Every time Bully comes up, there's always the instant response of "Oh, that's horrible! A game where you bully kids?!"
So many people seem to be missing the point that this game is about pulling pranks on bullies, not kicking Mortimer Snerd's butt and taking his lunch money. The idea is supposed to be that you get picked on, then you start fighting back on behalf of the little guys.
Personally, I won't be completely satisfied with the whole Jack Thompson nonsense until his name is universally synonymous with critical brain failure. As in, open a dictionary and find:
Jack Thompson (n, slang) - 1. A state of complete insanity, 2. One who is without rational thought, 3. Legal term describing extreme mental breakdown.
"Well, you've really pulled a Jack Thompson this time."
"That guy is such a Thompson."
"We the jury find the defendant guilty by reason of Jack Thompson."
I'm sorry, you did catch that this show was being made by the BBC, right? As in the British Broadcasting Corporation? As in, that great big island thousands of miles away from America? How exactly does a show being produced in Britain for a British audience reflect a flaw in the moral fiber of America?
When I see RIAA insanity like this, I wonder just how far we are from a reality in which they claim infringement on people who can completely remember a song.
Forget 1984. The thought police aren't going to be looking for subversion. They're going after that song that's been stuck in your head for the past two hours.
So, Reavers are viciously insane humans. They rape, eat, and kill pretty indiscriminately. Usually the same target for all three, in that order.
Most of the time, they're depicted as being hyper-aggressive zombie-like creatures. There is nothing, however, to suggest that there couldn't be an intelligent Reaver. Even a supergenius reaver. Similar to Farscape's Scorpius in some ways, but more vicious. The Reaver that wants to play with it's food. "The line between madness and genius is very thin."
If such Reavers exist, they're probably the ones who control the ships and coordinate raids.
It's not that far off. Look how gamers have eaten up HL2 and Steam in droves and are begging for more.
Look at how gamers are downloading HL2 ISOs in droves and patching it to be Steam-free faster than you can say "Draconian DRM."
One-customer=One-sale is a marketing myth. It's not going to happen. Large crowds of people might accept it for one product, but larger crowds will find ways to circumvent any copy protection system. The more difficult it is to be a customer, the easier it is to be a pirate.
Piracy happens for one reason only: It's easier than buying. A lot of times, this is true even if you have the money. HL2 is an ideal case in point. The pirated versions actually work better than the original, and will continue to do so 20 or so years down the line when Valve no longer supports the product.
Episode 1 introduces the balloon-like Rover, guardian of the Village. No technology like it existed then or now. Later in the episode, #6 is given an "electropass" which, by inferrance, amounts to a low range wireless transmitter, which emits a "key" signal to Rover, telling it to ignore the bearer. This is not dissimilar to current technologies which didn't exist in 1967 (such as bluetooth or WiFi).
Episode 3 (A B & C) features "dream viewing" technology, something far beyond the grasp of even current technology.
Episode 5 (The Schizoid Man) mentions and Episode 6 (The General) features an advanced AI in charge of predicting complex social patterns and forming brainwashing strategies. It is presented as being capable of answering any question, with the exception of one, insoluble by man nor machine.
Episode 6 also features a concept called "speed-learn," a process by which a person can quickly absorb large amounts of information via a television broadcast. It is presented as giving a full 9-week class in the space of 30 seconds.
Episode 12 (A Change of Mind) fatures a non-invasive form of neurosurgery, using highly focused soundwaves. Although the device is not used on #6, its functionality is demonstrated. Technology such as this did not exist in 1967, and likely does not exist now.
Episode 14 (Living in Harmony) features a combination of hallucinogenic drugs and audio stimuli which produces an impossible effect with any known drugs.
Many elements within the series are used frequently, including implied mind-control rays/beams/lights/sounds which induce instant paralysis, the precise location of The Village, and the unknown function of the teeter-totter device.
And if the final episode (Fall Out) takes place in this universe, I want to know how.
Even without numbers I can assure you that the multi-billion dollar porn industry is not making its money off of radio porn.
