A FLASH IN THE PUN

In writing about Boilerplate, the latest fictional character whom I'd like to see get a televersion, I mentioned a previous candidate - Harry Flashman. Flashman was the school bully in "Ton Brown's School Days", a Victorian novel by Thomas Hughes. The book has been filmed several times, and twice for television, so Harry Flashman has had his day in the cathode sun, but there was more to his life than his school days.

Not only because it was the first production broadcast, but also because its episodic form as a TV series provided the opportunity to add as much detail from the novel as possible, the 1971 TV version is the one established in Earth Prime-Time. (The later version from 2005 does boast the presence of Stephen Fry as Dr. Thomas Arnold, though. Tempting as that is, that version has to remain in the Land of Remakes.) 

Harry Flashman attacks Tom Brown

In 1969, George MacDonald Fraser published "Flashman", an historical novel purportedly based on the recently discovered papers of Harry Flashman. Over the course of twelve novels, Fraser recounted Flashman's exploits from his early twenties to advanced old age. And along the way, Flashman had adventures in which he crossed paths with many historical figures.

(As a side note, I highly recommend these books, especially if you enjoy salacious depictions of Victorian ribaldry - a lot of "rogering" goes on, which was an excellent source of... shall we say, "inspiration" to a lad in his teens. That is, so I've heard.....)

So far, none of the "Flashman" novels have been adapted for television, although the second novel, "Royal Flash", does have a home in the Cineverse as a movie starring Malcolm McDowall as Harry, with Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in support.

I think the Fraser series of novels about Harry Flashman would make for a great TV series on HBO or Showtime or even Starz, especially with the freedom provided by a premium channel to portray prurient content. (Ah, alliteration!) With the success of 'Game Of Thrones' on HBO and 'The Borgias' and 'The Tudors' on Showtime, perhaps its time to give old Flash a shot.....

I'd like to think that, even without a television series or made for TV movie already established, Harry Flashman's life in Toobworld at least follows the basic guidelines set down by Fraser for a thoroughly debauched life led by Flashman. After all, even though we might not see it take place on our TV screens, Harry Flashman's life did continue after the events of the "Tom Brown's School Days" TV series had ended. 

Harry Flashman
with Tom Brown & Scud East

So let's assume that the Rugby School bully grew up to become a lecherous, immoral coward at least similar to, if not exactly like, the Flashman depicted by Fraser. This TV Flashman would end up rogering his way through the ladies of his times, perhaps even with fictional females from other TV series. (Let's say a parlor maid or two in the Bellamy household a decade or two before we met them on screen?)

Being a bounder and a cad, Flashman would not have been morally constrained from any dalliances with married women; and he would have no qualms in leading a young lady on with false promises of betrothal, in order to bed her and rob her of her virtue. And in the course of such a pursuit, he might have proferred a false identity in order to elude being sued for breach of promise. 

From the movie "Royal Flash"
But the Toobworld Flashman would find himself in a similar situation

Let's say he did pluck a young lovely's virginity and with such skill that she acquiesced without even learning his name. But as Flashman made ready to flee the following morning, suddenly the deflowered miss might have inquired as to who he was. Caught off-guard, he may have concocted a fake name on the spot.

But what name might he have used?

The Belgian detective Hercule Poirot was faced with such a situation while investigating a murder aboard a particular train.

"'I claim no credit this time. It was not a guess. Countess Andrenyi practically told me.'

'Comment? Surely not?'

'You remember I asked her about her governess or companion? I had already decided in my mind that if Mary Debenham were mixed up in the matter, she must have figured in the household in some such capacity.'

'Yes, but the Countess Andrenyi described a totally different person.'

'Exactly. A tall, middle-aged woman with red hair - in fact, the exact opposite in every respect of Miss Debenham, so much so as to be quite remarkable. But then she had to invent a name quickly, and there it was that the unconscious association of ideas gave her away. She said Miss Freebody, you remember.'

'Yes?'

'Eh bien, you may not know it, but there is a shop in London that was called, until recently, Debenham & Freebody. With the name Debenham running in her head, the Countess clutches at another name quickly, and the first that comes is Freebody. Naturally I understood immediately.'"

Oftentimes, false identities are similar enough to the original to make them easier to remember. (This is probably why almost everybody in the Albuquerque WITSEC program usually keeps their first names - unless it's something strange and/or Amish like Yonni - and gets a last name with the same initial as their original last name.)

A similar situation may have arisen for Harry Flashman when pressed by a romantic conquest to reveal his identity.

There are two ways in which he may have gone with his reasoning to choose the name I have in mind.

ONE - thinking of other uses for his particular variation on his name, he might have thought of the phrase "Flash of lightning".

