about doctor who – A Book & A Beer

Captain Jack Harkness, Time Agent

Posted on April 12, 2016by J.W. Martin

There’s so much to love about Captain Jack Harkness. He’s cool, charming, immortal, and hits on everything that moves.

Jack first meets the Ninth Doctor claiming to be a Time Agent and attempts to flew his authority. Those of you who’ve seen the episode will remember it as the one with the creepy kid in the gas mask who won’t stop asking, “are you my mummy?”

Though Jack was once a Time Agent, it was a thing of the past and all his boasting of authority was his attempt at a con. Despite his attempts to trick the Doctor and run away with some kind of valuables, Jack ends up acting like a hero and wiggling his way into our hearts.

He even helps Rose and the Doctor stop a Dalek invasion. Unfortunately, in the course of the invasion, Jack dies. Lucky for him, Rose Tyler turns herself into an omnipotent time being and brought him back to life, making one little mistake along the way. She accidentally made it so that he can’t die.

Jack’s usually the first one to jump into battle, probably because he knows he can’t be killed, with a witty comment and wink to the closest pretty girl—or guy.

His adventures, and popularity with the fans, eventually led him to his own spin-off called Torchwood. In the show, which took its origin from the Doctor Who episode Tooth and Claw, Jack leads a group of like-minded individuals who investigate extraterrestrial happenings and collect alien technology for the good of the world. At least, generally speaking.

The last time we saw Captain Jack, he eluded to possibly being the Face of Boe, a fact that has never been confirmed or denied by show creators.

Jack is another of these legendary characters that we can only hope we’ll see again, or at least something close to it.

What do you think of the Captain? Where does he rank among the Doctor’s many companions?

A to Z All Misc Uncategorized

Face of Boe

Posted on April 2, 2016by J.W. Martin

One of the strangest and most fascinating characters introduced into the Whoniverse is the Face of Boe: a giant head that lives in an equally huge jar of some kind of space juice.

The age of the Face is never specified, though the Doctor once mentions that he could be over 5 Billion years old.

There are three encounters between The Doctor and the Face of Boe. The first time, in the episode The End of the World, old Facey takes a spaceship full of people 5 billion years into the future to watch the Sun destroy Earth. The ship is sabotaged to be destroyed, but the Ninth Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) steps in and saves the day.

In the second, episode New Earth, the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) finds the Face of Boe in a hospital on his deathbed… or death jar? He reveals that he has a “great secret” to tell the Doctor but will wait until their third and final meeting. Then he just teleports away. Wait, what?

Cool foreshadowing, but what happened to being on the edge of death? I’ve never teleported before, but I imagine doing it without any kind of machine is exhausting. And why teleport away from a hospital if you’re in rough shape? I understand you want to remain a mysterious guy (or… face) but at what cost?

In their final meeting, the message the Face of Boe gives the Doctor is: “You’re not alone.” Faces love to be mysterious, don’t they? As vague as it was, that message leads to a great episode, Last of the Time Lords, which I’ll be touching on later in the month.

Also, in that episode, there’s a big intimation of the Face’s biggest mystery: his identity. Captain Jack Harkness—another great character that will have his own post—tells the Doctor, “Used to be a poster boy, when I was a kid, living in the Boeshane Peninsula. Tiny little place. I was the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency. They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe, they called me.”

Don’t get too excited. According to writer Russell T. Davies, this is just onetheory. One that, if he has his way, will never be officially admitted or denied.

But isn’t it fun to believe?

A to Z All Misc Uncategorized

This all seems so familiar (A to Z 2016)

Posted on March 29, 2016by J.W. Martin

Close to this time last year, I posted about wanting to train myself to post more often on this very blog. With that thought, I took part in the A-Z Blog Challenge. I wanted to start and complete the challenge within the designated month, and I hoped the result would be more consistent posting afterwards.

Well… those are still things that I want, and the A-Z Challenge is upon us again!

If you’ve never heard of the A-Z challenge, it’s a blogging challenge that runs the month of April. Each day—excluding Sundays—a post is made with the subject starting with the letter of the day. April 1st is A, 2nd is B, etc, etc.

Also like last year, I’m late in announcing my theme. Mainly because I had a real hard time deciding what my theme was going to be.

A part of me wanted to do something fiction based. I thought about a story where each day would be a scene from the perspective of a different character. The name of the character would correspond with the letter of the day.

I liked the idea, but it felt a little like cheating. It’s too simple to make a character’s name start with any letter I want. The challenge of posting every day would still be there, but the challenge of the theme wouldn’t exist.

One of my most recent obsessions kind of came out of nowhere and became one of my strongest obsessions. For the past two years, I’m considered myself a fully assimilated Whovian.

My 2016 A-Z Challenge theme is Doctor Who!