DOCTOR WHO IS CANCELLED. NO REFUNDS.

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The_Doctor: Mar 29, 2007; "The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

LividLiquid posted:

Have Big Finish made 10th and River stories yet? It always bugs me how she asks ten if he's yet experienced things she did with Eleven, and that's never going away, but at the very least, it would settle my brain goblins a little bit if she had some other adventures with him.

The Moffat novelisation of Day of the Doctor has a couple of scenes of Ten and River.

# ? Sep 8, 2019 10:04

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 14:18

2house2fly: Nov 14, 2012; You did a super job wrapping things up! And I'm not just saying that because I have to!

He probably had some adventures with River between marrying Queen Elizabeth and going to the Oodsphere

# ? Sep 8, 2019 14:10

Timby: Dec 23, 2006; Your mother!

Burkion posted:

You know since Doctor Who IS a contemporary, you guys get the Burk Talk too

What I want to talk about today is �Heisei� UltraSeven, which for simplicity I�ll refer to as UltraSeven Evolution. Though that was only the subtitle given to the last of the 90s and early 2000s UltraSeven series, it does broadly fit the whole of Heisei UltraSeven and it also keeps me from having to constantly use a Japanese term that I�m going to wager some of you don�t really understand. What it is, for UltraSeven�s 25th, 30th and 35th anniversaries, more or less, Tsuburaya brought back the character and setting for brand new adventures and stories. But that�s not really fair to newcomers who have no idea what any of this even is to begin with!

So let�s take a step back. What I want to talk about is some poo poo made in the 90s and 2000s in Japan, but what I�m going to talk about in this blurb is the context for all of that to make sense. Let�s roll the wheel of time back a few decades to 1954. Less than ten years after WWII went down, Japanese and American relationships were still wounded, not made any better when an American H Bomb test went way out of control and caught fishing ships in its wake. Sadly it would leave no survivors, the sailors dying from radiation poisoning not long after. This would inspire Toho Studios, one of the largest film studios in Japan, to set to work on Gojira, which would eventually come to the US as Godzilla, King of the Monsters in 1956.

We have to tie things back this far because the man who brought Godzilla to life, the effective creator of the Tokusatsu Genre for Japan, was none other than Eiji Tsuburaya. For you new comers, as I�m going to be posting this in more than just the Toku thread, Tokusatsu is basically just �Live Action Special Effects�. The CW Super Hero series are an example of American Tokusatsu, as would the X-Files be and other similar shows. It doesn�t strictly mean super heroes, but that is what it has become closely associated with. There are, in theory, examples of these movies before Godzilla in Japanese history, but all of them have been lost to time sadly. Godzilla changed the game and Tsuburaya was the man behind it all.

Using his clout and influence, Tsuburaya established his own special effects studio that would begin developing projects for TV, while also aiding him on Toho movie projects. Due to this, while constrained to a weekly budget, Tsuburaya was able to pull off some impressive stuff on the small screen, and had access to top of the line recording equipment and special effects artists. Due to his unique and personal relationship with Toho he could even reuse suits, props and sound effects for his own personal series. The first of which being the classic black and white 1965 series, Ultra Q.

Ultra Q is an interesting beast of a series. We won�t spend too long on it because it is in many ways Tsuburaya getting his feet wet and proving that his plans could work on a weekly TV program. It is in effect Japan�s answer to the Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone, closer to the Monster of the Week formula of the former though some episodes dip further into the latter. Never an overly serious show, the episodes range from twenty five minute monster movies, to out there fantasy fables and bizarre sci-fi tales with almost zero continuity in between. The reoccuring cast do not grow, merely acting as audience cyphers across the strange and weird tales that run the gambit of furry mole Godzilla fighting feathery Rodan, an actual giant mole monster, the Giant Octopus that fought King Kong and Frankenstein and Frankenstein�s children getting his own adventure, and a magical train that goes to the fourth dimension where walruses exist. Also crippled old ladies are suddenly able to walk again because of radiation and a little boy rides on a flying turtle to fight Manda in space. It�s a weird series.

But it also ran out of steam quickly, Tsuburaya growing discontent with the program. He felt that they needed something else, something more to add. Real heroes, to combat the alien invaders and kaiju week after week. So, after a lot of design work and a lot of testing, Ultraman 1966 was created. Ultraman is a whole story all on its own, one of the most influential things in modern Japanese culture that is omnipresent across Japanese media. Largely considered the Superman of Japan, Ultraman is up there with the most recognizable and popular of Japanese fictional heroes. Without Ultraman, there would be no Kamen Rider, no Super Sentai/Power Rangers, no Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot, probably a very different Dragon Ball, and so much more.

But Ultraman is an interesting show to talk about. The thing with it was, it was never a very serious show. There were serious episodes, one of them is a stand out for being so dark and somber and touching on very real, very bitter concerns and emotions. But by and large, the show had a very fantastical feel to it, fitting better as Science Fantasy than anything. There was very little gravitas to the whole endeavor- Ultraman was a near invincible space God who could do drat near anything, the heroes were good and pure, and the aliens were all a bunch of bastards. Kaiju are inherently dangerous and must be wiped out and the show didn�t really care about the morality of things.

Except for one episode. That stand out episode mentioned before, episode 23. My Home Is Earth. A mysterious alien in an invisible spaceship comes to Earth and starts attacking the UN during important peace talks. The Science Patrol are tasked with stopping this alien without letting the world know of his true origins- namely the fact that he�s not an alien at all. His name is Jamila, and he was a human astronaut who was stranded in space, abandoned by his own people. He found himself on an inhospitable alien world with no water and ended up mutating into a grotesque, horrifying new form and eventually repaired and upgraded his ship to return to Earth and reveal the crimes of his country, who hid what happened to him.

It is a dark story that sees the comic relief of the show, Ide, go from being eager to kill this rogue alien to finding out the truth of him and having an emotional breakdown. Ultraman is forced to drown the poor man in the end, and the peace talks go on without a hitch, Jamila�s true fate kept secret from the world. Ide remarks bitterly that this is always the way with politicians and angrily leaves, to the cries of his fellows.

This is the only episode of Ultraman like this. Most of Ultraman is very silly and fun, very light hearted. It is a grand show with a lot of imagination and heart, but by its very nature it was limiting. Creatively stifling. Episodes like Jamila were what appealed to Tsuburaya more, and so he decided to cut Ultraman short at 39 episodes and move on. The TV stations begged him to keep the show going, but he felt he had done everything he could with the program like Ultra Q before it. He wanted to explore new ideas, go further than Ultraman ever had, and tell stronger, better stories.

Which brings us to 1967, UltraSeven. UltraSeven, it needs to be said, is not a sequel to Ultraman and does not take place in Ultraman�s universe. The two are not connected at all, and as of this period of time, UltraSeven is not an Ultraman. He is Agent 340, a cartographer from the M78 Nebula- Ultraman only ever referred to being from the Land of Light- whose original name wasn�t even going to be Ultra related. In progress names had him as Redman, UltraEye and others. Even the name UltraSeven does not refer to Ultraman at all. In UltraSeven, there is a Terrestrial Defense Force, a kind of world wide military, with a specialized unit for dealing with alien attackers, the Ultra Garrison. Each member are denoted as Ultra One, Ultra Two and so on. With his job to map the Milky Way Galaxy, Seven wandered to Earth and found an inspiring sight- a mountaineer sacrificing himself so that his partner could live, cutting his own rope when they were in trouble.