TWO - This coital quandary may have taken place after his return from the Crimean War. (Again, only if Harry Flashman's TV existence followed the same pattern as that established in the literary universe.) Thinking back on his alleged involvement in the most infamous battle, which took place in late October of 1854, Flashman might have drawn inspiration from the regiment immortalized in the poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

So whether it was "lightning" or the "Light Brigade", Flashman might have combined the key word with the last part of his own name right there on the spot and convinced her that his name was Lightman. 

An older Harry Flashman

And off he would have absconded, assured that he would never see her again.

But he may have left a little something to remember him by....

Again, this is all speculation, so why stop now?

What if some woman he rogered found herself pregnant, by this fellow named "Lightman"? O'Bviously she was never going to track him down to do right by her. But she might still have given the child the last name of its father, never knowing how false it was.

And so the family tree of Dr. Carl Lightman might have been established.........

SHOWS CITED:
'Tom Brown's School Days'
'Lie To Me'
'Agatha Christie's Poirot'
'Upstairs, Downstairs'
'In Plain Sight'

OTHER SOURCES:
"Murder On The Orient Express"
"Tom Brown's School Days"
"Flashman"
"Royal Flash"
"Flashman At The Charge"

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SUMMER READS

My goal is to read more on my summer vacations rather than watch a lot of DVDs. (Although I do plan on bringing 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' to share with my seven year old nephew.)

During the two blocks of two week vacations, I'm already planning on finishing "All-Consuming Fire" which teamed up Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson with the Seventh Incarnation of the Doctor from 'Doctor Who'. And then there's "Mirkwood" a novel about J.R.R. Tolkien.

This may make a nice companion piece to the latter.....

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WNU-TOOB: PEERING INTO ANOTHER UNIVERSE.....

This past Tuesday, Titan Books went to street with its new edition of a Philip Jose Farmer classic, "The Peerless Peer". The tale is one of the foundations for the concept of the Wold Newton Universe, with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson meeting the Lord of the Apes, Tarzan.

I still have my paperback from the mid-70's, back when I devoured anything I could find about Holmes. I always had a fondness for the pastiches, since that was how I first got into Sherlockiana, via Nicholas Meyers' "The Seven Per Cent Solution". And after reading the omnibus collection of Conan Doyle's works, I think "The Peerless Peer" was next on the list.

This all followed on the heels of my reading the "Incompleat Enchanter" series of stories by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague deCamp, and the combination of the two were the guiding forces into my own foray into shared universes with the Toobworld Dynamic.

Having made frequent visits to the Wold Newton site run by Mr. Farmer's worthy acolyte Win Scott Eckert, and having read several of Win's books on the subject, I feel it's time to read "The Peerless Peer" once more. Although it was a "cracking read" the first time round, I'm sure there were plenty of references to other sources that went right over my head back then. Now I'll be able to more fully enjoy the experience.

And I plan to order this edition to do so, for two reasons. One is that I'm not sure my battered old paperback from thirty plus years back should be subjected to any further wear and tear - much safer to leave it tucked away in the crate full of other books on Sherlock Holmes.

The second reason is that I want to do my part in showing support for this new line from Titan Books. See, on the back cover the novel is trumpeted as being a "Wold Newton Universe Novel". And should Titan Books see that there is interest in such a line, other books may follow. And fans of the Wold Newton concept can only benefit from that.

Of course, from the Toobworld perspective it doesn't work, unfortunately. The adventure takes place as the stage is set for World War I, and while the TV Sherlock Holmes would be present during that time period, the tele-Tarzan was to be found in the late 1960's. Still, that's all for the best, I think. The differences between the two shared universes might spark interest in them both from each concept's fans.

If "The Peerless Peer" sounds like something you might be interested in as well, check out these links:

The Peerless Peer by Philip José Farmer - Direct from Titan Books - Afterword by Win Scott Eckert

* Amazon

* BN

* BN NOOKbook (eBook)

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"VEENA SUD," SAID VEENA SUD.....

Near the end of my Toobworld novel, a race of elves are created after the "Big Hiatus". Along with the puppet trees, they are a tip of my hat to the influence which J.R.R. Tolkien has had on me.

I've even suggested a language for these elves (whom I think now will probably resemble the Targaryens from 'Game Of Thrones' as their TV influence), which I may as well call toobish. It was created from the names of people involved in the production of TV back home in the real world, and a few examples are given - "mirren" means twin, "tennant" means decade, "pertwee" is a child, "wendt" would be all the permutations of "to go", and "zmed" would be something you don't want to step in.....

