Category Archives: scifi

Babylon Podcast – “The Lost Tales”

Posted on by
1

The Babylon Podcast is having a Party in the month of August.

Due to the release of the first direct-to-DVD “Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales” (TLT) the whole month is dedicated to TLT. Starting on 8. August there was an interview with Bruce Boxleitner who played President Sheridan in the second episode of the DVD.

Following later will be interviews with Tracy Scoggins who played Colonel Lochley in the first episode – and Peter Woodward as the technomage Galen in the second episode.

Who knows – maybe we will get more insider interviews from the TLT cast and crew.

Books to read, DVDs to get

Posted on by
3

Just got the “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” book and have started reading. Travelling a bit, so not that much time to finish it, but what I have read so far is promising.

In my book “queue” I also have some Babylon 5 books , the three trilogies :
Centauri
Technomage
Psi Core
and a few single books like “To Dream in the City of Sorrows”

Next on my list is getting the new “Babylon 5 – The Lost Tales” (TLT) on DVD. The official release in the US is 31 July , in Europe (Region 2) it is some time in September – I do not like the “regionalisation” of DVDs , spoilers are all over the place as soon as the DVD is release in just one place. This tempts many people to download the films (etc), even if they will buy the film in any case. I will buy it, but the delay is *very* annoying.

It looks like “The Babylon Podcast” will make August this year a “TLT” month, so spoilers are almost inevitable.

Edit (14 August) :The Babylon Podcast is indeed making August the month of “The Lost Tales” Last Wednesday they had an interview with Bruce Boxleitner (President Sheridan), and interviews with Tracy Scoggins (Colonel Lochley) and Peter Woodward (Techmomage Galen)

Fantastic Four : Rise of the Silver Surfer

Posted on by
1

A movie based on the Marvel comic “Fantastic Four”

I went to see the movie today with some friends. *No Spoilers*

An unknown force (The Silver Surfer) arrives to Earth, threatening to destroy all life on the planet.

In my view, this movie comes out better than the first one. Lots of fun moments as I remember them from the comic, including the teasing and rivalry in the “family”. I loved the cameo appearance of Stan Lee. While I know many of the hardcore fans of the comic will be disappointed with the depiction of Galactus, to me it worked quite well on the big screen.

While the story may not be very subtle (after all it has its origin in a comic book) I found the unfolding fine – not dragging too long, actually the movie is relatively short. Still, one nice aspect, it is about having a choice , even at times you think that you do not.

Very nice special effects in creating the Silver Surfer

I would recommend go seeing it, even if you are a fan of the comics, in my book I would rate it 4/5.

PS. I have heard that the Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Stracynski is working on the script for a Silver Surfer movie, sounds interesting.

The SciFi Smackdown Podcast

Posted on by
Reply

A podcast with people having fun comparing similar aspects of different Science Fiction stories.

Their very first episode had a match between the Battlestar Galactica and the Enterprise. Follow the debate about differences, advantages and disadvantages of the two flagships.

Each episode is followed by a voicemail show or two with listener feedback of the match.

Episode 2: Captain America vs Batman

Episode 3: Heroes vs. X-men This time with another approach: The smackdown is played out as a role playing game match, playing over a few podcasts.Very Entertaining.

Episode 4: second part of the Heroes vs. X-men

Episode 5: X-wings (from StarWars) vs Starfuries (from Babylon 5). This time with a guest participant known from the Babylon Podcast – since they wanted a knowledgeable representative for the Starfuries. Yet another approach : The “combattants” are to make a sales pitch for their respective fighter. Their guest made quite a pitch for the Starfuries.

Link : Scifi Smackdown Podcast

Heroes on Dutch TV

Posted on by
Reply

I have been watching the first two episodes of the “Heroes” series , “Genesis” and “Don’t Look Back”.

This looks promising, I must say , but will wait a few more episodes and see where this leads.

In the first two episodes we meet people from all over the world, discovering that they have unusual abilities, such as flying (levitating), controlling time and telepathy, as well as a professor (and his son) studying genetics and predicting that some people will develop those abilities – and what looks like a peek into a disaster in the future

Babylon Podcast fan fiction

Posted on by
2

It looks like the Babylon Podcast voice mails are being dominated by a piece of fan fiction (or two) Some contributors send in pieces of talks , like captain’s log or whatever , creating a story within the podcast.

If you know the series well, you will appreciate the humor of these voice mails.

If you are a Babylon 5 fan , listen to the podcast , or better to the live feed. In my opinion it is well worth it.

The Babylon Podcast

Posted on by
Reply

The Babylon Podcast is a podcast dedicated to the TV series “Babylon 5” created by Joe Michael Straczynski (also known as JMS).

In this the hosts Summer Brooks and Tim Callender (two dedicated fans) and Jeffrey Willerth (producer on the series) deal with news about the series, have interviews with people relating to the series – cast, crew, authors etc as well as (in many of the podcasts) deal with a specific episode of the series, a section of the podcast dubbed “Deep Geeking”, where the episode is analyzed, and they talk about what worked for them or not etc., and finally a voice mail section.

I have been following the podcast since September last year, when I got started in a big way listening to podcasts, and was very happy to find this one. Having some time at hand, I spent two weeks listening to the preceding 42 (one hour long) podcasts in order to get up to date.

They also record live every Wednesday evening at 18 pm Phoenix Arizona time, rather inconvenient for Western Europeans (3 am), but sometimes well worth it.
Simultaneously they have an IRC chat running, so live feed listeners can comment live. Find all info about the live feed on their website (link : Listen Live). The live feed is , of course unedited so if you join in, you get bloopers, banter and all – can be very entertaining.

Their latest show #69, released last week, was a little different : Members of the chatroom were invited to call in and contribute – they had 3 contributions, and I participated in the second section.

Today I (re)watched the final episode of Babylon 5, Season 2, “The Fall of Night” . the subject of this Wednesday’s “Deep Geeking”.

Link : Babylon Podcast

Doctor Who

Posted on by
2

I have been watching the new (2005 onwards) series of Doctor Who, and found it very good. Generally good story lines, often a subtle arc going through a whole season.

I am much more impressed by the new series than the old one. This should not be a surprise, since a lot has happened to scifi TV in the last 20 years. No wonder we sometimes find the older tv series a little lacking. Not just special effects, but in general.

Watched episode 11 , Utopia, of the 3rd (new) series in the week end and found it extremely promising for the 2 concluding episodes. I am not going to give any spoilers yet.