It’s Week 4 of where I just talk about all the bits and pieces of the week which haven’t (and probably won’t) make it into their own articles. And since I haven’t posted anything on this blog since the last such post, it seems like that includes everything this week. My intention is to do this every week as a form of logging and journaling, but we’ll see how that goes.
Doug 2: Electric Bus Boogaloo
Most of this past week I was actually away at a retreat for Youth With A Mission Perth staff, which is a good time of pulling away from regular work, playing games and worshiping and listening to God. It was during this time that we premiered our latest films, Doug 2: Electric Bus Boogaloo, which is a sequel to Lost in Spaces, a film we showed last year.
Overall, it went over well, though the fact this film is bit more dialogue-driven and plot-heavy means it wasn’t the unmitigated hit that the last one was. Some small children actually found it a bit scary, and there was a lot of discussion about the ending (which is a massive cliffhanger–as one friend put it, it’s like we were doing our version of Infinity War). Presumably we will make a third (and final?) movie next year, but there’s no guarantee of that.
Anyway, there’s a bunch of work I need to do to create a final “online release” version of this movie, but hopefully that will be done in the near future, and then you can watch it if you want. Now, given its context and its audience, both movies are full of in-joke references to YWAM Perth life, but in general I think would still be enjoyable.
Television – Prequels, Revivals, Old Classics
I finally got around to finishing the second season of Krypton this week. I’ve had it for some time, but got stalled around episode 7 (out of 10)–I think my interest waned when I found out that the show hadn’t been renewed for Season 3. That’s a shame, because it’s not bad–certainly much better than I’d think any show about Superman’s home planet before it exploded could possibly hope to be. And the series ends on a massive set of cliffhangers, so that’s unfortunate.
Specifically, time is still changed so Superman never comes to be, Brainiac has kidnapped baby Jor-El and is taking him to earth to raise him to be his personal god-servant, Nyssa is trapped on Rann which seems to be in a losing war with flying Thanagarians, and Seg-El is teaming up with Lobo to go and find everyone. Oh, plus Doomsday has apparently survived the destruction of Wegthor and has landed back on Krypton. So that’s an easy season of plotlines all nicely set up, which will never it seems be resolved. Sad days.
Meanwhile, I’m continuing to push through Picard, and am now up to do date with its first eight episodes.
As I suspected (having heard that the show killed off a “fan-favorite from Next Generation), Hugh the former Borg died recently, though not in the actual episode that I thought he would. I’ve now seen the episode (the only one?) to guest star Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis as Riker and Troi, and all I can say is that’s it’s a shame that they didn’t show up earlier and stay longer. There’s a lot of warmth and depth in their appearance that the series hasn’t always provided us with, which made for some of the series’ best moments.
On the other hand, the sequence in Episode 8 where Raffi is trying to figure out Rios’ backstory by trying to interview his various holographic avatars is just nonsensical filler and would have been better off edited out for something more substantial.
In any case, I’m still enjoying it overall and am looking forward to what happens next.
Also meanwhile, since we got home from our staff staff retreat, the family has been having some lazy times at home, which has meant binge watching a whole bunch of episodes of Doc Martin, which has always been a funny show that most of us have enjoyed a lot. Martin Clunes is excellent in the title role, and there are so many supporting characters. Special props to John Marquez as PC Joe Penhale.
And I also managed to sneak in watching the first two Peter Capaldi episodes of Doctor Who, which are not my favorite but an important gauntlet to pass to get to some of the better stuff. Thankfully, neither of them have any idea who Missy is, so that’s going to be fun to see play out.
And even as I write this, my youngest daughter is watching Ascension of the Cybermen on ABC’s iview. That means we’re one step closer to me being able to talk about all this Timeless Child nonsense openly with her and her sister.
Blue Towel Productions 