Thanks to the season finale of 'The Killing' (which for me is now the series finale as well), I have a complete phrase to be used by the elves, these kendal (for want of a better collective name in toobish for them) - "veena sud".

Veena Sud is the producer who adapted a well-received international murder mystery TV show and reduced it, maligned it, ruined it, with this sluggish, dull, drawn-out affair peopled with paper-thin cyphers for characters. And then as the final thumb in the eye (a turn of phrase from Alan Sepinwall) for the audience, she denied them the opportunity to learn who the murderer was at the end of the season, instead holding off until next season for that revelation... if then. She claims that it was never stated that the answer would be revealed by season's end, but it was implied with the way the show was advertised ("Who killed Rosie Larsen?").

Veena Sud took a promising property and trampled it all into a steaming pile of zmed.

So "veena sud" is a phrase that basically means what Veena Sud has told an audience who put good faith into sticking through the whole sad/sorry series, waiting for an answer.

"Veena sud" - "Bleep you."


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REMAINS TO BE SEEN, 2011 - BOILERPLATE

A big thanks to fellow crossover enthusiast Jose Ricardo Bondoc for bringing this to my attention:

BERKELEY, CA (6/2)- Local artists and authors Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett have created a steampunk sensation in the form of the robot known as Boilerplate. According to their site, "Boilerplate was a mechanical man developed by Professor Archibald Campion during the 1880s and unveiled at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition... Built in a small Chicago laboratory, Boilerplate was originally designed as a prototype soldier for use in "preventing the deaths of men in the conflicts of nations."..

Although it was the only such prototype, Boilerplate was eventually able to exercise its proposed function by participating in several combat actions, charging alongside such famous figures as Teddy Roosevelt and Lawrence of Arabia.... Professor Campion and his robot also circled the planet with the U.S. Navy, trekked to the South Pole, made silent movies, and hobnobbed with the likes of Mark Twain and Nikola Tesla....

Boilerplate is one of history's great ironies, a technological breakthrough that languished in obscurity—until now...." Recently this reporter had the chance to interview the artist and author behind Boilerplate, and discuss the secrets behind his creation, and the upcoming J.J. Abrams film currently in production.

Here's the link to the interview in Facebook:

Usually at the beginning of the year, I offer up a character that deserves to have a live-action televersion adaptation. In the past I've made the case for comic book characters like Zatanna (which did come true) and Green Lantern (which won't happen now until the movie franchise finally fades away), and for characters from novels like Silver John the Balladeer and Harry Flashman (who technically exists in Toobworld - in an adaptation of the original novel in which he appeared, "Tom Brown's School Days").

Reading through this article and reading about Boilerplate elsewhere online, I think this would make for a great little series on Syfy. Perhaps it could have the same framework like 'New Amsterdam' - with a story set in the present (or some set point in History) but with flashbacks to some point in Boilerplate's "life" interacting with historical figures.

So hopefully - if Abrams' movie is just successful enough to spark interest, but not so boffo at the box office to get tied up in movie sequels - there may be a decision to bring Boilerplate to Toobworld.

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THE ALICIA LINE: A THEORY OF RELATEEVEETY

The Toobworld concept is basically a fantasy universe with mythological overtones and many of the trappings of Fantasy. Wizards, dragons, quests, enchanted/enchanting maidens, and objects imbued with great power all have their counterparts in the TV Universe.

This post, while a theory of relateeveety, will take a look at one such fairy tale aspect - the evil stepmother and the absence of the princess' real mother.....

'Flying Blind' was a FOX sitcom that ran for only one season (1992-93) and will be chiefly remembered for bringing Tea Leoni to national prominence. (She certainly caught my attention!)

Leoni played a mysterious free spirit named Alicia caught up in an affair with a tightly-wound recent college graduate named Neil Barash, whose mannerisms suggested that he worshipped
at the altar of Woody Allen. (Not sure the Catholic imagery works in a Woody Allen analogy though....)

And by "mysterious", I mean we never learned very much about Alicia, not even her last name. We got to meet her father, a spy and adventurer who may have fathered children in the South Seas, but we never even learned his name at all; he was just "Daddy" to Alicia (and "Sir" to Neil).

Alicia would talk about her mother, but the woman sounded like a horrid witch, as bad as - if not worse than! - the mother of the 'Absolutely Fabulous' Patsy Stone.

Here's a good example - when Alicia finally came downstairs ready for her high school prom, she found that her mother had already seduced Alicia's prom date, and she was rolling a cocktail onion across his stomach with her tongue.

By the time 'Flying Blind' took place, Alicia's Dad must have divorced that harridan because he mentioned that he had a girl-friend when he showed up and Alicia didn't treat the news as though he was cheating on her mother.

