World Class Series: New Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Teaser Released

I have lived in New England for most of my life, and in Boston for more than half of that time, and unless you’ve lived here for any length to time, you don’t know what it’s like when the Boston Red Sox make it to the World Series. Oh sure, for new residents of the area, it seems almost like a common enough occurrence, but for a very long time, through the 70s, 80s and 90s, it felt as likely as seeing decent production values in an episode of Doctor Who.

So what this means is that most of the staff of Crisis On Infinite Midlives started drinking well before the Red Sox / Tigers game started yesterday at 8 p.m., we switched to shots when Shane Victorino hit his grand slam home run, and things got a little hazy after that. So we have spent most of the day quite damaged, being of a certain age where the idea of the Red Sox in the World Series is still damn exciting.

As is the idea of Doctor Who with production values. So as a nod toward the fact that we are truly living in halcyon days, here is the latest teaser trailer for the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary episode, Day of The Doctor. It’s not the full trailer that was supposedly shown during San Diego Comic-Con this past July, but it is pretty cool, and most importantly: it is genre-related, and can be posted without too much unnecessary motion or sound to make our hangovers fire up.

Since Game One of the series starts on Wednesday, expect several more barely coherent posts for the next week and a half. But in the meantime, you can check the teaser out after the jump.

Breaching The Secret Society: Dan DiDio To Appear On The View Today

So if you’re home sick, unemployed, or nursing your methamphetamine habit in front of daytime TV today, here’s a thing that’s happening: Co-Publisher of DC Comics, will be appearing on The View today.

Is he appearing to pitch something specific coming from DC? No, although DiDio’s obvious abilities as a pitchman that he shows at conventions will probably allow him to drop some hype. Is he attending to hype up the Batman Vs. Superman movie? No, although if he doesn’t take the opportunity to mention it given that filming on the flick reportedly starts this weekend, it demonstrates that he might be nursing a methamphetamine habit.

No, instead he is going on The VIew so that Whoopi Goldberg can pitch him on a comic series. Based on herself. Only with superpowers.

From Out of The Past: Nine Missing Late 60s Doctor Who Episodes Released

Well, it’s official: the BBC has announced that they have recovered nine episodes of Doctor Who from the run of Patrick Troughton, the second Doctor. Which means that I will only need to spend a full day watching British children’s television to bring myself up to speed… but since the episodes have been released only via iTunes, it will mean that I will finally be forced to give Apple my real name. Or wait something like 24 hours for the episodes to be released to Bittorrent. Jesus, did I say that out loud? Either way, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

The episodes are from the 1967 story arc The Enemy of The World and the 1968 arc The Web of Fear, which is the first story to feature The Great Intelligence…

Hey Amanda? What’s The Great Intelligence?

Well Rob, he’s the guy with the evil snowmen. The one that was voiced by Magneto in that Christmas special. And I think he was the leader of The Whisper Men in that Name of The Doctor episode.

Were those the ones that ripped off The Gentlemen from Buffy? I don’t remember that one all that well. I was pretty shitfaced when we watched that.

You mean as opposed to now?

…don’t give me static. I’m doing journalism! Or at least blogging. It’s like journalism, only you can go off on ridiculous tangents, and no one cares if you do it in your underpants!

Anyway.

Christmas In Whoville: Previously Lost Doctor Who Episodes To Be Released

Update, 10/7/2013: The BBC has announced that the press conference has been delayed until “the end of the week.” Which day exactly? You got me. This is one of those… yeah: still not gonna write that phrase that starts with “time” and has too many “-ey”s in it.

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So apparently it’s official: there will be some new Doctor Who episodes released. Or actually, make that old ones. New old episodes? I dunno; fucker’s a time traveler, isn’t he? You figure it out.

Okay, here’s the deal: for years, a lot of the earliest episodes of Doctor Who featuring the first and second Doctors (William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton, respectively) have been considered “lost,” due to the BBC’s forward-thinking practice, until 1978, of bulk-wiping their old videotapes to save money on having to buy new tapes with which to capture Jimmy Saville finger-blasting prepubescent girls on Top of The Pops.

In total, 106 episodes from the early years of Doctor Who have been missing and unseen for years, although every once in a while rumors pop up saying that some episodes have been found in some musty basement in some Third World toilet somewhere, and they almost always turn out to be nothing. But today, however, the BBC has officially announced that they have recovered, and will be screening and making available for digital purchase, some previously lost episodes as soon as this coming Wednesday.

How many episodes? Well, actually that’s a good question.

Turns Out Aguilera Is Scorpio: New Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Spot With Non-Pilot Footage

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. debuts tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time, and its long-term fate is very much in the balance, what with the crippling competition it faces from Seth Green’s Dads and reruns of Amish Mafia on The Discovery Channel.

Actually, the show is not necessarily a slam dunk: it is opposite NCIS on CBS, and I can tell you this: even though my parents brought me up on comic books, there is not a force on Earth that will convince them to watch something that is opposite that nice Mark Harmon smacking that other nice man in the head three times per episode. Further, it is debuting opposite The Voice on NBC, and must therefore battle against whatever dark and unholy forces that Christina Aguilera has allied herself with to remain famous for this long.