Saving the man before he died and shape shifting into his form, Seven took the human name Dan Moroboshi. From there Dan would join the Ultra Garrison as Ultra Six, which left his true form as, of course, UltraSeven. UltraSeven the series and character are far more serious and nuanced- the characters in Ultraman are largely archetypes or very flat, while the characters in Seven can be a lot more dynamic and fleshed out. To a degree of course, this is still the 60s. The series is regarded as Japan�s Star Trek, tackling sci-fi plots and far more serious stories than Ultraman was ever able to. It is also widely regarded as superior to the original Ultraman, and UltraSeven is often cited as the more popular of the two in Japan, and even at Tsuburaya the company itself.

UltraSeven would be made an Ultraman after his own series ended, in 1971, when he was brought back twice to save Ultraman Jack from certain death in homage to the recently passed Tsuburaya, who claimed UltraSeven as his favorite of his TV series. Not hard to see why given all of the love and affection given to the show- unlike Ultraman and Ultra Q, UltraSeven was kept going as long and as far as it could, lasting a full 49 episodes until Tsuburaya oversaw the grand finale personally.

Some of the episodes in UltraSeven are slower than others, bog standard sci-fi adventures with cunning alien invaders and brave heroes. But some of them go the extra mile. One of the best is the expertly shot and filmed The Targeted Town, episode 8, about people from a specific town going murderously insane for apparently no reason. Extremely well done visuals and cinematography coupled with a memorable villain and a down right awesome coda all come together to make it one of the best episodes of the franchise, despite the fact that it features almost no fighting at all. All of the two parters in UltraSeven are enjoyable for their own reasons, and all feature threats that rival our hero in power.

Because Seven predates Kamen Rider and what most know as Modern Toku (Power Rangers and the like), the series works more like a comic book super hero than what most think of as a Japanese one. There�s no random posing, no calling of attacks, no inexplicable power ups or training to get new abilities. No toys, beyond just the iconic things found in the series itself. Seven has a set bunch of powers that he uses in clever and brutal ways to fight whatever comes his way. Often his battles with the aliens come down to a game of wits, his alien foes knowing they�re not strong enough to face him in battle.

And unlike Ultraman, UltraSeven does not waste time fighting. If a fight lasts more than a minute, it�s because the enemy is dangerous or has some kind of trick up their sleeve. Because what really mattered to the series was the story, not the fights or monsters. Early, early on it is established that humanity are no angels, and that Seven would be forced to make hard choices if he decided to stand beside them. One featured an alien city traveling towards the Earth, unaware that the inhabitants of the planet weren�t able to move their planet like they could. It comes down to Dan trying to reach the aliens and convince them to move before the Ultra Garrison destroys their city- or the aliens destroy the Earth. Sadly for Dan the aliens are unable to be reached, and the Ultra Garrison destroys the city, killing billions.

Another famous story sees a parallel to the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Dan fighting to bring peace as best he can, ultimately futile. In the end the victim of humanity has to be put down and the human race only learn to fear the horrors of the universe even more. Finally for this talking point, we have the most somber of all the Seven episodes. Aliens begin sending warnings to the humans to avoid the ocean, to leave it be. Turns out they have underwater cities and are trying to live peacefully, but recent testing has badly harmed them. Dan ends up having to side with humanity or the aliens, and chooses to save his human friends- leaving them to wipe out the aliens.

Only, it�s revealed that the aliens were not invaders. They weren�t even aliens. They were the Nonmalt, the original and rightful inheritors of Earth. They claim that Humanity�s ancestors came to the planet as invaders, forcing the Nonmalt into the ocean and taking the earth as their own. A horrific crime, and one that leaves Dan questioning if humanity is worth fighting and suffering for. One that would have ramifications into the Evolution series, along with the other sins of humanity.

Unlike with Ultraman, who was unceremoniously defeated by a new monster of the week in a single episode to shuffle the series out the door, Seven was given a huge send off with a two parter that had greater stakes than ever before. After so long fighting for humanity, Seven is dying. His physical injuries have caught up to him and he�s unable to absorb solar energy anymore. Just as this starts happening, the worst alien invasion in the history of the franchise kicks off, the Goth Aliens wiping out New York, Moscow, London and Paris in underground explosions, declaring that they will wipe out all of humanity if they do not bend at the knee.

On their side is their super monster, Pandon, as well as their volcano base where they operate. Seven takes on Pandon but finds his powers are failing, unable to use his energy attacks or control his famous Eye Slugger, a blade built into his head that he normally could telepathically control. Instead Seven has to take it in hand and in a difficult struggle, lops off Pandon�s arm and leg, passing out after.

But this does not stop the monster nor the aliens. The Aliens retaliate by turning Pandon into a cyborg and capturing Soga, Dan�s best human friend. Dan�s health is failing rapidly and even his superior warns him that if he transforms and fights, he will die before reaching home. Unable to abandon his friends and loved ones, Dan transforms in front of Anne, his love interest, one final time. He rescues Soga as the volcanic base is destroyed by the Ultra Garrison and then fights Reconstructed Pandon one final time, managing to kill the beast for good by lopping off its heads.

After that the weary hero leaves the Earth, his human friends unsure if he will survive the trip back to his homeworld. One laments that if Dan dies, it�ll be their fault. He�d have died because of them. Furahashi however believes that Dan will return, Anne backing him up. They know Dan will live and Dan will return to them, one day. His fate uncertain, the series draws to a close.

For 1967 UltraSeven, it is unmatched in my eyes compared to its contemporaries. The aliens didn�t always look the best, but the storytelling was tight and powerful, the characters well realized, and the effects for the time honestly as good as they possibly could have been. It stands up there with the best of 1960s sci-fi, and is one of the best super hero media out there. Seven as a character is not naive, having lived for 19,000 years, but he believes the best in people and wishes to see the best in others. He also would do anything for the people he has grown to love, choosing humanity over his own happiness and well being time after time even though he knows how flawed they are.

Its long lasting appeal and outstanding quality is why it has stood the test of time and become one of the primary pillars in the Ultraman franchise and beyond. For as much as Ultraman has inspired in media, UltraSeven has inspired even more. It stands as one of the best super hero properties out there, and is my favorite superhero period.

And with that preamble out of the way, soon I will go into the UltraSeven Evolution series, broken down into their individual eras. We have four to cover- two TV movies released in 1994, three direct to video movies released in 1998, six direct to video movies released in 1999, and a five episode mini series released across 2001 and 2002 to finish it off. Tying that with the UltraSeven X series made in 2007 for Seven�s 40th, if you lot don�t mind, I�ll walk you all through the slightly lesser known aspects of UltraSeven�s story. Not what came before, but what happened after he left the Earth that fateful 1968 night.

Be seeing you soon.

wat

# ? Sep 8, 2019 22:00

Davros1: Jul 19, 2007; You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible

https://twitter.com/TrapOne_/status/1170694977690771457?s=20

# ? Sep 8, 2019 22:59

The_Doctor: Mar 29, 2007; "The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

Looks like Martha�s coming back.

https://twitter.com/bigfinish/status/1170953743019454464

# ? Sep 9, 2019 14:57

Davros1: Jul 19, 2007; You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible

Reveal in hour; it also has something to do with Torchwood.

# ? Sep 9, 2019 18:14

Davros1: Jul 19, 2007; You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible

https://twitter.com/bigfinish/status/1171126191736143872?s=20

# ? Sep 9, 2019 19:21

Burkion: May 10, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

So let�s not mince words here. To say that I like UltraSeven is to say that the sun is mildly warm. While yes, accurate, you�re perhaps underplaying it too much. I wrote a three thousand word essay that was both truncated, intentionally glossing over many aspects and nuances of the program, and kept as brief as I could manage while also spending the entire time professing how much I love UltraSeven to the heavens and beyond. And believe you me, I could go on about 1967 UltraSeven, or his impact on the Ultraman franchise going forward, and his unique relationships with his teammates or even bring up the fact that he�s the first Ultraman that starred in a series to get a kid. I could gush about the Twilight Zone esque Fourth Planet episode or talk about the top fifteen best episodes or any number of fan boy things.