For Toobworld's purposes, I don't think that woman was actually Alicia's mother; rather, she was Alicia's evil step-mother, who had been in Alicia's life for so long that it just made things simpler for Alicia to refer to her as "Mother" whenever she mentioned her.

She may not even have remembered her true mother, whom I believe passed away when Alicia was only a few years old. And I have a candidate for Alicia's birth mother, as well as a theory about her family tree that would bring in not only 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' but also 'The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes' as well.

Here are two online descriptions of the episode from 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' entitled "Escape From Venice":
ONE



A smiling, happy and relaxed Lee Crane, looking oh so dashing in a white tux, steps into a Venetian gondola with a very pretty girl. But romance is the last thing on the couple's mind. Crane has gone undercover in Venice to pick up a secret code from another agent -- the seemingly innocent girl in the white veil. However, unbeknownst to Crane and Alicia, the enemy is on to them. The girl is viciously murdered, Crane is severely wounded, framed for the murder, and is now a hunted man. Now the only person on earth who knows the code, Crane must stay alive long enough for Nelson to effect a rescue.

TWO

Crane and Alicia, a female agent, are in a gondola in Venice, Italy. She sings Crane a song with lots of LaLas. Then he sings it--it is a message which will decode Dr. Leonetti's tapes which explain a defense against the ultimate weapon. Leonetti, Crane calls Seaview and tells them, is dead. His body was fished out from under a canal--and they are calling it suicide. A young sandy haired man is in the radio shack aboard Seaview, not Sparks. If the song is put through the computer, sonically, it will decode the tapes. As Alicia begins to sing it over the radio to Seaview--the gondolier, an enemy agent, stabs her in the back through the curtain. She gives Crane the key and address to the safe house and dies. Crane fights the killer but falls overboard in the fight. The killer calls for help in Italian.

It will be my contention that the late and lovely spy named Alicia was the mother of Alicia from 'Flying Blind'.

'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' took place in the early 1970's, even though it was broadcast a decade earlier. If we do a bit of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey juggling, Alicia would have been about five years old when her mother was murdered on that gondola.


Alicia's Dad in the late 1960's



I think Alicia's Dad met that agent named Alicia during the course of an undercover operation and they fell in love. Whether or not they got married, I don't know; but I'd like to think that their relationship resulted in the birth of a daughter which "Dad" insisted on naming after his wife (although it may have been that he was following a tradition from the maternal side of his wife's family).

After Alicia was murdered in Venice, a distraught "Dad" may have unwisely married a woman simply to give his baby daughter a maternal influence. He had no clue at the time that she would turn out to be the stereotypical evil stepmother.

Regarding the naming of Alicia after her mother, it's possible that this was a family tradition handed down through the generations along the maternal branch of her family tree. I don't know if they would all prove to be free spirits and adventuresses, but it just might be that one of them was singular enough back in the late 1800's to have a ship named after her:

"The cutter Alicia, which sailed one spring morning into a small patch of mist from where she never again emerged, nor was anything further ever heard of herself and her crew."

Dr. Watson mentioned this case of Sherlock Holmes in the "Thor Bridge" story, which had to have occurred before October 1899. (Although "The Problem Of Thor Bridge" was adapted for the series starring Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke, we hear no mention of this case which never received a full report from Holmes' Boswell. Then again, it may still lay unread in a safe deposit box near Charing Cross.....)

As usual with my theories of relateeveety, I can't prove any of this. But as it's unlikely 'Flying Blind' will ever be revived (Forget about Brett's Holmes and 'Voyage'!), then it can't really be disproved either.

Since 'Flying Blind' was canceled after only one season, I have no idea if Neil and Alicia are still together twenty years later. But as with most fairy tales, I'd like to think they lived happily ever after........

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AS SEEN ON TV: LORD BADEN-POWELL

On this date in 1916, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America, making them the only American youth organization with a federal charter....

 

LORD BADEN-POWELL

AS SEEN IN:
'The Edwardians'

AS PLAYED BY:
Ron Moody

From Wikipedia:
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB (22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941), also known as B-P or Lord Baden-Powell, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement.


After having been educated at Charterhouse School, Baden-Powell served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910 in India and Africa. In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, Baden-Powell successfully defended the town in the Siege of Mafeking. Several of his military books, written for military reconnaissance and scout training in his African years, were also read by boys. Based on those earlier books, he wrote Scouting for Boys, published in 1908 by Pearson, for youth readership. During writing, he tested his ideas through a camping trip on Brownsea Island with the local Boys' Brigade and sons of his friends that began on 1 August 1907, which is now seen as the beginning of Scouting.