Without hesitation, I'll go ahead and hazard a guess that Madman Jack is talking about Howard Stern. No, I know what you're thinking, Howard Stern isn't porn. You don't get it. To Jack, anything exceeding his personal obscenity barometer is pornographic filth, including but not limited to swimsuit and underwear ads, soap and shampoo commercials, commercials for "femenine hygene" products (probably also wicked tools of the Evil Femenist Regime (TM)), and pretty much anything that in any way expresses that there is some physiological difference between boys and girls.
It's an old tactic used by those who wish to manipulate the public by slapping spurious labels on what they don't like. Saying "We want filth and pornography off our airwaves," is likely to get more support than "Thinking about sex is wrong and evil."
Really, the question shouldn't be "What are Jack Thompson's views on the matter?" (Which no one really asked, but Jack supplied anyway), but "What are Jack Thompson's wife's views? Is his zealotry detracting from their marriage?
Picross was just Nintendo's name for an existing puzzle called Edel, or Nonograms. There's lots of books on them, and plenty of websites.
And, if that type of puzzle appeals to you, visit Nikoli Puzzles who produces numerous books of many number/symbol logic puzzles. I particularly recommend Hashiwokakero, and wish there were other books on it apart from the one which Nikoli offers.
Okay, since flavored gelatin dessert items are, essentially, the same suff as plain old fingernails (plus some flavoring), does that mean that this system could be applied to, say, a Jell-o cup? Since you have a larger volume, you could potentially store multiple layers of data.
Keep in a cool, dry place out of reach of children. And if anyone tries to confiscate your data, just eat it.
Alternatively, if the "jiggly drive" isn't stable, you could increase the gelatin saturation to a more solid point, and encase the whole thing in a hard, transparent, sealed shell (like acrylic). Oh, and leave out the sugar and flavoring.
No it isn't. This is about the BBC ceasing to host and maintain information regarding several of their "cult" programs, such as Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio and TV versions), and Blake's 7. They're purging the information from their website, in much the same way they have, in the past, destroyed all known recordings of programs such as Dad's Army and Top of the Pops.
This isn't about, "Oh that's a grand show. It should stay on the air." This is more akin to your local library deciding they're going to get rid of hundreds of popular books which are being checked out, on the basis that "They're available at other public libraries and bookstores."
Honestly, it's deplorable that the BBC has gone back to their long-standing tradition of willful destruction of archive material.
That would be you missing almost every point he just made.
The structure of Max Payne 2 doesn't center around relationships, and Metroid doesn't meet any of the qualifications other than the non-marginalized female lead. No romance, no emotional relationships, no cooperation.
So this is it. The end of humanity is at hand. We'll finally have the Holodeck, and no more innovation, invention, or creativity will occur, ever. Why would it need to?
Okay, before anyone jumps on me for this, no, I don't seriously think this will destroy humanity. It might seriously damage some marriages, and probably send a huge pile of money towards the porn industry, but humanity will be safe... until we have a computer capable of simulating any scenario we care to imagine, as well as provide us with unlimited sustinance in any form we choose. Then we're doomed.
nin-ten-do it's a cereal now! nin-ten-do it's a cereal, wow!
Sorry, gotta earn some obsessive nerd points. The song actually goes:
nin-ten-do it's for breakfast now! nin-ten-do it's a cereal, wow!
The "nin-ten-do" part was sung to the tune of the Super Mario Brothers Level 1-2 music, while the rest was basically spoken in a sort of sing-song rhythm.
The cereal itself came in two bags in a single box, which many people mistakenly believe to have been first to Nintendo (Nerds Cereal did it first). It basically tasted like Trix. Later, it fell prey to what is almost universally accepted as the single most influential event in the 20th century: The great novelty cereal bust of 1989. Gone was the Nintendo Cereal System, gone were Sunday Funnies, gone was Ghostbusters Cereal, Nerds Cereal, and C3P-Os.