Because I am that. I am entirely that. I love UltraSeven and I love the actors and I even love the TNT Cinrar Dub from the late 80s to mid 90s, which is how I discovered UltraSeven. It�s way more tongue and cheek but it doesn�t try to be a poo poo dub. It has perfectly good voice acting and some inventive names for the villains but it�s genuinely pretty fun and doesn�t ruin a good show like the 4Kids Tiga dub. It helps that the jokes were very much aimed at adults, including political jokes and Star Trek references and all kinds of nonsense. Great time, great time. I own no less than three hyper articulated UltraSeven action figures including a multi-hundred dollar RAH figure and by God I would own more if I could.

We�re taking all the time in the world to set this up because BOY is the first 1994 special a piece of poo poo! The second one doesn�t quite rise up to Hot Mess, but isn�t in the pit of wallowing filth that the first sinks to either. Just letting ya�ll know ahead of time, this first outing for the UltraSeven Evolution series is rough. Whoo boy.

So let�s cover some important background info first and foremost. UltraSeven, as covered in part one of this mess, was not originally an Ultraman and was not set in the Ultraman universe. Canonically his series didn�t even take place in the same time frame- 1966 Ultraman was set in 1990, 1967 UltraSeven was set in 1986. Return of Ultraman would twist things around and change things so that both took place in the years they were made, which is how the Main Timeline follows since. Only, UltraSeven doesn�t really care about the main timeline. Something unique to Ultraman and UltraSeven- Jack, Taro and the like, they need the main timeline to exist. Seven and Ultraman can just go off and have new adventures and not give a poo poo.

Which is where we are here. From 1968 (1987 I guess?) when Seven last left in a dying, wounded state, we return to the Earth of his original timeline twenty five years later (twenty seven, but who�s keeping track) in the year 1994 (2003??? They never really clarify dates in Evolution) where a wounded and exhausted UltraSeven is attacked in space, sent hurtling back to the planet he loves. From there we meet the new Ultra Garrison, and oh boy do we have a story to tell here. So for some backstory, Furuhashi is the new Commander of the Ultra Garrison, having taken over for the original, Kiryama, some time in the past.

We learn that the Ultra Garrison have been dealing with alien invaders and kaiju all these years. In his youth, Furuhashi was an energetic, strong if brash man who was friendly with Dan but more associated himself with Seven. He was a farmer�s son from the mountains and always had the closest ties to nature accordingly. He�d actually end up saving the day more than once through force of personality, and has now found himself matured over the years, nostalgic for the days gone by but dedicated more than ever to fighting the ills of the universe and safeguarding humanity. He is a staunch proponent of advancing humanity and allying with friendly alien races.

As we learn he�s got his own family, raising his children with his wife and looks forward to seeing the future they leave their children. He is the one saving grace of this entire loving episode and by God you better appreciate this man. Well, we also have Anne back, married to an astronaut who is on a mission to Mars or something. Anne was Dan�s love interest in UltraSeven proper, though the two never officially got around to anything most times when Dan returns, Anne is brought up or mentioned in some way. Here, she�s found someone new, but her affection and respect for Dan remains clear- because she has named her nine year old son Dan. Wonder how her husband feels about that.

She is sadly criminally underused, but shows herself to be no nonsense when dangers come knocking, still packing her laser pistol from the Ultra Garrison days and still a crack shot. The greatest shame of the specials is that she and Dan do not get to have a proper reunion, something we�ll get back to later. We also meet the other three members of the new Ultra Garrison. Kaji, Furuhashi�s effective second in command, the most spirited and driven of the team. He has a particular zeal to fighting alien invaders and tends to be partnered with Furuhashi when things go down. Next is Togo, the actual ranked second in command, a quiet person who thinks every encounter through. Finally is Risa, the sole woman of the team, an expert martial artist. Not a whole lot on the last two to be honest but Risa at least gets some cool poo poo to do.

For this first episode, whose plot we now return to, we bump heads against the Pitt Aliens, old foes of the Ultra Garrison and UltraSeven. Climate change is a very real danger to the human race and will only get worse in the following decades, predicted the show from 1994, and they�re here to sabotage humanity. They want climate change to kick our teeth in and leave us vulnerable to attack later, and the way they go about this is targeting solar energy research and stopping its development. Now let�s stop for a moment and talk about this.

This is not like a kids show talking down to kids about evil aliens making things hotter. This might be more fun if it was. No, this very preachy, very environmentally friendly episode is tackling this as maturely and adult-like as it can. Using real science, exploring the real technology and its real pit falls. And for that, I can at the very least commend it. It�s not scare mongering, and living in the future they warned us about, yeah, it does have a loving point.

It�s just having boring rear end dry card board cut out scientists prattle on and on and on for thirty loving minutes about solar energy, with the poor Ultra Garrison members caught up in this plotline, Togo and Risa, being forced to act as cheer leaders...boy. BOY is this not good. Commendable, yes! Impressive, kind of yeah! Entertaining or good story telling? Oh Hell The gently caress No. The entire thing is just 30-40 minutes of a bunch of boring people talking about poo poo I have to deal with on a daily basis and how there�s no miracle technology to fix it. Yeah, I knew that already, thanks.

There are some decent things that come from this. We learn that the aliens also use solar energy, though they use infinitely more advanced forms of it than humanity has. The Pitt Aliens were even the ones who shot down Seven over Earth using their big super duper cannon, though as we�ll learn, they weren�t the only ones fighting him. Speaking of Seven, Furuhashi gets called to a Terrestrial Defense Force base on top secret matters. Taking Kaji along, they discover the comatose UltraSeven, whom the TDF built this hanger base around in a hurry and have been exposing him to as much solar energy as they can manage, but still haven�t gotten a peep out of him. They know he�s still alive, but only barely.

In one of the best moments of the two parter, Furuhashi breaks down crying at the state of his friend. In his own words, Seven is so covered in wounds, he must have spent the last twenty five years fighting for humanity out in space all alone. Furuhashi gets ahold of the special solar energy doctor who has been boring us for the last 30 minutes, who has to admit that helping Seven is entirely out of their ability to handle. UltraSeven absorbs deep space cosmic radiation and solar energy directly from the sun. They couldn�t begin to get enough energy to help him if they tried for months.

Months that they don�t have. Skimming over some boring poo poo here, long story short, the Pitt Aliens discover where Seven is being kept by the humans and where the last of the solar energy dishes is. They send Eleking to wipe out the solar energy dish and use their super duper mega cannon to nuke UltraSeven from space. Which proves to be a mistake. All the cannon manages to do, after it blows everything to hell, is wake UltraSeven up. He takes a quick jaunt to the sun, soaks up some energy, comes back and kicks the poo poo out of Eleking. He then goes back, destroys the Cannon and kills the Pitt Aliens and their ship. Also saves Anne�s son who was held captive for stupid reasons.

Anyways UltraSeven is back on Earth! Also, Dan Moroboshi NEVER APPEARS IN THIS ENTIRE EPISODE. Fifty loving minutes, and UltraSeven is in about five of them total and only ever transformed. What the poo poo kind of return is that? But whatever. The Furuhashi and UltraSeven stuff was really good, Anne was nice to see, and the rest was...boring. Real, real, real boring. Also the effects kind of look worse than ever, because we�re at the start of early 90s digital effects and Tsuburaya Productions isn�t quite sure how to handle it yet. It�ll get better by the time �99 rolls around but boy is it rough here.