After his marriage to Olave St Clair Soames, Baden-Powell, his sister Agnes Baden-Powell and notably his wife actively gave guidance to the Scouting Movement and the Girl Guides Movement. Baden-Powell lived his last years in Nyeri, Kenya, where he died and was buried in 1941.

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TEETHING SPLAINS

A few months back, I wrote about how a murderer probably found inspiration from a book which detailed past investigations of Lt. 'Columbo'; but Patrick Jane, once famous as 'The Mentalist', used another one of Columbo's homicide cases to catch the culprit.

It wasn't the first time a Toobworld killer played copycat with another murder - three magicians attempting the same stunt over a period of three decades were all murdered in the same manner - shot dead inside a coffin in which they had been submerged at the bottom of a pool in front of witnesses. Two of those murders were investigated by the same detective (and the fact he didn't remember the details of the first case during the investigation of that third one was the basis for my argument that Captain Amos Burke was showing signs of Alzheimer's by the early 1990's.)

If a murderer was going to draw inspiration from the Past, it would be better to do so from a more O'Bscure case farther back in Time. Not that it would be successful as this next example will show, but it would at least provide a worthy, imaginative effort.

Dr. Wesley Corman, dentist to the stars, wanted to not only rid himself of his wife's lover, but make it look like she had committed the murder. And on top of all that, he wanted to use the crime to force his father-in-law into keeping him as a member of the very lucrative family practice.

Corman found the perfect means in a case investigated by Dixon Druce in turn-of-the-century London: a Brazilian heiress named Edith Dallas had been mysteriously poisoned and Druce eventually determined that the poison had been placed inside one of her teeth. All the murderer needed to do was wait for it to eventually be released once the filling wore away, which took only about a month. That deduction saved Miss Edith's sister, Beatrice Selby, who might have fallen victim to the same fate.

Although his origins are in some variation on the literary universe with stories by Mrs. L. T. Meade, "one of the most prolific of all writers of detective short stories in the 1890's" (according to W.O.G. Lofts and Derek Adley), Dixon Druce is also part of Toobworld because of an episode of 'The Rival Of Sherlock Holmes' - "Madame Sara", starring John Fraser as Druce. So for Dr. Corman to have learned about the case, it may have been written up as an historical curio for one of his dental periodicals like "Spit Sink Weekly".

Oh, wait. That's from the comic strip "Zits", so that's a different fictional universe.......

SHOWS CITED:
'The Rivals Of Sherlock Holmes' - "Madame Sara"

'Columbo' - "Uneasy Lies The Crown" & "Double Exposure" & "Prescription: Murder"

'Burke's Law' - "Who Killed Merlin The Great?"

'Burke's Law II' - Who Killed Alexander The Great?"

'Blacke's Magic' - "Breathing Room"

'The Mentalist' - "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"

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MOVIE/COMIC BOOK/TV CROSSOVER!

What isn't explained is how Beast was brought forward in Time from the Cuban Missile Crisis to be at the University of Farmer's. And conversely, how that Farmer's agent was sent back in time to the X-Men school in 1962.....

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ART OF THE DALZIELS

In 1932, Lord Peter Wimsey and his valet Bunter were in Scotland on holiday when they assisted the police in a case dubbed "The Five Red Herrings". Among the policemen involved was Sgt. Dalziel (which is pronounced somewhat like "Dee-el").

It's the Toobworld Central theory of relateeveety that he was the grandfather of Yorkshire Detective Superintendant Andy Dalziel, as seen in the series 'Dalziel & Pascoe'. (From Wikipedia: Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel is described by the actor who portrays him [Warren Clarke] as 'a perfect pig', who is politically incorrect and often insensitive. He likes to do things in the old fashioned way.)

It's standard procedure in Toobworld Central to use an actor's birth year as the same for the character he plays - unless otherwise stated by the script or by the time period in which the character appears. Therefore, Andy Dalziel was probably born circa 1947, just as Warren

Clarke was.

By 1932, Sgt Dalziel could have had a son nearly old enough himself to soon get married and perhaps then move to Yorkshire. For some reason, the name of Andy Dalziel's father is engraved on a memorial in Sheffield. It may have had something to do with World War Two.

Of course, the scripts for the 'Dalziel And Pascoe' series could bleep this all up. Andy's father could have shown up, looking nothing like the actor who played the Sergeant; mention might have been made as to his profession. But it would have to be something from the TV series that would derail this theory. Whatever happened in the novels doesn't apply, even though it's the stated intention of the author.

What happens in the novels is part of the literary universe only, and that's more the purview of Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague DeCamp of the "Incompleat Enchanter" series. Toobworld is the TV Universe and never the twain should meet. (Especially since the novels apparently have a sci-fi bent not seen in the series - or so I'm informed by Wikipedia.)

