Tag: The Doctor

I have written pieces about fireworks in this space for several years now.  This year is no different, but instead of describing how modern fireworks operate, we shall, courtesy of The Doctor, take the TARDIS back to 1784, the first Independence Day after ratification of the Treaty of Paris, so for the first time the United States was a truly independent Nation on 04 July.

Unfortunately, my video camera was not working at the time, so I shall have just to describe what fireworks looked like at the time.  The Doctor told me that he would come again and that we would go to the 1785 one for next year, and make sure that I had a functional video camera.

Except for color, fireworks in that era were similar to some of the least advanced ones that we have today.  The complex aerial effects are quite modern, bright color is modern, and set pieces are also modern.

Most of you that read my posts know that I am an avid fan of Doctor Who.  I am not ashamed of that at all, and like the new ones very much, but they are not anything like the classic ones that ran from 1963 to around 1980 or so.  Those ones had the classic Doctors, Hartnell, Throughtan, Pertwee, and especially Baker.

They all had companions.  I liked lots of them, Jamie, Granddaughter (Susan, and they still have not explained that companion, his first, from 1963!).  But the most wonderful companion was Sarah Jane Smith, an investigative journalist.  She way played by the extremely attractive Elisabeth Sladen, who just departed from us this week.  Not only was she a companion for over three and one half years, she, unique of all others, returned many times to reprise the same character.  She was 65 years old, and had been married to the same man since 1968.

Most of you who read my posts will agree that I prefer environmentally friendly industries, transport, and food.  You also know that I grow quite a lot of my own food, and a guide will be published here, this coming Saturday, at 7:30 PM when I guest host What’s for Dinner.

However, I am not a fanatic.  I understand that there are tradeoffs that are essential to maintaining our standard of living.  One of them is the semi trailer and the truck that pulls it.  Ten or twelve years ago, they were very polluting, but with the new standards for low soot and sulfur emissions, they are not bad these days.

Wow, what a sendoff for Tennent!  He saved the universe from The Master, and also booted the Time Lords from existence, since they would have done anything to continue to exist.  This new series, like the new Star Trek, is a reboot.

I prefer the original timelines, but I also understand that to keep viewers, the story much change to be current.  But it does not mean that the original timeline has to chance.  Please keep with me to agree that I, Translator, should be the next Doctor in the series.

BBC America just ran the new installment of Doctor Who.  It has surpassed my expectations, let alone hopes.  David Tennent is so well suited to the role of The Doctor (and to think that I did not like him very much at first, since Eccleston was so good) that one actually believes that he believes that he is The Doctor.

For those of you not hip to this series, I can not even begin to begin to explain.  It started as a children’s television program on BBC in 1963, starring William Hartnell as a very aged Doctor, traveling with his first companion.  She was, in the story, his granddaughter, and this has never been resolved in the years of the series.