We, however, will be watching it (and if we decide to hit the liquor store before 8, possibly live-Tweeting it) because, between S.H.I.E.L.D. and WB’s Arrow, this could mark the first time there are two superhero shows we can watch per week since the days of late-season Heroes and The Cape, which was a double-whammy experience that made us die inside a little. Kinda like dining on cotton candy and old, spoiled meat.

So we want to build up a little excitement for this series, and therefore we’re gonna give you a new, 90-second commercial for the show, which is also the first  to contain footage from episodes that aren’t the pilot.

So, as Stan The Man used to (kinda) say: Don’t Yield (To Aguilera And The Forces of Eternal Evil), Back S.H.I.E.L.D! And check out the spot after the jump.

Watch The Cast Of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. As They Interview With…Michael Symon?

Damn it, Marvel/Disney/ABC – stop mixing my chocolate with my sriracha.

Last night, ABC unveiled a six minute promo clip that featured interviews with Gregg Clark, Ming-na Wen, and other members of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. by none other than celebrity chef, Michael Symon. Symon, when not appearing on Iron Chef America or actually running his restaurants, apparently also hosts the ABC daytime talk show, The Chew. I’d like to say that program is like The View and Rachel Ray had a mutant waterhead baby, but it is day time programming and I have a job. Either way, having Symon, of all people, interview this cast is about as appropriate as having Chris Cosentino write a Woverine comic; it gets the job done, but mostly just leaves you shaking your head and asking why.

Mercifully, the promo is fairly on point and gives the viewers a good glimpse into the upcoming show with only a minor veer off into Symon’s Joker impersonation oddball laughing fits. Sadly though, no Lola. Watch after the jump.

New Sneak Peek Of AMC’s The Walking Dead

If you are as irritated as I am that Robert Kirkman’s comic book, The Walking Dead, has been moving at a snail’s pace over the Big Bad Negan arc and long for Rick to man up and finally put that fucker down and let the characters and the readers get on with their lives then, well, I can’t help you. However, you may rejoice in a couple of things:

1. In the last issue, Andrea stepped up and reminded readers why the version of her in the comic book is a far more superior, kick ass lady than viewers that have been only watching the TV show will ever know. I really wish this version is the one that folks watching the show could have gotten to know and I’m hoping she does something awful to Negan in the next issue or so.

2. In the TV version of The Walking Dead, Andrea died. So, we won’t have to put up with her mewling, weak ass, suck-up-to-anyone-who-looks-like-they-might-have-an-iota-of-power shit anymore.

3. The TV version did keep Michonne, introduced this past season, just as bad ass as she is in the comic book and she’s back next season. And next season starts soon. Very soon. Yay!

Check out a sneak peek of Michonne in action, after the jump.

DC Nation Cartoon Shorts – Shade The Changing Man

While I am beginning to warm up to Beware The Batman – its storylines are interesting, but I still haven’t bought into the oddly designed CGI animation – and I will simply never come around on Teen Titans Go!, I find that the best parts of the DC Nation cartoon block are the animated shorts. Recently, DC Nation has been uploading many of these shorts, including the three part 70s styled Wonder Woman piece that recently aired on Cartoon Network. One piece that hasn’t made it onto the DC site yet, but according to Bleeding Cool, has found its way onto the DC Nation YouTube Channel is this cool short of Shade The Changing Man. It’s another stylized piece, but the psychedelic overtones fit nicely with the idea of a character who fights against the constant tide of madness (per Peter Milligan’s interpretation of him for Vertigo). Enjoy!

DC Nation shorts air every Saturday morning as part of the DC Nation programming block on Cartoon Network.

Jumping The Zombie, or: The Literal Ghost In The Machine: True Blood, Season Six Finale Review

Editor’s Note: I wanna do real bad spoilers to you…

About two-thirds of the way through the sixth season finale of True Blood, Amanda asked me what I thought the Big Bad for next year’s season seven would be. “We haven’t see zombies yet,” Amanda said sarcastically.

“Oh, it’s zombies,” I said. “They’re talking about gangs of vampires loaded up with Hepatitis V, mindlessly picking off the entire populations of small towns? They can call them anything they want, but that’s zombies.”

“Jesus… there are literal volumes and volumes of monsters they could choose from and they had to ape The Walking Dead? I mean, if they wanted to go with a George Romero riff, they could go with some poor deluded fucker like Martin, but they gotta go with zombies? What does that mean?”

“It means that they are out of ideas.”

I Am The One Who – Hey, Someone’s At The Door: Francesco Francavilla’s Breaking Bad Posters

Last night was the premiere for the first episode of the final (half) season of Breaking Bad, and we celebrated like any fan: by being in southern Florida, no more than three minutes drive in any random direction from a meth lab.

We did not, however, celebrate it by watching the new episode. We are among the latecomers to the show, thanks to a TiVo that recorded the first season and, before we could watch them, fell apart like, well, Krazy-8 in an acid-filled bathtub. So we are still catching up (we are, as we speak, watching season four episode Bug, so no one tell us how Walter beats Gus. We are assuming Walter beats Gus, since there is a fifth season. Unless the fifth season is about Badger watching a lot of Ice Road Truckers, but even if it is, do not fucking tell me), but that doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy some of the ancillary benefits of the show’s fandom.

You know, like Crisis On Infinite Midlives personal favorite pulp artist Francesco Francavilla’s episode posters for the show. Posters that have been collected and given as gifts to the cast and crew of the show.