And based on the liberties taken in most TV adaptations from their bookish sources, they never have that much in common anyway. (For a good example, read "At Bertram's Hotel" by Agatha Christie, and then watch the second TV adaptation of the stories, featuring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Jane Marple.......)

I suppose by extension through the connection to Lord Peter Wimsy, this theory of relateeveety could be considered a minor part of the Wold Newton Universe as well.  But I'll leave that up to Win Scott Eckert to decide; the WNU is his bailiwick and he does a fantastic job in maintaining it.  (Far better than I do with Toobworld!)

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"GAMES OF THRONES" - EPISODE 6 PREVIEW

And finally, because I'm so hopped up on this new HBO series, here's the preview for Episode 6 of 'Game Of Thrones':

Julian Glover, seen in the previous 'Doctor Who' video of "City Of Death" bloopers, is a member of this cast. He plays the old Maester on the Small Council......

This new episode of 'Game Of Thrones' will air tonight at 9 PM EDT on HBO......

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A TASTE OF BLACK OIL VENOM

In the Facebook page for the TV Crossover Universe (Link to the left for the blog, Me Hearties!), Robert Wronski, Jr. and several of our like-minded comrades discussed the possibility that the entity which was the malevolent Spiderman suit symbiote known as "Venom" was actually the living, sentient Black Oil from 'The X-Files'.

Here's a couple of excerpts:

Gordon Long:
There's also the Black Oil, a living entity itself, which might be similar to the inhibition-releasing virus from "The Naked Time" ('Trek TOS') and revisited in 'TNG' ("The Naked Now").

Ivan Ronald Schablotski:
I'll point out for the sake of being pointy that a theory exists linking the Purity (black oil) alien virus to the Venom alien symbiote, especially the way it is depicted in the movie SPIDER-MAN 3.

It was an interesting discussion in which unfortunately I could not partake. The TVCU draws on several sources besides TV, as does the Toobworld concept - like certain movies and online content.  But they also use comic books and consider the character as a whole. With Toobworld, the Cineverse is a separate realm; there are exceptions, but the "Spiderman" franchise is not one of them. Its Spiderman is not the same as the TV Spiderman.

So far Venom has only been seen in the universes of movies and comic books. Back in the 1970's, Venom wasn't even in the comic books when Spiderman was in his crime-fighting glory on Earth Prime-Time.

As for the Black Oil, it may have been living and lurking on Toobworld since the Dawn of Time; it may have arrived with the aliens known as the Silence of recent 'Doctor Who' fame, or even earlier - with Scaroth or even in the clutch of Racnoss eggs planted at the core of the planet......

So it could be that the Black Oil-created Venom was in a Spiderman adventure not seen on TV back in the 1970's, about a decade before it was created for the comic books. If so, it has to be an off-screen adventure and could very well be the reason why Spidey stopped appearing on our TV screens. (Within the "reality" of Toobworld, of course. 'Twas ratings killed the series.)

I just can't claim that this crossover between 'The Amazing Spiderman' and 'The X-Files' actually did take place, because then I'm veering definitively into fanfic territory. (My splainins and theories of relateeveety have always been just tenuous possibilities.)

Still, it's a great theory and I extend kudos to whoever first came up with the idea. I just wish I could use it.....

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THE O'BSERVER: THE "SMALLVILLE" FINALE

These are my O'Bservations about the series finale of 'Smallville', so fair warning - there will be spoilers......

I have to start out this post with a confession: I never watched 'Smallville' on a regular basis. Part of that has to do with my Toobworld bias - once I've written about why a particular show can't be part of Earth Prime-Time, I generally lose interest in it. (Major exceptions have been 'The West Wing', '30 Rock', 'Castle', 'Human Target' and 'Brothers & Sisters' - not that it should be a problem anymore with those last two....)

I only checked in with 'Smallville' on special occasions - like certain plotlines (the death of Jonathan Kent) or when there were special guest stars like Christopher Reeve and Dan Lauria (with whom I went to college). But especially I'd record an episode when another aspect from DC Comics was adapted for TV.

'Smallville' can't be part of Toobworld proper because Earth Prime-Time already had its Superman back in the 1950's, as seen in 'The Adventures Of Superman'. (And if you haven't heard me say this before, he died in the early 1960's because he saved the lives of two petty crooks between seasons of 'Crime Story'.)

I've had to banish plenty of shows to alternate dimensions for similar reasons, but rarely do I regret it. (I like populating those other TV dimensions.) 'Smallville' is one of the exceptions.