It�s neat in how it continues the narrative of the 1967 original, and it is vital to suffer through but, maybe, unless you really want to learn about solar technology circa 1994 and the depressing realities of climate change going forward, you might want to fast forward until Furuhashi is on screen. Also Dan and Furuhashi never meet in this one! For shame. Anne and Seven never meet at ALL which is a true crime. But it�d probably be weird, she already named her kid after him.

So now we come to the second episode of this two part TV movie bananza. Is it any better? Yes. Is it an out and out apology for the last one? Oh my no. So to get the flaws of this out of the way, instead of a lot of boring poo poo going on, instead the pacing is just wrong. This would be a great 30 minute, 40 minute special. But they don�t have the plot to keep it going that long, and it�s over 50. So there�s a lot of faffing around, a lot of slow stuff and a lot of beating around the bush. The core story isn�t even that great.

Scientist is bitter at humanity for how they�ve left the world, conspires with aliens to create a perfect underground city, is aghast that the aliens plan to let humanity die and use the city for themselves. What helps salvage this is that we get Dan Morobshi back for real and we get some fun stuff. We open with UltraSeven fighting a Metron alien on some alien world. Seven gets the better of the Metron, from the same species as an earlier invader in fact one of the most famous in the franchise. The Metron declares that the Earth will fall into their hands before dying.

On earth his children, a son and daughter, are getting that under ground city thing going. They don�t have any plans to deal with humanity, just planning on letting them wipe themselves out. Which, you know, fair. We get to see Dan investigate them as a person, avoiding Furuhashi for...some reason...and teaming up with the Ultra Garrison to take them down at the end. Risa finally gets her moment where she takes on the son in a hand to hand fight and holds her own. One of the two kids gets killed and the other grows big and summons a dinosaur monster, Seven transforms and we get the whole shebang. Metron isn�t the strongest alien around so Seven�s able to kill them pretty easily, some tricks aside.

And then that underground city, that they were fighting over, self destructs. The Ultra Garrison are out of the danger zone, but Seven? He�s point blank. At ground zero of an entire city going boom, everyone watching is convinced that Seven must have died. Everyone but Furuhashi. Though distraught at watching his friend get caught up in yet another seemingly fatal event, he knows Dan survived. He knows that they�ll meet again.

And yeah, that�s UltraSeven�s fate. He vanishes in the midst of a city exploding all around him, no trace left behind. UltraSeven is destined to live an unhappy life, sacrificing everything for those he loves. His fate would be left up in the air, unknown to the viewers at home, for another four years until the 1998 series picked up with Lost Memories.

The 1998 series is when the quality starts to turn around big time. Not quite reaching the heights of the old series, it�s still something to look forward to. Especially because that will introduce us to the path to the 1999 series, and all the greatness that awaits. The 1994 specials should only be watched if you really, really want to see all of UltraSeven, because the Metron episode sounds far more exciting than it is. It�s nice having the original actors back, it�s great to see Dan again, but they just drag so much. They�re written in such a weird way as well, uniquely adult about subjects you�d normally only see education shows tackle. They�re very flat and honest about the draw backs and limitations of solar energy and alternative fuel sources. Part of what kills the 94 specials is that there�s an edge missing.

Humanity is not brought to judgement for the crimes it has committed, even against its own environment and people. Every human character we meet is positive and friendly and working towards a brighter tomorrow, even the scientist who threw his lot in with the Metrons before realizing their true intentions. It�s all too nice and clean for UltraSeven. Not at all in keeping with the series that would portray humanity as being in the wrong almost as much as the aliens they fought.

The 1998 series will see this start to turn around, which we�ll talk about next time. See you soon.

# ? Sep 10, 2019 02:39

Jerusalem: May 20, 2004; Would you be my new best friends?

I don't mean to be a dick, but why are you posting about this in the Doctor Who thread? Like I don't grasp what the significance is? What is the connection?

# ? Sep 10, 2019 02:52

Flight Bisque: Feb 23, 2008; There is, surprisingly, always hope.

Burkion posted:

So let’s not mince words here.

Oh here we go, another voyage 'round the English language!

# ? Sep 10, 2019 02:56

Burkion: May 10, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Jerusalem posted:

I don't mean to be a dick, but why are you posting about this in the Doctor Who thread? Like I don't grasp what the significance is? What is the connection?

Like I mentioned in the first part, UltraSeven and Doctor Who are contemporaries- both were low budget 1960s sci-fi series, brought back in the 90s and later the 2000s.

If you guys would rather I not continue covering it here, that's fine.

# ? Sep 10, 2019 03:07

Jerusalem: May 20, 2004; Would you be my new best friends?

I'm not reading it (nothing against it, it's just not my bag) but if others find it interesting I can easily just scroll by it v :shobon:

# ? Sep 10, 2019 03:14

Burkion: May 10, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Jerusalem posted:

I'm not reading it (nothing against it, it's just not my bag) but if others find it interesting I can easily just scroll by it vv

I will say, classic UltraSeven has more in common with Doctor Who than you might expect.

# ? Sep 10, 2019 03:21

jivjov: Sep 13, 2007; But how does it taste? Yummy!; Dinosaur Gum

I was about to say...maybe Burk's account was compromised.....but then I realized that there's literally nobody else on the planet capable of that level of Ultraman Effort Post

# ? Sep 10, 2019 04:21

Davros1: Jul 19, 2007; You've got to admit, you are kind of implausible

They've also been posting it in numerous different threads.

# ? Sep 10, 2019 04:31

Senor Tron: May 26, 2006

Petition started to get Toxxupation or whatever he's called now to start watching Ultraman.

# ? Sep 10, 2019 04:39

Sydney Bottocks: Oct 15, 2004

Friends, let me make the first in a nine-volume series of posts about The Time Tunnel. :v:

# ? Sep 10, 2019 04:44

Burkion: May 10, 2012; by Fluffdaddy

Sydney Bottocks posted:

Friends, let me make the first in a nine-volume series of posts about The Time Tunnel.

The loving civil war episode is some kind of art that I cannot comprehend

# ? Sep 10, 2019 04:49

Vinylshadow: Mar 20, 2017

We've been using the wrong titles for decades, apparently

https://twitter.com/jonnymorris1973/status/1171357623326822400

# ? Sep 10, 2019 16:56

Trin Tragula: Apr 22, 2005

Oh christ, not this ancient and highly flammable chestnut again. And now it's coming to Twitter, of all places. I can't stand it, I'm going off with an unearthly child to join the Tribe of Gum and forget all about it, because there's no TV in 100,000 BC.

Seriously, by far the best thing about NewWho is that people now have other things to argue about besides working titles, UNIT dating, and the precise meaning of "Doctor Who is required".

# ? Sep 10, 2019 17:04

SiKboy: Oct 28, 2007; Oh no!😱

Burkion posted:

Like I mentioned in the first part, UltraSeven and Doctor Who are contemporaries- both were low budget 1960s sci-fi series, brought back in the 90s and later the 2000s.

If you guys would rather I not continue covering it here, that's fine.

I dont want to be a dick, but... When the only response to the first wall of Ultraman text was one person saying "wut" I feel like that answers the question. Its cool you find it interesting, but it really has gently caress all to do with Who, and there has to be a more relevant place to talk about it where people who are interested in it would see it. If you wanted to do a TLDR where you highlight anything you think are interesting similarities between the shows, go for it, but I dont know that a potted history of Ultraman in X parts really belongs in this thread.