Which, as it turns out, was just as well. Seems like each bowl contained a full bottle of food coloring. People who ate Ghostbusters cereal, which was red, frequently thought they had suddenly suffered some horrible form of digestive hemmorage when they noticed a particular color change in the bathroom.
The biggest problem with a Doctor Who Confidential DVD release would be licensing all the pop music they use. While it's fine and dandy for broadcast within Britain (Due to BBC licensing deals), a home video release would require more licensing with a different department.
What kind of glasses are you wearing?
on
The Phantom...Lives?
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Did anyone else actually watch the video? I think this is a great idea. The pricing model seems right too... he wants to go the "cable tv" route, where you pay a monthly fee with a contract and get the hardware for free, or the "satellite radio" route where you pay a little for the hardware, and don't have to bind yourself with a yearly contract.
And when you participate in this scheme, what exactly do you own? Do you own any of the games you download? Do you own the box? If you stop paying Infinium money, would you still be able to play your games? If Infinium financially imploded, would your box still work?
These are some of the biggest concerns which IL still hasn't addressed. To you, it may look fine. To everyone else, it looks like a more strict version of Steam with an extra box you have to buy, too.
Some local kid worked out a way (perhaps with only a specific brand/model of HD) to manipulate the location of the read/write head, and to violently tap it against the surface of the hard disk platter.
His program draw a smiley face and the words "HAVE A NICE DAY!" on the HD before resetting the system. I seem to recall him getting investigated by the FBI at some point...
Think of it this way. You couldn't go back in time and shoot Hilter before he got into power for the very simple reason that it didn't happen. Say you setup a sniper rifle on a building. You could try to fire but you'd either miss, the gun would jam, you'd get arrested, have a heart-attack etc. etc.
Not necessarily. You could kill him easily enough. It would just turn out that the Hitler we know was an imposter who had easily adopted the identity of Adolf Hitler due to the real Hitler dying mysteriously at the hands of an unknown assailant, and that you just killed an innocent man. (cue Outer Limits theme)
That, or another time traveller would come along and reverse fate, preventing the assasination. You'd probably have an army of time travellers, fighing both sides: "Hitler must die so that my future is preseved!" "No, Hitler must live so that my future is preserved!"
[i]Which clues would these be? Some kid wrote his nickname in graffiti on the side of the Tardis... later the doctor caught him and made him paint it blue again. This is a clue to something? Somehow I doubt it.[/i]
Episode 1 (hearsay) - The Nestine Conciousness mouths the words "bad wolf" when speaking with the Doctor.
Episode 2 - The Moxx of Balhoon mentions a "Big bad wolf scenario" to the Face of Boe.
Episode 3 - Quinneth mentions the "Big bad wolf" and pulls away from Rose, terrified.
Episode 4 - "Bad Wolf" spray painted on the TARDIS.
Episode 5 - Indirect reference. Who Is Doctor Who?, the tie-in website, mentions "big bad wolf" when referencing the closing minutes of the episode.
There is also an upcoming episode titled "Bad Wolf."
Where is the ambiguity?
The writers have already implictly and explicitly stated that there is a dark mystery regarding Rose and the Doctor, and their relationship.
What? You are crazy... he is the best Doctor since Tom Baker.
He's the first Doctor to brutally kill a villian. His behavior is sometimes darker than Colin Baker's darkest moments. We still don't know all the events surrounding the Time War, and we have no regeneration sequence to show that this Doctor came from McGann's incarnation. It has even been explicitly stated that there will be no such sequence.
Plus, from a practical standpoint, he's eating up incarnations like candy. Going on to the 10th out of 13 after just one series seems a bit quick, but allowing the current Doctor to be a phoney gives the writers an extra incarnation to play with.
Except that the episode was written and filmed last year, back when the series was shot. This is not a case of "Oh, the ratings are slipping a bit. Let's put in a Dalek episode." This is a case of the fans saying, "It's not proper _Who_ unless we have classic _Who_ villians, like the Daleks, the Autons, the Cybermen..."
