Spin-off media of television shows? Good or bad? I dutifully pick up the Buffy and Angel comics, both of which are meant as continuations of the television series, both of which are pretty nifty in their own rights. If a show has a big enough following, then there must be other ways in which fans can get their fix. Comic books are becoming an increasingly popular means to do this. I even saw a Serenity comic which supposedly tells another tale of the crew from Firefly. I've seen Supernatural comics, a Ghost Whisperer comic, a Battlestar Galactica comic, and even a 24 comic. Comics allow for storylines and imagery which television can't replicate. There's even a couple of Doctor Who comics, one which reprints some classic stories from the '70s featuring the Fourth Doctor, and another which follows the Tenth Doctor and Martha on adventures not shown on television.

There must be an inherent need for these characters to have more stories, or fans demand it so companies offer it. After I finished watching the entire run of the Fifth Doctor from Doctor Who, I found myself still wanting more. No, there are no Fifth Doctor comics, but there's something even better: audio plays, all of which feature the original actors reprising their roles.

Big Finish's Doctor Who audio plays are wonderful. After the BBC stopped production of the original series, it gave Big Finish the rights to produce audio plays based on the show. In fact, some of those who worked on these "classic Doctor" plays went on to help develop Doctor Who's 2005 return. I started listening to the audios featuring the Fifth Doctor (rapidly becoming my favorite) and although there were a few stumbling blocks in terms of story quality, the novelty of having new adventures with a Doctor not seen since the early '80s really kept me interested.

I just finished listening to Spare Parts, which basically tells the origins of the Cybermen from the classic series (not to be confused with the Cybermen of the 2005 series). It's as good if not better than anything on the classic series, and it even rivals some episodes of the new series too. That's how perfect I think it is.

I really like that there are new ways in which to experience television shows, even older/cancelled series. What about you? Do you follow any spinoff media of your favorite shows? Do you get the comics, the novels, or the audio plays? Or are you more of an "on-screen only" type of fan?

The BBC recently announced that season four of the new Doctor Who series will begin airing on April 5th. That's after the Scifi Channel said that they'll start airing new Who on April 18th. Personally, I'm pretty amazed that we're getting the new series pretty soon after it premieres in the UK. This can only be a response to the incredible amount of pirated downloads in the past, where certain impatient fans would just go online to grab the latest episode of their favorite BBC show instead of waiting months or even years for it to reach this side of the Atlantic. BBC America did the same thing with Torchwood, so we're only a couple of weeks behind on that series too.

While Torchwood is good for easing the wait between new seasons of Doctor Who, I'm really looking forward to new Who. Doctor Who is the core show after all, the original, and still the best series about an alien who travels in time and space in a big blue wooden box. Yes, it's kind of goofy, but that's part of what I love about the series.

Let's take a look at one of the major villains of the series: the Daleks. A Dalek is a mutated creature with all the emotions bred out of it except hate. Then this creature (usually depicted as a tentacled brain with a single eye) is placed in what amounts to an awkwardly-maneuverable tank, which somehow creates the perfect killing machine. The two appendages on the tank resemble a toilet plunger and an egg beater. Sounds ridiculous but once the Dalek is in action, it's deadly. It kills and keeps killing until no other living thing is left except the Daleks. That something so ludicrous would be so feared throughout the galaxy is the strangest (and most marvelous) thing I'd ever seen, and I've watched a lot of old sci-fi.

Over the past few weeks my Netflix viewing habits have included some of the old Doctor Who, the classic ones from the '70s and '80s (which are available through the Netflix "Watch now" streaming video feature). I'm not like a lot of scifi fans who grew up watching the series when it aired on PBS. I come in from the perspective of a new fan. So, I still have a lot of catching up to do. It's really interesting to see how the show was back then compared to how it is now, and to watch the origins of some of the villains that keep popping up in the new series. I've been concentrating on episodes starring the Fourth (Tom Baker) and Fifth (Peter Davison) Doctors, and I think the Fifth Doctor is rapidly becoming my favorite. I don't know why, because the Fourth Doctor is supposed to be the iconic one. Maybe I'm reacting to the inherent popularity of #4 by getting attached to his replacement.

There's a vulnerability in #5 that isn't present in the other Doctors. #10, for example, you know he's going to figure out a way to stop the evil aliens from killing everyone. With #5, there were moments where I wasn't sure if he was going to succeed, and that really endeared me to him. I love the reluctant hero who does things not because he wants to, but because he has to and no one else can.