I'll be honest when I saw the first post I did kind of think "Wrong thread, compromised account or manic episode?". I mean, if everyone else is actually super into it then I can just scroll past, but I would be kind of surprised.

# ? Sep 10, 2019 17:24

marktheando: Nov 4, 2006

Burkion posted:

You know since Doctor Who IS a contemporary, you guys get the Burk Talk too

What I want to talk about today is ‘Heisei’ UltraSeven, which for simplicity I’ll refer to as UltraSeven Evolution. Though that was only the subtitle given to the last of the 90s and early 2000s UltraSeven series, it does broadly fit the whole of Heisei UltraSeven and it also keeps me from having to constantly use a Japanese term that I’m going to wager some of you don’t really understand. What it is, for UltraSeven’s 25th, 30th and 35th anniversaries, more or less, Tsuburaya brought back the character and setting for brand new adventures and stories. But that’s not really fair to newcomers who have no idea what any of this even is to begin with!

So let’s take a step back. What I want to talk about is some poo poo made in the 90s and 2000s in Japan, but what I’m going to talk about in this blurb is the context for all of that to make sense. Let’s roll the wheel of time back a few decades to 1954. Less than ten years after WWII went down, Japanese and American relationships were still wounded, not made any better when an American H Bomb test went way out of control and caught fishing ships in its wake. Sadly it would leave no survivors, the sailors dying from radiation poisoning not long after. This would inspire Toho Studios, one of the largest film studios in Japan, to set to work on Gojira, which would eventually come to the US as Godzilla, King of the Monsters in 1956.

We have to tie things back this far because the man who brought Godzilla to life, the effective creator of the Tokusatsu Genre for Japan, was none other than Eiji Tsuburaya. For you new comers, as I’m going to be posting this in more than just the Toku thread, Tokusatsu is basically just ‘Live Action Special Effects’. The CW Super Hero series are an example of American Tokusatsu, as would the X-Files be and other similar shows. It doesn’t strictly mean super heroes, but that is what it has become closely associated with. There are, in theory, examples of these movies before Godzilla in Japanese history, but all of them have been lost to time sadly. Godzilla changed the game and Tsuburaya was the man behind it all.

Using his clout and influence, Tsuburaya established his own special effects studio that would begin developing projects for TV, while also aiding him on Toho movie projects. Due to this, while constrained to a weekly budget, Tsuburaya was able to pull off some impressive stuff on the small screen, and had access to top of the line recording equipment and special effects artists. Due to his unique and personal relationship with Toho he could even reuse suits, props and sound effects for his own personal series. The first of which being the classic black and white 1965 series, Ultra Q.

Ultra Q is an interesting beast of a series. We won’t spend too long on it because it is in many ways Tsuburaya getting his feet wet and proving that his plans could work on a weekly TV program. It is in effect Japan’s answer to the Outer Limits or the Twilight Zone, closer to the Monster of the Week formula of the former though some episodes dip further into the latter. Never an overly serious show, the episodes range from twenty five minute monster movies, to out there fantasy fables and bizarre sci-fi tales with almost zero continuity in between. The reoccuring cast do not grow, merely acting as audience cyphers across the strange and weird tales that run the gambit of furry mole Godzilla fighting feathery Rodan, an actual giant mole monster, the Giant Octopus that fought King Kong and Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s children getting his own adventure, and a magical train that goes to the fourth dimension where walruses exist. Also crippled old ladies are suddenly able to walk again because of radiation and a little boy rides on a flying turtle to fight Manda in space. It’s a weird series.

But it also ran out of steam quickly, Tsuburaya growing discontent with the program. He felt that they needed something else, something more to add. Real heroes, to combat the alien invaders and kaiju week after week. So, after a lot of design work and a lot of testing, Ultraman 1966 was created. Ultraman is a whole story all on its own, one of the most influential things in modern Japanese culture that is omnipresent across Japanese media. Largely considered the Superman of Japan, Ultraman is up there with the most recognizable and popular of Japanese fictional heroes. Without Ultraman, there would be no Kamen Rider, no Super Sentai/Power Rangers, no Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot, probably a very different Dragon Ball, and so much more.

But Ultraman is an interesting show to talk about. The thing with it was, it was never a very serious show. There were serious episodes, one of them is a stand out for being so dark and somber and touching on very real, very bitter concerns and emotions. But by and large, the show had a very fantastical feel to it, fitting better as Science Fantasy than anything. There was very little gravitas to the whole endeavor- Ultraman was a near invincible space God who could do drat near anything, the heroes were good and pure, and the aliens were all a bunch of bastards. Kaiju are inherently dangerous and must be wiped out and the show didn’t really care about the morality of things.

Except for one episode. That stand out episode mentioned before, episode 23. My Home Is Earth. A mysterious alien in an invisible spaceship comes to Earth and starts attacking the UN during important peace talks. The Science Patrol are tasked with stopping this alien without letting the world know of his true origins- namely the fact that he’s not an alien at all. His name is Jamila, and he was a human astronaut who was stranded in space, abandoned by his own people. He found himself on an inhospitable alien world with no water and ended up mutating into a grotesque, horrifying new form and eventually repaired and upgraded his ship to return to Earth and reveal the crimes of his country, who hid what happened to him.

It is a dark story that sees the comic relief of the show, Ide, go from being eager to kill this rogue alien to finding out the truth of him and having an emotional breakdown. Ultraman is forced to drown the poor man in the end, and the peace talks go on without a hitch, Jamila’s true fate kept secret from the world. Ide remarks bitterly that this is always the way with politicians and angrily leaves, to the cries of his fellows.

This is the only episode of Ultraman like this. Most of Ultraman is very silly and fun, very light hearted. It is a grand show with a lot of imagination and heart, but by its very nature it was limiting. Creatively stifling. Episodes like Jamila were what appealed to Tsuburaya more, and so he decided to cut Ultraman short at 39 episodes and move on. The TV stations begged him to keep the show going, but he felt he had done everything he could with the program like Ultra Q before it. He wanted to explore new ideas, go further than Ultraman ever had, and tell stronger, better stories.

Which brings us to 1967, UltraSeven. UltraSeven, it needs to be said, is not a sequel to Ultraman and does not take place in Ultraman’s universe. The two are not connected at all, and as of this period of time, UltraSeven is not an Ultraman. He is Agent 340, a cartographer from the M78 Nebula- Ultraman only ever referred to being from the Land of Light- whose original name wasn’t even going to be Ultra related. In progress names had him as Redman, UltraEye and others. Even the name UltraSeven does not refer to Ultraman at all. In UltraSeven, there is a Terrestrial Defense Force, a kind of world wide military, with a specialized unit for dealing with alien attackers, the Ultra Garrison. Each member are denoted as Ultra One, Ultra Two and so on. With his job to map the Milky Way Galaxy, Seven wandered to Earth and found an inspiring sight- a mountaineer sacrificing himself so that his partner could live, cutting his own rope when they were in trouble.

Saving the man before he died and shape shifting into his form, Seven took the human name Dan Moroboshi. From there Dan would join the Ultra Garrison as Ultra Six, which left his true form as, of course, UltraSeven. UltraSeven the series and character are far more serious and nuanced- the characters in Ultraman are largely archetypes or very flat, while the characters in Seven can be a lot more dynamic and fleshed out. To a degree of course, this is still the 60s. The series is regarded as Japan’s Star Trek, tackling sci-fi plots and far more serious stories than Ultraman was ever able to. It is also widely regarded as superior to the original Ultraman, and UltraSeven is often cited as the more popular of the two in Japan, and even at Tsuburaya the company itself.