The BBC is heavily banking on the new Doctor Who, and it's no wonder, considering that the first episode was the highest rated show in its timeslot, and third highest rated in the week. They've already gone and commissioned a second series, a Christmas special, a line of toys, novels, and heaven knows what else. They advertise the show non-stop, set up tie-in websites here and here, and even show a documentary series which ties in to the most recent episode of the show.
Point is, they've spent a whole heck of a lot of money on the show, and they plan on spending a lot more. If this is a vote of no-confidence, I wish more sci-fi series would get such treatment.
Anyway, the new Doctor Who series is absolutely gripping, laugh-out-loud funny, and subtly frightening all at the same time. In short, all the things Doctor Who has always been, and should always be.
My only disappointment is that the new series seems to be heavily reusing plot elements from the Big Finish audio dramas. Episode two, The Unquiet Dead, basically took the setting and overall structure (Victorian ghost story, ghosts are caused by alien influence, seance held to communicate with spirits, heavily rational character who has trouble coping with the new facts before him) from the second Big Finish audio play, Phantasmagoria. Granted, they were both written by the same person, but he even goes so far as to mention it in the TV Episode (Charles Dickens [Upon seeing an alien/ghost]: What phantasmagoria is this?)
Next week's episode (simply titled "Dalek") seems to be a retooling of the Big Finish play, Jubilee. They're both written by the same gentleman, and both deal with a lone Dalek captured and tortured for the betterment of mankind. The trailer at the end of last week's episode implies that they share other plot elements as well.
Then again, I'm still puzzling over what all the "Bad Wolf" clues mean. I somewhat suspect that this Doctor's relationship with Rose extends prior to the first episode. Who (and where) is Rose's father? Why is the Doctor so staunchly opposed to Jackie travelling with them, when he was willing to bring Mickey? I also suspect that this Doctor may not be the Doctor. This will probably become more clear when the new novel, Gallifrey Chronicles is released, although the TV Show will probably reveal more plot details before then.
I probably shouldn't be doing this, but, one cannot be a "hoopy frood," unless the one doing the describing has had one too many pan-galactic gargle blasters.
Hoopy is not an adjective. It's a noun. It's like saying, "You're a relly-together-guy amazingly-together-guy." Which sort of implies that whoever is saying such a thing hasn't quite got a handle on the whole "together" thing.
The only problem will be when they have the twelfth regeneration and reach the limit - although exceeding that limit has already been done by the arch nemisis.
Look, I don't even pretend to have writing skills popular enough to merit working on a TV series, but this is science fiction: Nothing is out of bounds.
Even I can come up with a number of plot twists or elements which would allow for "extra" lives, so to speak:
The Doctor & Rose visit an ancient alien who seems kind enough, but turns out to be draining the life-force out of all manner of beings. After meeting the Doctor, the alien starts draining his life-force. After the menace is defeated cleverly, the Doctor gets his life-force back, but as a bonus, all the other life-forces which were previously stolen go to him.
-or-
The mysterious events of the Time War are revealed, and the Doctor may have been the cause of it all. But is he really the Doctor, or did he just go mad after accidentally destroying his race across the entire span of history? Enter the real "Doctor," and the Gallifreyans are saved.
-or-
Side effect of surviving the Time War.
-or-
Extra Lives for unexplained reason. Starts to make the Doctor question his own nature.
-or-
Half-Human hybrid has unexpected bonus.
Criminy, the list goes on and on. Doctor Who has repeatedly and chronically presented situations which seemed hopeless in the last half of an episode, then shown them to be completely harmless in the first 30 seconds of the next episode. "How will the Doctor escape the Dalek bearing down on him? Tune in next week... to find out that Daleks are blind as bleedin' bats. Or that it wasn't there. Or that it's a friendly Dalek, part of the Dalek Resistance. Or that the Doctor wasn't actually standing where we thought he was. Or..."
You get the idea. No problem is out of bounds for a good writer, and very few problems are out of bounds for a mediocre one, even.
Slashdot Mirror
Every time Bully comes up, there's always the instant response of "Oh, that's horrible! A game where you bully kids?!"