So, that's what I've been watching and obsessing over now that Lost is on hiatus for awhile. How about you?

The following shows are in need of new editors:

Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations

A Cook's Tour

Survivorman

For those interested, please consider rewriting the summaries on each episode since right now, many of them are direct cut-and-pastes from official sources.

Hey, more ideas to discuss!

You may or may not know this, but one of my main duties on the site is dealing with missing editor issues. After several months of working with the old system, I think it's time to revamp how the site deals with MIA editors. Currently, all the information related to MIA editors can be found on the ReportMIAEditor blog, on the Knowledgebase (here and here), and in the TV.com Guideline Center.

So what do you think? Are the guidelines adequate as they are, or do you see room for improvement? What would you like to see in place that isn't in there now? Please share your ideas in the comments.

Last night's Lost episode ("The Constant") was phenomenal. I really liked the other Desmond-centric episode "Flashes Before Your Eyes" so seeing another show featuring Desmond was a welcome change from the normal flashback/flashforward format we see with the rest of the characters on Lost. After last season saw the destruction of the Swan station and whatever electromagnetic phenomenon that caused Desmond's sudden time-traveling capabilities, I really wanted to see where his story would go.

Desmond Hume has become unstuck in time. Kudos to the writers for working in a Kurt Vonnegut reference, because Desmond and Billy Pilgrim (the main character of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five) are both going back and forth in their timelines, experiencing their pasts and their futures. At one point in his timeline, Billy is placed in an alien zoo on the planet Tralfamadore. The Tralfamadorans can "see" time, so they are aware of all events (past, present, and future) in the entirety of existence. These aliens also have an interesting view of death. They don't believe in mourning the dead, because the dead are also very much alive in other times and in other places.

Remember what Charlie said to Hurley at the mental institution? "I'm dead, but I'm also here."

I think that's an important clue to what the heck is going on with the Island. Charlie was also in the Swan when the electromagnetic event took place which made Desmond "unstuck". I think that Charlie absorbed some residual magnetic radiation. Not as much as Desmond, but enough to make him be able to travel outside his timeline. So Charlie could be with Hurley even after his death.

The past version of Faraday told Desmond that he needed a constant, something familiar to him and something that exists in both times to keep his mind grounded. Desmond chose Penny, and Faraday himself, since he seems to also have become "unstuck", chose Desmond as his constant. I have a theory that the Island is "our" (i.e. the viewers) constant. We see the flashbacks and flashforwards of the characters, we "travel" along the characters' timelines, but we always come back to the Island after leaving those travels behind. The Island is the anchor.

Now I'm wondering how much Dharma was working on time travel research and perhaps even teleportation research. How else could the discovery of a polar bear skeleton in the middle of the Tunisian desert be explained? There's also the question of the Orientation film for the Orchid station, where two rabbits (which are assumed to be the same bunny) were seen in the same room at the same time. Could this be time travel? Or teleporation? Or both? Was Dharma using the special properties of the Island in order to further their research into bending space-time? And why are they doing this?

Dharma was also interested in psychic and paranormal abilities. Could it be that they were researching time travel as a means to develop psychic powers in normal human beings? Like, if you're aware of future events, you could very accurately "predict" them.

So many questions answered and so many new ones asked. That's one thing I love about Lost. It does mystery better than any other show out there right now.

Day 1

Blood +: From Japan to America's Adult Swim

I'm going to backtrack a little to bring some info on the panel for Blood +. Once again, this was a series that completely slipped under my radar, but checking out the panel made me interested in watching the series. The main character is Saya, a girl in an adopted family who discovers that she is destined to battle hideous, blood-sucking creatures known as chiroptera. Yes, shades of Buffy; the "girl with awesome powers to fight baddies" is a very common motif in anime.

As an anime fan, I'm fascinated by the differences between the original Japanese versions of anime series vs. the English-dubbed Western versions. Although some fans want a straight-on, literal translation of the Japanese text, I think changes are necessary in order to make the story more accessible for Western audiences. The panel discussed the challenges inherent in trying to bring a foreign-language TV show to the U.S.

Present at the panel were voice director Michael Hack, story editors Joe D'Ambrosia and Tom Teves, and voice actors David Wittenberg (Solomon) and Ben Diskin (Kai). After a few clips which highlighted the actors' excellent voicework, both Wittenberg and Diskin talked about how different anime voice acting is from regular voice acting. In traditional Western animation the voices are, of course, recorded first, and the animators must make the characters move and emote based on the actor's voice. In Japan (and naturally, in anime English dub voice acting), the animation is done first and then the actors must match up with the lipflaps of the characters.