Look at all the material adapted from DC Comics:

The Justice League of America, The Justice Society of America, Kandor

The Legion of Super-Heroes, The Phantom Zone, The Fortress of Solitude

Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, General Zod, Green Arrow, Zatanna

The Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Brainiac, Hawkman, Doctor Fate

The Sandman, The Star-Spangled Kid, Black Canary, Cyborg, Stargirl

Supergirl, Booster Gold, and Impulse (that world's version of the Flash)

And as I said, I didn't watch on a regular basis, so I may have missed plenty!

You got none of that in 'The Adventures Of Superman'. At best, there was the origin story of Krypton with Jor-El and Lara, plus supporting players Perry White, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen from the Daily Planet in Metropolis. Otherwise, unless there was some crackpot scientist with a weird invention or the occasional Mole Man (more on them in the next post), the Superman of Earth Prime-Time faced nothing more dangerous than low-rent hoodlums. (And as Robert Wuhl pointed out in his HBO special, Superman would duck when the gangsters threw their empty guns at him!)

So 'Smallville' would have been a bonanza for the Toobworld concept.

The Superman mythos is so ingrained into our national psyche that someone with even less familiarity with the series than me could have just watched the finale and been able to follow along. (Of course, the extended "Previously on....." clips helped.)

I was sort of lost with those final moments between Tess and Lex, however. And I felt her death was unnecessary. Still, it was interesting to see the fallout from whatever that toxin was which used to infect her brother - in seven years a squeaky clean Lex Luthor would be President of the United States in that alternate TV dimension.

At the end of the present timeline, the avatar of Jor-El (and the ghost of Jonathan Kent, I guess) deemed their son ready to step into the public eye as the defender of Earth. They gave Kal-El the uniform to wear that would mark him as such, the blue tights, the red cape and the big red "S" insignia splayed across the chest.

Unfortunately, we only got to see the full effect mostly in long-shot. (For alls I could tell, Tom Welling was nothing more than a CGI cartoon at that distance.) But again, our knowledge of Superman can fill in the blanks to cover that seven year gap until we see Lois and Clark again in 2018.

And what a kicker that final minute of the series was!  As Clark raced up the stairs to the roof of the Daily Planet building, the classic John Williams theme music from the 1978 film swelled, and as always happens for me, I got verklempt (as Linda Richman would say) to hear it again.

Best of all for me as a televisiologist, the two-hour finale teased us with the news that the President was in Metropolis. We heard him on the radio; we got updates on his motorcade; and when he finally appeared on Air Force One, we got the classic shot like they used to do in the old days - just part of his body that wouldn't identify him as being any particular man.

Therefore, my theory that 'Smallville' took place in 'The West Wing' TV dimension was safe. This wasn't Obama; but it could have been Matt Santos, and the difference in vocal quality could always be attributed to seasonal allergies.

One last point I'd like to bring up. Throughout the decade of the show, the imminent demise of Chloe Sullivan was always being trumpeted and/or stressed over by the fanbase on the Internet. The producers took care of that worry with the opening sequence - set at least a few years beyond 2018, Chloe is seen reading a "Smallville" comic book to her six year old son. (I'm guessing six, based on the age of my youngest nephew in comparison.) So right away we knew Chloe was going to make it out of the series okay.

Okay, one last trivial note - I loved that Michael McKean came back as Perry White, but was only a vocal cameo near the end.

Series finales are tricky; they never seem to please everybody. (Just ask the good folks from 'Lost'.....) But I think that with a property so firmly established in our hearts and minds, 'Smallville' largely succeeded.

BCnU!

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E. NESBIT'S PSAMMEAD SINGS

Behind the scenes during filming of "Five Children And It"......

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AS SEEN ON TV: E. NESBIT

E. NESBIT

AS SEEN IN:
'The Edwardians'

AS PLAYED BY:
Judy Parfitt

TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time

From Wikipedia:
Edith Nesbit (married name Edith Bland; 15 August 1858 – 4 May 1924) was an English author and poet whose children's works were published under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television. She was also a political activist and co-founded the Fabian Society, a precursor to the modern Labour Party.

Nesbit published approximately 40 books for children, including novels, collections of stories and picture books. Collaborating with others, she published almost as many more.

According to her biographer Julia Briggs, Nesbit was "the first modern writer for children": "(Nesbit) helped to reverse the great tradition of children's literature inaugurated by [Lewis] Carroll, [George] MacDonald and Kenneth Grahame, in turning away from their secondary worlds to the tough truths to be won from encounters with things-as-they-are, previously the province of adult novels." Briggs also credits Nesbit with having invented the children's adventure story. Noël Coward was a great admirer of hers and, in a letter to an early biographer Noel Streatfeild, wrote "she had an economy of phrase, and an unparalleled talent for evoking hot summer days in the English countryside."