So many people seem to be missing the point that this game is about pulling pranks on bullies, not kicking Mortimer Snerd's butt and taking his lunch money. The idea is supposed to be that you get picked on, then you start fighting back on behalf of the little guys.
Personally, I won't be completely satisfied with the whole Jack Thompson nonsense until his name is universally synonymous with critical brain failure. As in, open a dictionary and find:
Jack Thompson (n, slang) - 1. A state of complete insanity, 2. One who is without rational thought, 3. Legal term describing extreme mental breakdown.
"Well, you've really pulled a Jack Thompson this time."
"That guy is such a Thompson."
"We the jury find the defendant guilty by reason of Jack Thompson."
I'm sorry, you did catch that this show was being made by the BBC, right? As in the British Broadcasting Corporation? As in, that great big island thousands of miles away from America? How exactly does a show being produced in Britain for a British audience reflect a flaw in the moral fiber of America?
When I see RIAA insanity like this, I wonder just how far we are from a reality in which they claim infringement on people who can completely remember a song.
Forget 1984. The thought police aren't going to be looking for subversion. They're going after that song that's been stuck in your head for the past two hours.
Very few spoilers here. No Serenity spoilers.
So, Reavers are viciously insane humans. They rape, eat, and kill pretty indiscriminately. Usually the same target for all three, in that order.
Most of the time, they're depicted as being hyper-aggressive zombie-like creatures. There is nothing, however, to suggest that there couldn't be an intelligent Reaver. Even a supergenius reaver. Similar to Farscape's Scorpius in some ways, but more vicious. The Reaver that wants to play with it's food. "The line between madness and genius is very thin."
If such Reavers exist, they're probably the ones who control the ships and coordinate raids.
It's not that far off. Look how gamers have eaten up HL2 and Steam in droves and are begging for more.
Look at how gamers are downloading HL2 ISOs in droves and patching it to be Steam-free faster than you can say "Draconian DRM."
One-customer=One-sale is a marketing myth. It's not going to happen. Large crowds of people might accept it for one product, but larger crowds will find ways to circumvent any copy protection system. The more difficult it is to be a customer, the easier it is to be a pirate.
Piracy happens for one reason only: It's easier than buying. A lot of times, this is true even if you have the money. HL2 is an ideal case in point. The pirated versions actually work better than the original, and will continue to do so 20 or so years down the line when Valve no longer supports the product.
Episode 1 introduces the balloon-like Rover, guardian of the Village. No technology like it existed then or now. Later in the episode, #6 is given an "electropass" which, by inferrance, amounts to a low range wireless transmitter, which emits a "key" signal to Rover, telling it to ignore the bearer. This is not dissimilar to current technologies which didn't exist in 1967 (such as bluetooth or WiFi).
Episode 3 (A B & C) features "dream viewing" technology, something far beyond the grasp of even current technology.
Episode 5 (The Schizoid Man) mentions and Episode 6 (The General) features an advanced AI in charge of predicting complex social patterns and forming brainwashing strategies. It is presented as being capable of answering any question, with the exception of one, insoluble by man nor machine.
Episode 6 also features a concept called "speed-learn," a process by which a person can quickly absorb large amounts of information via a television broadcast. It is presented as giving a full 9-week class in the space of 30 seconds.
Episode 12 (A Change of Mind) fatures a non-invasive form of neurosurgery, using highly focused soundwaves. Although the device is not used on #6, its functionality is demonstrated. Technology such as this did not exist in 1967, and likely does not exist now.
Episode 14 (Living in Harmony) features a combination of hallucinogenic drugs and audio stimuli which produces an impossible effect with any known drugs.
Many elements within the series are used frequently, including implied mind-control rays/beams/lights/sounds which induce instant paralysis, the precise location of The Village, and the unknown function of the teeter-totter device.
And if the final episode (Fall Out) takes place in this universe, I want to know how.
Even without numbers I can assure you that the multi-billion dollar porn industry is not making its money off of radio porn.