Here's a case where Japanese and Western anime viewers differ. Wittenberg and Hack explained that in Japan, viewers are more "forgiving" when it comes to voices matching the characters' mouths. It's okay for the words to be a little "off" from the mouth movements because the audience is much more interested in the character's emotions than in how well the voices match. American audiences would notice if the words didn't match up, so the story editors took a lot of time to make sure all the dialogue fit in seamlessly with the lipflaps.

Also, some visual and cultural cues which are obvious to the Japanese are completely lost when viewed by a Western audience, so the editors had to figure out how to explain them without sounding too out of place. For example, there's a scene where Saya comes home from school and starts to clean out her lunchbox. Apparently, this action means that she's in a good mood. As the meaning behind the action would be lost in the English translation, the writers had to fit in an explanation for Saya's actions and point out that she's in a good mood without making it sound too stilted or forced.

Sometimes relationships between characters also changed from the original Japanese to the English version. It was clear to the story editors that Saya and Kai (her adopted older brother) had a deep, almost romantic love for one another. Despite the fact that the Japanese producers insisted that there was nothing (and would be nothing) going on between the two characters, the story editors ramped up this aspect of Saya and Kai's relationship because to Western audiences, that would be where the characters were headed.

I also found it interesting that the English dub studio received the new episodes just a scant 5 or 6 weeks after those episodes aired in Japan. This would have been unheard of even 2 or 3 years ago, when you still had to wait years after a series ended in Japan for it to start showing up in dubbed form in the U.S. Things have certainly changed!

As Blood + is finally wrapping up its airing on Adult Swim (as of the panel date, 45 of the total of 50 episodes had already aired), the first of two box sets is set for release on March 4th. I've already added the first disc on my Netflix queue, and if I like it, I'll add the rest of the series as well.

Saturday Feb. 23rd
Chowder Panel with C. H. Greenblatt

After heading home and resting up after the 7-9PM Appleseed screening, I was ready to return for a second day of fun and frivolity at Wondercon.

For those who aren't familiar with Chowder, it's an animated show that currently runs on Cartoon Network. The main character (appropriately named Chowder) is the apprentice of master chef Mung Daal. Chowder is trying to learn all he can about cooking from Mung, and the show chronicles Chowder's adventures living in Marzipan City.

I'm going to admit right now that I hadn't seen much of the show before attending this panel, but I left the room with a greater appreciation for the series and an urge to catch up on all the episodes. I do like how the style of the cartoon differs from the rest of the Cartoon Network, ultra-flat, heavily-lined look, like you can see in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.

But enough about my opinion; you're here because you want to read about the Chowder panel, right? Right!

This weekend, San Francisco is playing host to Wondercon, which is sort of like Comic-Con's Northern Californian counterpart. There will be comics and gaming, movie and television panels, tons of anime stuff, and somewhere in the throngs of geeks: me. This will be my first time attending the convention while covering it simultaneously for TV.com. Check out some of the panels I'll be attending (and hopefully bringing some exclusive info to you guys):

Blood+ - From Japan to America's Adult Swim

Appleseed: Ex Machina North American Premiere

Chowder

Spectacular Spider-man

Justice League: New Frontier Premiere

That is a lot of animation, and hopefully I'll get to see some of the other panels too, but TV.com and MovieTome are both going to cover as much of the convention as they can, and I'm trying to do my small part. It will be my first major contribution to the site outside of community stuff, so wish me luck!

And of course, you can still leave questions for Torchwood cast member Naoko Mori over in our Ask a Star forum. There is a special thread for users who've seen all the episodes up to "Reset" to ask specific questions without fear of spoiling American viewers. The interview is tomorrow (Friday), so please get those questions in!

Hey, tomorrow is Valentine's Day, also known as The Day Before Half-Price on Chocolate Day. (At least, that's how it's known around my house. We also call Easter, Halloween, and Christmas this, because we're weird.) So I decided to start up a small virtual Valentines Day box, where you can write up little Valentines day messages to me.

You don't need to sign up on the site to leave a note if you sign it anonymously, but if you sign up on the site, you'll be able to get your own box where other people can send messages to you. It's completely private, and the only one who'll see the messages in my box is me. I thought it was a cute idea, so here we go. But knowing my luck with Valentine's day stuff, I think it will be emptier than Charlie Brown's mailbox!

Get your own valentinr