent back to Act I module briefly, handles the sidequest, and then comes back to the Act III module. Done.

So I also started revising all my maps from Acts I and II. There are a grand total of 53 maps in the entire campaign, and I learned a ton going from 1 to 51 (two more left). I learned several lighting techniques, I think I'm much better now with blending textures, and there was the whole tileset coloring and texturing issue. Suffice it to say, the VanGhaunt mansion is about to get a visit from an interior decorator... Fortunately, the required rework is going very quickly, and I should be done in relatively short order. Then there's the map I talked about just now that needs to be added to Act I, I still have to finish the one sidequest map from Act II I talked about in this progress report, and I remembered that I have a couple walkmesh issues to handle on two Act II maps.

Yay For Zach and Alex
I am a bad Ossian-friend. A very bad Ossian friend! I'm weeks late in congratulating both Zach Holbrook and Alex Hugon for their Module of the Year finishes with Zach, obviously, pulling the top prize. Just goes to show how I lose track of stuff when I have no dog in the race... For the record, I did log into the Vault long enough to vote for Harp and Chrysanthemum. It was clearly the best user-made NWN2 module I played all last year. Actually, it was the only one I played... but it was damned good. Congrats both!

Is this the First Classic Story of the New Who?
I don't know. I waited a week after "The Fires of Pompeii" to say anything because I didn't want to post in the heat of the moment. Suffice it to say, TFoP was very good, but I really can't say it rises to the level of "The Talons of Weng Chiang" or "The Brain of Morbius" from the original series. I keep waiting for the magic episode of the new run, and while some have risen to the level of really good ("The Girl in the Fireplace"), none has been a true classic. Maybe I'm just romanticizing my youth...

Anyway, "The Fires of Pompeii" was pretty dang good. I thought there were a minimum of "magic wand" moments - what I call the times the Doctor waves his sonic screwdriver around and makes all sorts of "magic" happen, the costuming and acting was generally good, few cringe-worthy moments of dialog, only about one or two plot holes...

As an aside, I've never heard of Catherine Tate prior to her joining Doctor Who, but I understand she's a kind of "love her or hate her" personality in the U.K. Frankly, I neither love her nor hate her, but I think her character, after a rather daft start in "The Runaway Bride," is a breath of fresh air. I'm so tired of the "little girl pining for the Doctor" companion. And Catherine can really nail the horrified overwhelmed-by-the-enormity-of-it-all moments. In one episode, 20,000 people are about to be blown up by a volcano. In the next, she realizes millions of Ood are enslaved by the Human Empire. In both, she really brings home the vastness of the horror, something that has been rare in Doctor Who, both then and now.

Next up, an episode I've been waiting for for a while: "The Sontaran Strategem." The Sontarans, believe it or not, were my favorite enemies from the classic series. Maybe it's because they were introduced in one of my all-time favorite stories: "The Time Warrior," which took place in... medieval England! It took four years of waiting, but they're finally back.

Finally, it's time to say it. This is David Tennant's final season. I know what's been said in the media, but they're practically slapping us in the face with the signs. I forget what it was exactly, but something in one of the first two episodes clearly pointed to an impending regeneration. The final episode of the season is called "Journey's End" (compared with Eccleston's final "Parting of the Ways"). The Ood foretold in this episode that "the Doctor's song will end soon." Add to that that the average stay for an actor in the role is three years (this is Tennant's third season) and both Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper swore up and down they were going to stay longer than they did (so I don't believe a damned word that comes from press releases anymore). And, of course, both Liz Sladen and John Leeson are supposed to be returning as Sarah Jane and K9 for the final story. There's something big happening... I'm mixed with my opinion of Tennant in the lead role, but I really will be sorry to see him go.

The only alternative, which I pray does NOT happen, is that "Journey's End" refers to the fate of Sarah Jane. I'll be pissed if they go there.

A Little House Cleaning

Since the last update, I finished another map and worked quite a bit on another. Actually, I wasted a significant amount of work time on that second map because of one of the stupidest mistakes I've made in a while, but I'll detail that all next time. Hopefully, I'll wrap the map up tonight, but who knows...

My Little Medieval Poll
The poll results already look to be fairly conclusive, but I'll refrain from commenting further until it closes. To all who read, please vote if you haven't yet. Feedback like this is important to getting the type of adventures you like... eventually.

House Cleaning
It's time to overhaul my list of links, and I'm going to start with the list of blogs. As much as it pains me, I'm going to have to drop Berliad's blog from the list. As I noted back near the beginning of the year, Berliad was instrumental in my gaining notoriety back in the NWN1 days, so I'm not happy about it, but times change and people move on...

On a more positive note, as I also said recently in my discussion of the NWN Podcast team, there are all sorts of people doing things in the NWN community, many of whom I haven't really noticed before, SO... if you have a blog that's got a significant amount of NWN content on it, let me know and I'll add it to the list. Note that it doesn't have to be exclussively NWN-related (mine isn't!), but it has to have significant space devoted to NWN. As to what constitutes significant, I guess I'll know it when I see it.

The New Doctor Who Begins 4th Season
The current producer of Doctor Who is named Russell T. Davies. Yes, he was named for me... Just kidding, obviously. Anyway, let's just say that it is increasingly obvious that the other Russell Davies can not write good Doctor Who episodes, and I'm becoming increasingly suspicious that he can't write good TV at all. The episodes he pens, including the most recent lack-luster "Partners in Crime," lack imagination, fundamental understanding of science (important, I would say, in a science-fiction series), and frequently any witty dialog at all.