Without hesitation, I'll go ahead and hazard a guess that Madman Jack is talking about Howard Stern. No, I know what you're thinking, Howard Stern isn't porn. You don't get it. To Jack, anything exceeding his personal obscenity barometer is pornographic filth, including but not limited to swimsuit and underwear ads, soap and shampoo commercials, commercials for "femenine hygene" products (probably also wicked tools of the Evil Femenist Regime (TM)), and pretty much anything that in any way expresses that there is some physiological difference between boys and girls.
It's an old tactic used by those who wish to manipulate the public by slapping spurious labels on what they don't like. Saying "We want filth and pornography off our airwaves," is likely to get more support than "Thinking about sex is wrong and evil."
Really, the question shouldn't be "What are Jack Thompson's views on the matter?" (Which no one really asked, but Jack supplied anyway), but "What are Jack Thompson's wife's views? Is his zealotry detracting from their marriage?
Picross was just Nintendo's name for an existing puzzle called Edel, or Nonograms. There's lots of books on them, and plenty of websites.
And, if that type of puzzle appeals to you, visit Nikoli Puzzles who produces numerous books of many number/symbol logic puzzles. I particularly recommend Hashiwokakero, and wish there were other books on it apart from the one which Nikoli offers.
Okay, since flavored gelatin dessert items are, essentially, the same suff as plain old fingernails (plus some flavoring), does that mean that this system could be applied to, say, a Jell-o cup? Since you have a larger volume, you could potentially store multiple layers of data.
Keep in a cool, dry place out of reach of children. And if anyone tries to confiscate your data, just eat it.
Alternatively, if the "jiggly drive" isn't stable, you could increase the gelatin saturation to a more solid point, and encase the whole thing in a hard, transparent, sealed shell (like acrylic). Oh, and leave out the sugar and flavoring.
No it isn't. This is about the BBC ceasing to host and maintain information regarding several of their "cult" programs, such as Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio and TV versions), and Blake's 7. They're purging the information from their website, in much the same way they have, in the past, destroyed all known recordings of programs such as Dad's Army and Top of the Pops.
This isn't about, "Oh that's a grand show. It should stay on the air." This is more akin to your local library deciding they're going to get rid of hundreds of popular books which are being checked out, on the basis that "They're available at other public libraries and bookstores."
Honestly, it's deplorable that the BBC has gone back to their long-standing tradition of willful destruction of archive material.
That would be you missing almost every point he just made.
The structure of Max Payne 2 doesn't center around relationships, and Metroid doesn't meet any of the qualifications other than the non-marginalized female lead. No romance, no emotional relationships, no cooperation.
So this is it. The end of humanity is at hand. We'll finally have the Holodeck, and no more innovation, invention, or creativity will occur, ever. Why would it need to?
Okay, before anyone jumps on me for this, no, I don't seriously think this will destroy humanity. It might seriously damage some marriages, and probably send a huge pile of money towards the porn industry, but humanity will be safe... until we have a computer capable of simulating any scenario we care to imagine, as well as provide us with unlimited sustinance in any form we choose. Then we're doomed.
nin-ten-do
it's a cereal now!
nin-ten-do
it's a cereal, wow!
Sorry, gotta earn some obsessive nerd points. The song actually goes:
nin-ten-do
it's for breakfast now!
nin-ten-do
it's a cereal, wow!
The "nin-ten-do" part was sung to the tune of the Super Mario Brothers Level 1-2 music, while the rest was basically spoken in a sort of sing-song rhythm.
The cereal itself came in two bags in a single box, which many people mistakenly believe to have been first to Nintendo (Nerds Cereal did it first). It basically tasted like Trix. Later, it fell prey to what is almost universally accepted as the single most influential event in the 20th century: The great novelty cereal bust of 1989. Gone was the Nintendo Cereal System, gone were Sunday Funnies, gone was Ghostbusters Cereal, Nerds Cereal, and C3P-Os.