Among Nesbit's best-known books are The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1898) and The Wouldbegoods (1899), which both recount stories about the Bastables, a middle class family that has fallen on relatively hard times. Her children's writing also included numerous plays and collections of verse.

She created an innovative body of work that combined realistic, contemporary children in real-world settings with magical objects and adventures and sometimes travel to fantastic worlds. In doing so, she was a direct or indirect influence on many subsequent writers, including P. L. Travers (author of Mary Poppins), Edward Eager, Diana Wynne Jones and J. K. Rowling. C. S. Lewis wrote of her influence on his Narnia series and mentions the Bastable children in The Magician's Nephew. Michael Moorcock would go on to write a series of steampunk novels with an adult Oswald Bastable (of The Treasure Seekers) as the lead character.

Nesbit also wrote for adults, including eleven novels, short stories, and four collections of horror stories.

This is another case in which an author co-exists in Toobworld with the living embodiment of the characters she wrote about. Many of her works were adapted for television, including "The Railway Children", "The Treasure Seekers", "The Phoenix And The Carpet" and "Five Children And It".

BCnU!

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VIDEO-PHONING IT IN

In July of 1969, former FBI agent Canton Everett Delaware III used Amy's video-phone to record the wounded alien, but he said he had no idea what a video-phone was.

However, the "picture phone" was displayed five years earlier at the 1964 World's Fair. Canton should have been familiar at least with the publicity if he didn't see it in person. It should have been simple to extrapolate that Amy's phone was a future version.

Besides, "Dick Tracy" had a televersion, so the FBI had access to Diet Smith's invention of the two-way wrist radio. Had the show kept going and it stayed current with events depicted in the comic strip mothership, then the two-way wrist TV would have eventually followed in the Toobworld timeline. And that was also in 1964.

Gee....  I'm surprised Canton Everett Delaware III didn't know about Dick Tracy and his communication device.  I would have thought "Three Part Canton" of all people would have been familiar with Dick......

  
BCnU!

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AS SEEN ON TV: MARY SHELLEY

On this date in 1759, Mary Wollstonecraft, who would marry Percy Bysshe Shelley and write the classic novel "Frankenstein", was born..........

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY

AS SEEN ON:
'Saturday Night Live'

AS PLAYED BY:
Dame Helen Mirren

TV DIMENSION:
Skitlandia

Or click here.....


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AS SEEN ON TV: STACEY BESS

STACEY BESS

AS SEEN IN:
"Beyond The Blackboard"

AS PLAYED BY:
Emily Van Camp

TV DIMENSION:
Earth Prime-Time

From http://staceybess.com/about.php:
"Nobody Don't Love Nobody" is the story of young Stacey Bess's first teaching assignment, the only job she could find, at The School with No Name. In a small shed behind a community homeless shelter Stacey Bess taught Kindergarten through sixth grade to children with no homes and little hope, an experience that effected a profound change in the teacher as well as her students. Stacey discovered that by teaching and modeling love, self-worth, personal power, and courage she could reach children who had previously been labeled "unteachable". These children have grown into living proof that Stacey's methods work. Her memoir "Nobody Don't Love Nobody" inspired the Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie "Beyond the Blackboard."

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THE ART OF WESTEROS

Here's a video of artwork based on George R.R. Martin's fantasy series "A Song Of Ice And Fire".

Some of the images will be familiar to those who have seen the first episode of 'Game Of Thrones'.......

And the music is lovely as well......

BCnU!

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FRANKENSTEIN AND PRINCESS VICKY

As seen in the mini-series 'Edward The King', Princess Vicky, elder sister of the future King of England, drew up a list of possible princesses whom "Bertie" might choose from to be his queen. But her husband Fritz, the Prince of Prussia, knew how his brother-in-law might feel, given the choices.

One of them must have been exceedingly homely because Fritz remarked:

"Marie Von Altenburg? She would frighten Frankenstein......"

Like many people do today, Fritz was referring to the Monster, whereas the name "Frankenstein" actually refers to the Doctor who created it.

But the way he referred to the Monster, there was no mention of the book by Mary Wollstonescraft Shelley; O'Bviously there could be no mention of the movies. He could easily have been talking about the actual Monster that existed in Toobworld, whose horrible exploits would still be fresh in the minds of the European populace.

(The picture of the Monster is taken from "Frankenstein: The True Story" which starred Michael Sarrazin as the Monster. Sarrazin passed away a few days ago at the age of 70.....)

BCnU......

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