Luckily, next week looks to be a great improvement. It's an episode not written by Davies and set in ancient Rome! "The Fires of Pompeii" already has me excited... Come on, Saturday!

Farewell, Verity Lambert

I was saddened a few days ago to learn that Verity Lambert passed away on November 22nd. Her obituaries will note that she was the first female television producer at the BBC (for the sake of completeness, I have seen that some people dispute this; either way, it was a rare feat) and that she is still to this day the youngest producer in the station's history (28 at the time of her promotion). These are both notable accomplishments, but most importantly to me is that she was the first producer of Doctor Who, and it is one of those ironies that she passed away on the 44th anniversary of the very first broadcast of the very first episode.

It is a funny thing. I sat on the news a few days trying to figure out why it saddened me so much. She was long gone from the show by the time I was even born, much less became a fan, and, though she was a well-respected television producer right up until the past year, I'm hard-pressed to find anything else she did that I cared about. Nevertheless, the news of her passing has hit me harder than I would have expected.

I was in 3rd grade (about 8 years old) when I was first introduced to the adventures of an eccentric time lord who traveled through time and space in his rickety old blue police box, and I was hooked from the very first adventure (The State of Decay - still a favorite of mine). For years, Doctor Who was an important part of my childhood. Every Saturday at 10:00 pm from the age of 8 to around 11 or 12, I would settle down in front of the television for another adventure, and I'll remember those times with great nostalgia for as long as I live.

The fact is that my experience, in one form or another, was and still is shared by millions of children world-wide, and for that we all have Verity Lambert, among others, to thank. Reading as much of the "behind the scenes" information as I have in the past several years, it is clear that she was one of the driving forces that shaped the show in its infancy. Most importantly for Doctor Who's longevity, it was Lambert who fought for the inclusion of the Daleks in the second serial when her boss, Sydney Newman, was adamant that there would be no "bug-eyed monsters." By all accounts, their relationship was frigid for a while following the serial's production and transmission... right up until the viewing figures rolled in, and Newman admitted his mistake. Though the Daleks are far from my personal favorites, there is no doubt that they are the quintessential Doctor Who foe, and they are credited with making Doctor Who a phenomenon... AND they owe their very first appearance in large part to Lambert. I truly believe that she was the right person at the right place at the right time. Without her, Doctor Who almost certainly would not have survived, and my life would have been different for it.

I have also enjoyed Lambert's commentaries on some of the old classic series DVDs I have purchased. They are almost always clear and interesting, and they exude a clear love of the show she helped create. Her camaraderie with the two surviving original stars, Carol Ann Ford and William Russell, was still evident all these years later. And I really think this is key. There were probably around fifteen people who formed the core of the creative team for Doctor Who, people who were truly in a position to know about the events surrounding the show's genesis back in 1963. Unfortunately, forty-four years later, the number of those fifteen that are still around to tell that tale is small, and the passing of Lambert makes it one smaller still. In a very real way, her passing severs yet another link to the past of a show that is itself an important link to mine.

So thank you, Verity Lambert, for your contributions to a wonderful series, and farewell. I shall miss you.

Chugging Along

Ossian Update
Busy day today, but not much that I can really report on. The first half was spent meeting some deadlines for Ossian doing some... uh, secret stuff. And now I get to move on to more deadlines. One wonders when Ossian will make an announcement that might interest people, but until it happens, my lips - or keyboard and mouse as the case may be - are sealed.

Medieval Europe Update
The second half of the day was spent finalizing my historiographical paper. I took most of the week off while it was peer-reviewed, but today was when I took the comments and incorporated them into the final draft. As of about ten minutes ago, that draft officially left my desk. I also spent a couple hours reviewing another student's paper on royal mistresses, but my review of that paper has now also been completed and my comments e-mailed away. So I am now officially 100% done.

The Maimed God's Saga Update
Unfortunately, the above two projects left little time for my NWN2 module, but that doesn't mean there's no news to report. A little while ago, Nicolas Hugon, the brother of fellow-Ossian member Alex 'Hugie' Hugon, e-mailed me two proposed logos for 'The Maimed God's Saga.' As it will be a cleric-class module heavily dependant on Forgotten Realms religious themes, I had originally asked him to come up with something reminiscent of medieval-style calligraphy - i.e. something similar to what old monks used to scribe into manuscripts where the first letter of every page was a complex piece of art.

I am including his design above, but he also sent a more modern design of his own as well. The first is pretty close to what I was looking for, though I would probably ask him to tweak it a bit. However, the second design looks pretty snazzy IMO. I'm probably going to mull them over for a night or two, but feel free to comment.

The Evolution of the Daleks
Well, it was probably inevitable after I raved about the opening episode of the Manahattan-based dalek two-parter last week, but the conclusion did dissappoint a bit. Once again, we got a hammy David Tennant ranting and raving about the daleks, daring them to shoot him, and generally over-acting the roll. Damn, I wish someone would tell him he does so much better when he restrains himself just a wee bit.

Then of course we got another gross example of a distressing tendency of the new series: the Doctor's reliance on his superhuman anatomy to save the day, but there's no need to delve into that whole topic.

*Sigh* What could have been...