UltraSeven would be made an Ultraman after his own series ended, in 1971, when he was brought back twice to save Ultraman Jack from certain death in homage to the recently passed Tsuburaya, who claimed UltraSeven as his favorite of his TV series. Not hard to see why given all of the love and affection given to the show- unlike Ultraman and Ultra Q, UltraSeven was kept going as long and as far as it could, lasting a full 49 episodes until Tsuburaya oversaw the grand finale personally.

Some of the episodes in UltraSeven are slower than others, bog standard sci-fi adventures with cunning alien invaders and brave heroes. But some of them go the extra mile. One of the best is the expertly shot and filmed The Targeted Town, episode 8, about people from a specific town going murderously insane for apparently no reason. Extremely well done visuals and cinematography coupled with a memorable villain and a down right awesome coda all come together to make it one of the best episodes of the franchise, despite the fact that it features almost no fighting at all. All of the two parters in UltraSeven are enjoyable for their own reasons, and all feature threats that rival our hero in power.

Because Seven predates Kamen Rider and what most know as Modern Toku (Power Rangers and the like), the series works more like a comic book super hero than what most think of as a Japanese one. There’s no random posing, no calling of attacks, no inexplicable power ups or training to get new abilities. No toys, beyond just the iconic things found in the series itself. Seven has a set bunch of powers that he uses in clever and brutal ways to fight whatever comes his way. Often his battles with the aliens come down to a game of wits, his alien foes knowing they’re not strong enough to face him in battle.

And unlike Ultraman, UltraSeven does not waste time fighting. If a fight lasts more than a minute, it’s because the enemy is dangerous or has some kind of trick up their sleeve. Because what really mattered to the series was the story, not the fights or monsters. Early, early on it is established that humanity are no angels, and that Seven would be forced to make hard choices if he decided to stand beside them. One featured an alien city traveling towards the Earth, unaware that the inhabitants of the planet weren’t able to move their planet like they could. It comes down to Dan trying to reach the aliens and convince them to move before the Ultra Garrison destroys their city- or the aliens destroy the Earth. Sadly for Dan the aliens are unable to be reached, and the Ultra Garrison destroys the city, killing billions.

Another famous story sees a parallel to the Cuban Missile Crisis, with Dan fighting to bring peace as best he can, ultimately futile. In the end the victim of humanity has to be put down and the human race only learn to fear the horrors of the universe even more. Finally for this talking point, we have the most somber of all the Seven episodes. Aliens begin sending warnings to the humans to avoid the ocean, to leave it be. Turns out they have underwater cities and are trying to live peacefully, but recent testing has badly harmed them. Dan ends up having to side with humanity or the aliens, and chooses to save his human friends- leaving them to wipe out the aliens.

Only, it’s revealed that the aliens were not invaders. They weren’t even aliens. They were the Nonmalt, the original and rightful inheritors of Earth. They claim that Humanity’s ancestors came to the planet as invaders, forcing the Nonmalt into the ocean and taking the earth as their own. A horrific crime, and one that leaves Dan questioning if humanity is worth fighting and suffering for. One that would have ramifications into the Evolution series, along with the other sins of humanity.

Unlike with Ultraman, who was unceremoniously defeated by a new monster of the week in a single episode to shuffle the series out the door, Seven was given a huge send off with a two parter that had greater stakes than ever before. After so long fighting for humanity, Seven is dying. His physical injuries have caught up to him and he’s unable to absorb solar energy anymore. Just as this starts happening, the worst alien invasion in the history of the franchise kicks off, the Goth Aliens wiping out New York, Moscow, London and Paris in underground explosions, declaring that they will wipe out all of humanity if they do not bend at the knee.

On their side is their super monster, Pandon, as well as their volcano base where they operate. Seven takes on Pandon but finds his powers are failing, unable to use his energy attacks or control his famous Eye Slugger, a blade built into his head that he normally could telepathically control. Instead Seven has to take it in hand and in a difficult struggle, lops off Pandon’s arm and leg, passing out after.

But this does not stop the monster nor the aliens. The Aliens retaliate by turning Pandon into a cyborg and capturing Soga, Dan’s best human friend. Dan’s health is failing rapidly and even his superior warns him that if he transforms and fights, he will die before reaching home. Unable to abandon his friends and loved ones, Dan transforms in front of Anne, his love interest, one final time. He rescues Soga as the volcanic base is destroyed by the Ultra Garrison and then fights Reconstructed Pandon one final time, managing to kill the beast for good by lopping off its heads.

After that the weary hero leaves the Earth, his human friends unsure if he will survive the trip back to his homeworld. One laments that if Dan dies, it’ll be their fault. He’d have died because of them. Furahashi however believes that Dan will return, Anne backing him up. They know Dan will live and Dan will return to them, one day. His fate uncertain, the series draws to a close.

For 1967 UltraSeven, it is unmatched in my eyes compared to its contemporaries. The aliens didn’t always look the best, but the storytelling was tight and powerful, the characters well realized, and the effects for the time honestly as good as they possibly could have been. It stands up there with the best of 1960s sci-fi, and is one of the best super hero media out there. Seven as a character is not naive, having lived for 19,000 years, but he believes the best in people and wishes to see the best in others. He also would do anything for the people he has grown to love, choosing humanity over his own happiness and well being time after time even though he knows how flawed they are.

Its long lasting appeal and outstanding quality is why it has stood the test of time and become one of the primary pillars in the Ultraman franchise and beyond. For as much as Ultraman has inspired in media, UltraSeven has inspired even more. It stands as one of the best super hero properties out there, and is my favorite superhero period.

And with that preamble out of the way, soon I will go into the UltraSeven Evolution series, broken down into their individual eras. We have four to cover- two TV movies released in 1994, three direct to video movies released in 1998, six direct to video movies released in 1999, and a five episode mini series released across 2001 and 2002 to finish it off. Tying that with the UltraSeven X series made in 2007 for Seven’s 40th, if you lot don’t mind, I’ll walk you all through the slightly lesser known aspects of UltraSeven’s story. Not what came before, but what happened after he left the Earth that fateful 1968 night.

Be seeing you soon.

Burkion posted:

So let’s not mince words here. To say that I like UltraSeven is to say that the sun is mildly warm. While yes, accurate, you’re perhaps underplaying it too much. I wrote a three thousand word essay that was both truncated, intentionally glossing over many aspects and nuances of the program, and kept as brief as I could manage while also spending the entire time professing how much I love UltraSeven to the heavens and beyond. And believe you me, I could go on about 1967 UltraSeven, or his impact on the Ultraman franchise going forward, and his unique relationships with his teammates or even bring up the fact that he’s the first Ultraman that starred in a series to get a kid. I could gush about the Twilight Zone esque Fourth Planet episode or talk about the top fifteen best episodes or any number of fan boy things.

Because I am that. I am entirely that. I love UltraSeven and I love the actors and I even love the TNT Cinrar Dub from the late 80s to mid 90s, which is how I discovered UltraSeven. It’s way more tongue and cheek but it doesn’t try to be a poo poo dub. It has perfectly good voice acting and some inventive names for the villains but it’s genuinely pretty fun and doesn’t ruin a good show like the 4Kids Tiga dub. It helps that the jokes were very much aimed at adults, including political jokes and Star Trek references and all kinds of nonsense. Great time, great time. I own no less than three hyper articulated UltraSeven action figures including a multi-hundred dollar RAH figure and by God I would own more if I could.

We’re taking all the time in the world to set this up because BOY is the first 1994 special a piece of poo poo! The second one doesn’t quite rise up to Hot Mess, but isn’t in the pit of wallowing filth that the first sinks to either. Just letting ya’ll know ahead of time, this first outing for the UltraSeven Evolution series is rough. Whoo boy.