Which, as it turns out, was just as well. Seems like each bowl contained a full bottle of food coloring. People who ate Ghostbusters cereal, which was red, frequently thought they had suddenly suffered some horrible form of digestive hemmorage when they noticed a particular color change in the bathroom.
The biggest problem with a Doctor Who Confidential DVD release would be licensing all the pop music they use. While it's fine and dandy for broadcast within Britain (Due to BBC licensing deals), a home video release would require more licensing with a different department.
Did anyone else actually watch the video? I think this is a great idea. The pricing model seems right too... he wants to go the "cable tv" route, where you pay a monthly fee with a contract and get the hardware for free, or the "satellite radio" route where you pay a little for the hardware, and don't have to bind yourself with a yearly contract.
And when you participate in this scheme, what exactly do you own? Do you own any of the games you download? Do you own the box? If you stop paying Infinium money, would you still be able to play your games? If Infinium financially imploded, would your box still work?
These are some of the biggest concerns which IL still hasn't addressed. To you, it may look fine. To everyone else, it looks like a more strict version of Steam with an extra box you have to buy, too.
Some local kid worked out a way (perhaps with only a specific brand/model of HD) to manipulate the location of the read/write head, and to violently tap it against the surface of the hard disk platter.
His program draw a smiley face and the words "HAVE A NICE DAY!" on the HD before resetting the system. I seem to recall him getting investigated by the FBI at some point...
Think of it this way. You couldn't go back in time and shoot Hilter before he got into power for the very simple reason that it didn't happen. Say you setup a sniper rifle on a building. You could try to fire but you'd either miss, the gun would jam, you'd get arrested, have a heart-attack etc. etc.
Not necessarily. You could kill him easily enough. It would just turn out that the Hitler we know was an imposter who had easily adopted the identity of Adolf Hitler due to the real Hitler dying mysteriously at the hands of an unknown assailant, and that you just killed an innocent man. (cue Outer Limits theme)
That, or another time traveller would come along and reverse fate, preventing the assasination. You'd probably have an army of time travellers, fighing both sides: "Hitler must die so that my future is preseved!" "No, Hitler must live so that my future is preserved!"
[i]Which clues would these be? Some kid wrote his nickname in graffiti on the side of the Tardis... later the doctor caught him and made him paint it blue again. This is a clue to something? Somehow I doubt it.[/i]
Episode 1 (hearsay) - The Nestine Conciousness mouths the words "bad wolf" when speaking with the Doctor.
Episode 2 - The Moxx of Balhoon mentions a "Big bad wolf scenario" to the Face of Boe.
Episode 3 - Quinneth mentions the "Big bad wolf" and pulls away from Rose, terrified.
Episode 4 - "Bad Wolf" spray painted on the TARDIS.
Episode 5 - Indirect reference. Who Is Doctor Who?, the tie-in website, mentions "big bad wolf" when referencing the closing minutes of the episode.
There is also an upcoming episode titled "Bad Wolf."
Where is the ambiguity?
The writers have already implictly and explicitly stated that there is a dark mystery regarding Rose and the Doctor, and their relationship.
What? You are crazy... he is the best Doctor since Tom Baker.
He's the first Doctor to brutally kill a villian. His behavior is sometimes darker than Colin Baker's darkest moments. We still don't know all the events surrounding the Time War, and we have no regeneration sequence to show that this Doctor came from McGann's incarnation. It has even been explicitly stated that there will be no such sequence.
Plus, from a practical standpoint, he's eating up incarnations like candy. Going on to the 10th out of 13 after just one series seems a bit quick, but allowing the current Doctor to be a phoney gives the writers an extra incarnation to play with.
Except that the episode was written and filmed last year, back when the series was shot. This is not a case of "Oh, the ratings are slipping a bit. Let's put in a Dalek episode." This is a case of the fans saying, "It's not proper _Who_ unless we have classic _Who_ villians, like the Daleks, the Autons, the Cybermen..."
