Owning the Dream

To-day brings word that Paramount may be dropping its lawsuit against the Star Trek fan film Axonar. They oughtn't to have needed J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin to apply pressure--as impressive as the effects and casting on Axonar are, the story still feels very fannish, moreso than some other Star Trek fan films, actually, being basically light weight war fantasies.

Did you know Nicholas Briggs, who to-day voices the Daleks and various other villains on Doctor Who, played the Doctor in a series of fan made audio plays in the 1980s? I didn't until yesterday when I was reading the Wikipedia entry for Frozen Time, the officially licensed Big Finish Doctor Who audio play from 2007. Also written by Briggs, it apparently references one of his fan audio plays from the 80s involving the Silurians. Like Axonar, Briggs' writing is often fannish and thin but Frozen Time wasn't so bad.

Featuring former Bond girl Maryam d'Abo as a scientist working in Antarctica, she and the rest of her team are surprised to find the Seventh Doctor (Sylvester McCoy) frozen and preserved in the ice. He's still alive despite having been there millions of years and his memory is a little spotty. He asks about Mel, Ace, and Hex before remembering he's been travelling alone, placing this audio play closer to the 1996 television movie. There's a rich capitalist (Anthony Calf) in charge of the expedition and I liked how the story didn't make him into the usual snarling villain, just making him kind of dumb and greedy. McCoy has good chemistry with several of the characters in the story and it would have been nice if d'Abo's character, Genevieve, had become a permanent companion. Mainly it's the concept of the Doctor recovering himself after being frozen in ice so long that keeps the story intriguing.

So the Seventh Doctor is frozen in Antarctica during most of his and the other Doctors' visits to Earth. There's also the TARDIS trapped in Pompeii, there's the Twelfth Doctor dwelling millions of years in that place from the recent season. I bet there's more examples I'm not remembering; I wonder how many Doctors are going at one time.

Twitter Sonnet #873

Ten suits delivered on livery tax.
A polearm labelled wrong gets shafted out.
A scutcheon shadow chows on arms of flax.
The threads of thoughtless wigs enmesh the trout.
A leg as duplicate to catsup pop.
The crime was closed to crisp and blank cigars.
No flag protrudes from failure pranks to drop.
From milk a nose was sculpted like a car's.
The ice machine returned the coat too late.
A war advanced along the seams of bands.
The cattle clapped upon the prodded slate.
But hooves are much too hard to pass for hands.
Uncounted beans o'erwhelmed the jar of sums.
For all lost teeth there's always still the gums.