So let’s cover some important background info first and foremost. UltraSeven, as covered in part one of this mess, was not originally an Ultraman and was not set in the Ultraman universe. Canonically his series didn’t even take place in the same time frame- 1966 Ultraman was set in 1990, 1967 UltraSeven was set in 1986. Return of Ultraman would twist things around and change things so that both took place in the years they were made, which is how the Main Timeline follows since. Only, UltraSeven doesn’t really care about the main timeline. Something unique to Ultraman and UltraSeven- Jack, Taro and the like, they need the main timeline to exist. Seven and Ultraman can just go off and have new adventures and not give a poo poo.

Which is where we are here. From 1968 (1987 I guess?) when Seven last left in a dying, wounded state, we return to the Earth of his original timeline twenty five years later (twenty seven, but who’s keeping track) in the year 1994 (2003??? They never really clarify dates in Evolution) where a wounded and exhausted UltraSeven is attacked in space, sent hurtling back to the planet he loves. From there we meet the new Ultra Garrison, and oh boy do we have a story to tell here. So for some backstory, Furuhashi is the new Commander of the Ultra Garrison, having taken over for the original, Kiryama, some time in the past.

We learn that the Ultra Garrison have been dealing with alien invaders and kaiju all these years. In his youth, Furuhashi was an energetic, strong if brash man who was friendly with Dan but more associated himself with Seven. He was a farmer’s son from the mountains and always had the closest ties to nature accordingly. He’d actually end up saving the day more than once through force of personality, and has now found himself matured over the years, nostalgic for the days gone by but dedicated more than ever to fighting the ills of the universe and safeguarding humanity. He is a staunch proponent of advancing humanity and allying with friendly alien races.

As we learn he’s got his own family, raising his children with his wife and looks forward to seeing the future they leave their children. He is the one saving grace of this entire loving episode and by God you better appreciate this man. Well, we also have Anne back, married to an astronaut who is on a mission to Mars or something. Anne was Dan’s love interest in UltraSeven proper, though the two never officially got around to anything most times when Dan returns, Anne is brought up or mentioned in some way. Here, she’s found someone new, but her affection and respect for Dan remains clear- because she has named her nine year old son Dan. Wonder how her husband feels about that.

She is sadly criminally underused, but shows herself to be no nonsense when dangers come knocking, still packing her laser pistol from the Ultra Garrison days and still a crack shot. The greatest shame of the specials is that she and Dan do not get to have a proper reunion, something we’ll get back to later. We also meet the other three members of the new Ultra Garrison. Kaji, Furuhashi’s effective second in command, the most spirited and driven of the team. He has a particular zeal to fighting alien invaders and tends to be partnered with Furuhashi when things go down. Next is Togo, the actual ranked second in command, a quiet person who thinks every encounter through. Finally is Risa, the sole woman of the team, an expert martial artist. Not a whole lot on the last two to be honest but Risa at least gets some cool poo poo to do.

For this first episode, whose plot we now return to, we bump heads against the Pitt Aliens, old foes of the Ultra Garrison and UltraSeven. Climate change is a very real danger to the human race and will only get worse in the following decades, predicted the show from 1994, and they’re here to sabotage humanity. They want climate change to kick our teeth in and leave us vulnerable to attack later, and the way they go about this is targeting solar energy research and stopping its development. Now let’s stop for a moment and talk about this.

This is not like a kids show talking down to kids about evil aliens making things hotter. This might be more fun if it was. No, this very preachy, very environmentally friendly episode is tackling this as maturely and adult-like as it can. Using real science, exploring the real technology and its real pit falls. And for that, I can at the very least commend it. It’s not scare mongering, and living in the future they warned us about, yeah, it does have a loving point.

It’s just having boring rear end dry card board cut out scientists prattle on and on and on for thirty loving minutes about solar energy, with the poor Ultra Garrison members caught up in this plotline, Togo and Risa, being forced to act as cheer leaders...boy. BOY is this not good. Commendable, yes! Impressive, kind of yeah! Entertaining or good story telling? Oh Hell The gently caress No. The entire thing is just 30-40 minutes of a bunch of boring people talking about poo poo I have to deal with on a daily basis and how there’s no miracle technology to fix it. Yeah, I knew that already, thanks.

There are some decent things that come from this. We learn that the aliens also use solar energy, though they use infinitely more advanced forms of it than humanity has. The Pitt Aliens were even the ones who shot down Seven over Earth using their big super duper cannon, though as we’ll learn, they weren’t the only ones fighting him. Speaking of Seven, Furuhashi gets called to a Terrestrial Defense Force base on top secret matters. Taking Kaji along, they discover the comatose UltraSeven, whom the TDF built this hanger base around in a hurry and have been exposing him to as much solar energy as they can manage, but still haven’t gotten a peep out of him. They know he’s still alive, but only barely.

In one of the best moments of the two parter, Furuhashi breaks down crying at the state of his friend. In his own words, Seven is so covered in wounds, he must have spent the last twenty five years fighting for humanity out in space all alone. Furuhashi gets ahold of the special solar energy doctor who has been boring us for the last 30 minutes, who has to admit that helping Seven is entirely out of their ability to handle. UltraSeven absorbs deep space cosmic radiation and solar energy directly from the sun. They couldn’t begin to get enough energy to help him if they tried for months.

Months that they don’t have. Skimming over some boring poo poo here, long story short, the Pitt Aliens discover where Seven is being kept by the humans and where the last of the solar energy dishes is. They send Eleking to wipe out the solar energy dish and use their super duper mega cannon to nuke UltraSeven from space. Which proves to be a mistake. All the cannon manages to do, after it blows everything to hell, is wake UltraSeven up. He takes a quick jaunt to the sun, soaks up some energy, comes back and kicks the poo poo out of Eleking. He then goes back, destroys the Cannon and kills the Pitt Aliens and their ship. Also saves Anne’s son who was held captive for stupid reasons.

Anyways UltraSeven is back on Earth! Also, Dan Moroboshi NEVER APPEARS IN THIS ENTIRE EPISODE. Fifty loving minutes, and UltraSeven is in about five of them total and only ever transformed. What the poo poo kind of return is that? But whatever. The Furuhashi and UltraSeven stuff was really good, Anne was nice to see, and the rest was...boring. Real, real, real boring. Also the effects kind of look worse than ever, because we’re at the start of early 90s digital effects and Tsuburaya Productions isn’t quite sure how to handle it yet. It’ll get better by the time ‘99 rolls around but boy is it rough here.

It’s neat in how it continues the narrative of the 1967 original, and it is vital to suffer through but, maybe, unless you really want to learn about solar technology circa 1994 and the depressing realities of climate change going forward, you might want to fast forward until Furuhashi is on screen. Also Dan and Furuhashi never meet in this one! For shame. Anne and Seven never meet at ALL which is a true crime. But it’d probably be weird, she already named her kid after him.

So now we come to the second episode of this two part TV movie bananza. Is it any better? Yes. Is it an out and out apology for the last one? Oh my no. So to get the flaws of this out of the way, instead of a lot of boring poo poo going on, instead the pacing is just wrong. This would be a great 30 minute, 40 minute special. But they don’t have the plot to keep it going that long, and it’s over 50. So there’s a lot of faffing around, a lot of slow stuff and a lot of beating around the bush. The core story isn’t even that great.

Scientist is bitter at humanity for how they’ve left the world, conspires with aliens to create a perfect underground city, is aghast that the aliens plan to let humanity die and use the city for themselves. What helps salvage this is that we get Dan Morobshi back for real and we get some fun stuff. We open with UltraSeven fighting a Metron alien on some alien world. Seven gets the better of the Metron, from the same species as an earlier invader in fact one of the most famous in the franchise. The Metron declares that the Earth will fall into their hands before dying.