The BBC is heavily banking on the new Doctor Who, and it's no wonder, considering that the first episode was the highest rated show in its timeslot, and third highest rated in the week. They've already gone and commissioned a second series, a Christmas special, a line of toys, novels, and heaven knows what else. They advertise the show non-stop, set up tie-in websites here and here, and even show a documentary series which ties in to the most recent episode of the show.
Point is, they've spent a whole heck of a lot of money on the show, and they plan on spending a lot more. If this is a vote of no-confidence, I wish more sci-fi series would get such treatment.
I mean, I just feel involved, you know?
Anyway, the new Doctor Who series is absolutely gripping, laugh-out-loud funny, and subtly frightening all at the same time. In short, all the things Doctor Who has always been, and should always be.
My only disappointment is that the new series seems to be heavily reusing plot elements from the Big Finish audio dramas. Episode two, The Unquiet Dead, basically took the setting and overall structure (Victorian ghost story, ghosts are caused by alien influence, seance held to communicate with spirits, heavily rational character who has trouble coping with the new facts before him) from the second Big Finish audio play, Phantasmagoria. Granted, they were both written by the same person, but he even goes so far as to mention it in the TV Episode (Charles Dickens [Upon seeing an alien/ghost]: What phantasmagoria is this?)
Next week's episode (simply titled "Dalek") seems to be a retooling of the Big Finish play, Jubilee. They're both written by the same gentleman, and both deal with a lone Dalek captured and tortured for the betterment of mankind. The trailer at the end of last week's episode implies that they share other plot elements as well.
Then again, I'm still puzzling over what all the "Bad Wolf" clues mean. I somewhat suspect that this Doctor's relationship with Rose extends prior to the first episode. Who (and where) is Rose's father? Why is the Doctor so staunchly opposed to Jackie travelling with them, when he was willing to bring Mickey? I also suspect that this Doctor may not be the Doctor. This will probably become more clear when the new novel, Gallifrey Chronicles is released, although the TV Show will probably reveal more plot details before then.
I probably shouldn't be doing this, but, one cannot be a "hoopy frood," unless the one doing the describing has had one too many pan-galactic gargle blasters.
Hoopy is not an adjective. It's a noun. It's like saying, "You're a relly-together-guy amazingly-together-guy." Which sort of implies that whoever is saying such a thing hasn't quite got a handle on the whole "together" thing.
Me, I'm waiting for the cartoon based on Breakeys.
Just copyright either "1" or "0". Royalties into the astronomic range.
The only problem will be when they have the twelfth regeneration and reach the limit - although exceeding that limit has already been done by the arch nemisis.
Look, I don't even pretend to have writing skills popular enough to merit working on a TV series, but this is science fiction: Nothing is out of bounds.
Even I can come up with a number of plot twists or elements which would allow for "extra" lives, so to speak:
The Doctor & Rose visit an ancient alien who seems kind enough, but turns out to be draining the life-force out of all manner of beings. After meeting the Doctor, the alien starts draining his life-force. After the menace is defeated cleverly, the Doctor gets his life-force back, but as a bonus, all the other life-forces which were previously stolen go to him.
-or-
The mysterious events of the Time War are revealed, and the Doctor may have been the cause of it all. But is he really the Doctor, or did he just go mad after accidentally destroying his race across the entire span of history? Enter the real "Doctor," and the Gallifreyans are saved.
-or-
Side effect of surviving the Time War.
-or-
Extra Lives for unexplained reason. Starts to make the Doctor question his own nature.
-or-
Half-Human hybrid has unexpected bonus.
Criminy, the list goes on and on. Doctor Who has repeatedly and chronically presented situations which seemed hopeless in the last half of an episode, then shown them to be completely harmless in the first 30 seconds of the next episode. "How will the Doctor escape the Dalek bearing down on him? Tune in next week... to find out that Daleks are blind as bleedin' bats. Or that it wasn't there. Or that it's a friendly Dalek, part of the Dalek Resistance. Or that the Doctor wasn't actually standing where we thought he was. Or..."
You get the idea. No problem is out of bounds for a good writer, and very few problems are out of bounds for a mediocre one, even.