On earth his children, a son and daughter, are getting that under ground city thing going. They don’t have any plans to deal with humanity, just planning on letting them wipe themselves out. Which, you know, fair. We get to see Dan investigate them as a person, avoiding Furuhashi for...some reason...and teaming up with the Ultra Garrison to take them down at the end. Risa finally gets her moment where she takes on the son in a hand to hand fight and holds her own. One of the two kids gets killed and the other grows big and summons a dinosaur monster, Seven transforms and we get the whole shebang. Metron isn’t the strongest alien around so Seven’s able to kill them pretty easily, some tricks aside.

And then that underground city, that they were fighting over, self destructs. The Ultra Garrison are out of the danger zone, but Seven? He’s point blank. At ground zero of an entire city going boom, everyone watching is convinced that Seven must have died. Everyone but Furuhashi. Though distraught at watching his friend get caught up in yet another seemingly fatal event, he knows Dan survived. He knows that they’ll meet again.

And yeah, that’s UltraSeven’s fate. He vanishes in the midst of a city exploding all around him, no trace left behind. UltraSeven is destined to live an unhappy life, sacrificing everything for those he loves. His fate would be left up in the air, unknown to the viewers at home, for another four years until the 1998 series picked up with Lost Memories.

The 1998 series is when the quality starts to turn around big time. Not quite reaching the heights of the old series, it’s still something to look forward to. Especially because that will introduce us to the path to the 1999 series, and all the greatness that awaits. The 1994 specials should only be watched if you really, really want to see all of UltraSeven, because the Metron episode sounds far more exciting than it is. It’s nice having the original actors back, it’s great to see Dan again, but they just drag so much. They’re written in such a weird way as well, uniquely adult about subjects you’d normally only see education shows tackle. They’re very flat and honest about the draw backs and limitations of solar energy and alternative fuel sources. Part of what kills the 94 specials is that there’s an edge missing.

Humanity is not brought to judgement for the crimes it has committed, even against its own environment and people. Every human character we meet is positive and friendly and working towards a brighter tomorrow, even the scientist who threw his lot in with the Metrons before realizing their true intentions. It’s all too nice and clean for UltraSeven. Not at all in keeping with the series that would portray humanity as being in the wrong almost as much as the aliens they fought.

The 1998 series will see this start to turn around, which we’ll talk about next time. See you soon.

I'm sorry I stopped reading this about a paragraph in. Maybe if you want to proselytise for a tv show, a few sentences or a brief clip would be more effective?

Sydney Bottocks posted:

Friends, let me make the first in a nine-volume series of posts about The Time Tunnel.

Got to admit I would read this with great interest.

# ? Sep 10, 2019 18:09

Vinylshadow: Mar 20, 2017

Ah, reports!

Will there be charts? And diagrams? And lots of complicated sums, in triplicate?

# ? Sep 10, 2019 18:16

Robert J. Omb: Dec 1, 2005; The 'J' stands for 'AAARRGH!'

Davros1 posted:

https://twitter.com/TrapOne_/status/1170694977690771457?s=20

Lol �Poseable�

# ? Sep 11, 2019 07:44

Fil5000: Jun 23, 2003; HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS

Davros1 posted:

https://twitter.com/TrapOne_/status/1170694977690771457?s=20

I'm pretty sure that every branch of Woolies still had these in when they shut down in 2008. God, imagine the pitch meeting for this thing.

# ? Sep 11, 2019 08:15

Barry Foster: Dec 24, 2007; What is going wrong with that one (face is longer than it should be)

Big Finish's Red Planets - 'In 2017 liberal democracy and capitalism are collapsing, ecological catastrophe is continuing apace, and far right authoritarianism is on the rise, but what if instead of this "petty politicking" [actual quote] instead there was communism :ohdear:

# ? Sep 11, 2019 13:10

Fil5000: Jun 23, 2003; HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS

Barry Foster posted:

Big Finish's Red Planets - 'In 2017 liberal democracy and capitalism are collapsing, ecological catastrophe is continuing apace, and far right authoritarianism is on the rise, but what if instead of this "petty politicking" [actual quote] instead there was communism '

Sylvester is terrified by your suggestion.

# ? Sep 11, 2019 13:20

The_Doctor: Mar 29, 2007; "The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

The Rrrrrrrrrrrred Menace!

# ? Sep 11, 2019 13:28

Chokes McGee: Aug 7, 2008; This is Urotsuki.

The_Doctor posted:

The Rrrrrrrrrrrred Menace!

MY WIFE and I watched The Curse of Fenric so I could introduce her to Seven and I kept hyping rrrrrrrrrrrrrolling his rrrrrrrrrrrrs which he does surprisingly little of in this serial

he got to RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRUSSIAN and she was like oh I get it now

Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Sep 11, 2019

# ? Sep 11, 2019 19:04

Vinylshadow: Mar 20, 2017

The Happiness Patrol and Paradise Towers were a lot of fun

# ? Sep 11, 2019 19:07

Fil5000: Jun 23, 2003; HOLD ON GUYS I'M POSTING ABOUT INTERNET ROBOTS

Most of Seven's run is fun, once you're past his debut. I can barely make it through Time and the Rani.

# ? Sep 11, 2019 19:26

The_Doctor: Mar 29, 2007; "The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

Time and the Rani is probably the low point of 7�s run.

# ? Sep 11, 2019 19:28

marktheando: Nov 4, 2006

Definitely. McCoy gets better every series until you get peak Doctor Who in series 26.

# ? Sep 11, 2019 19:33

FreezingInferno: Jul 15, 2010; THERE.
WILL.
BE.
NO.
BATTLE.
HERE!

Time And The Rani isn't good but I like it. It's just so much 80's at once that it wraps around to be a treat. Just, Keff McCulloch blasting the hell out of every scene with maximum synthesizer.

# ? Sep 11, 2019 19:49

egon_beeblebrox: Mar 1, 2008; WILL AMOUNT TO NOTHING IN LIFE.

FreezingInferno posted:

Time And The Rani isn't good but I like it. It's just so much 80's at once that it wraps around to be a treat. Just, Keff McCulloch blasting the hell out of every scene with maximum synthesizer.

This is how I feel about it too.

# ? Sep 11, 2019 19:51

Vinylshadow: Mar 20, 2017

They got their money's worth with the music and it just works stupidly well as Seven and Ace run around the countryside

# ? Sep 11, 2019 19:51

York_M_Chan: Sep 11, 2003

I'm marveling at the opening shot of The Mysterious Planet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D7y7mSaQxo

# ? Sep 11, 2019 20:33

The_Doctor: Mar 29, 2007; "The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

York_M_Chan posted:

I'm marveling at the opening shot of The Mysterious Planet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D7y7mSaQxo

That�s where all the budget went.

Edit:

https://twitter.com/claytonhickman/status/1171551130108813312

The_Doctor fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Sep 11, 2019

# ? Sep 11, 2019 20:38

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

I love how in Trial Lynda Bellingham takes no poo poo from literally anyone.

# ? Sep 11, 2019 22:50

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 7, 2024 14:18

LividLiquid: Apr 13, 2002

York_M_Chan posted:

I'm marveling at the opening shot of The Mysterious Planet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D7y7mSaQxo

Kept expecting the Red Dwarf 2001 theme to kick in.

# ? Sep 12, 2019 00:00

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > DOCTOR WHO IS CANCELLED. NO REFUNDS.

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