Big Finishing Move: ‘Doctor Who: Project: Twilight’

Salutations dear reader, and welcome back to Big Finishing Move, where I take a look at the Doctor Who-themed output of the audio powerhouse, Big Finish, and see if their stuff is worth your blood, sweat, and tears. Today, we’re rejoining the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn as they bite off more than they can chew on the seedy streets of London in Project: Twilight.

TARDIS Team: Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe

We find the Doctor and Evelyn in southeast London, just off the river Thames. The Doctor has come for some Chinese take-out (or should I say take-away) from a local joint he considers to have the finest food in the universe. On their way back to the TARDIS, they come across the ravaged corpses of animals and decide to investigate. This one decision opens up a huge can of worms, because of course it does. There are real monsters in the shadows of London, they are tired of hiding, and they refuse to do so for much longer.

The first thing you’ll wonder as you listen to this episode is if the Doctor and Evelyn took a bunch of stupid pills before getting out of the TARDIS. When confronted by a malicious group led by a madwoman performing horrible deadly experiments on people against their will, the Doctor simply demands that they stop killing people and he will help them with their goals. Even the sight of someone exploding in a burst of guts and blood across the room and themselves, the Doctor and Evelyn seem to take the situation in stride and get back to the tasks at hand.

The bad guys are so obviously bad guys and make little effort to hide their nefarious nature. Their motives are so poorly hidden that you can’t help but facepalm as the Doctor continues to miss the boat and not figure out what is going on until it is explained to him in no uncertain terms. Classic Who fans will remember that these creatures are well known to Time Lords and they have a standing order to stop these monsters whenever they come across them. This directive is one of the few things in Time Lord society the Doctor takes seriously. Hell, even if you didn’t know, we have the Doctor go on about it once the truth is revealed to him. So what does the Doctor do then, you ask? Why, go back to helping the same monsters who were tricking him of course!

Do they trick him again?

Yup.

The overall production is lackluster as well, as both the score and the actors come off flat. Everyone seems to be either not trying or not given anything to work with in terms of material. Some of the actors are hamming it up, but not in any way that makes me care. Passionate and interesting performances couldn’t have saved this sucker, but it may have at least gotten me to invest something in these characters.

Like Storm Warning (which I reviewed last year), this story is one of the most important stories in the Big Finish canon. Many dominoes were set in motion beginning with this story, the ramifications of which stretch over the course of years of releases and even multiple incarnations of the Doctor. While both stories are severely flawed, Storm Warning had enough charm and fun to still be worth your time on its own. Project:Twilight, on the other hand, only has redeeming value in that it allowed for years of better stories to be told. Thankfully, enough of the plot for this story is covered in those other good entries that you never need waste your cash on Project: Twilight. It is a mound of wasted potential topped with insulting and lazy production and writing. It isn’t even bad in an interesting or funny way, it is simply the tedious and boring type of bad. Seriously folks, save your money. Read a quick synopsis of the story online if you must, but don’t go wasting your cash on this mess. It just isn’t worth it.

Purchase Doctor Who: Project: Twilight Here:

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Keep in mind ladies and gents, that Big Finish aren’t the only folks across the web doing audio dramas, in fact One Of Us has its very own by the name of Infinite Variations. Give it a look thenext time you have a chance! As for this series, we are just going to keep on rolling as next time we’re back with Tom Banker and Louise Jameson in:

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Check out my previous reviews of Doctor Who releases from Big Finish:

Phantasmagoria

The Fearmonger

The Light At The End

The Spectre of Lanyon Moor

Storm Warning

Blood of the Daleks

The Chimes of Midnight

Seasons of Fear

The King of Sontar

White Ghosts

Dark Eyes II

The Crooked Man

The Strip Club: 4/20/2014

Sunday has come around once again, so let’s enjoy some comic strips just like we used to back in the good old days. Welcome to The Strip Club, the place where we share strips created by you, the readers and fans of One of Us.

No holiday is complete without a hearty helping of corny dad jokes, as I’m sure many of you are finding out today. This week’s edition of The Strip Club comes to you courtesy of Zach Martin, who has illustrated one of the jokes his dad loved to tell on Easter.

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We’d love for you to start submitting comics for our Sunday “Strip Club” feature. If you’re interested, please contact us at oneofusnet@gmail.com.

The Pre-Weekend Recap: April 18, 2014

Greetings all to the latest edition of the Pre-Weekend Recap! As you might expect, the One of Us crew was fantastically productive this week. There were plenty of articles, blog posts, and podcasts featured for your entertainment. That’s right, this stuff was created with you in mind, dear friend, but in between your classes/job/hobbies/children/whatever, it’s possible that you didn’t have a chance to get to everything. Don’t worry, all hope is not lost! This is the place where you can start catching up on the material that you missed. Below you’ll find a few of the features that debuted this week, with descriptions and links right there. All you have to do is enjoy the content. Let’s get started, shall we?

 

Return of The Original Gentlemen!

Chris, Martin, Beau, and Ashley have returned with several surprises in tow on this episode of The Original Gentlemen. First, Jason Neulander, the creator of The Intergalactic Nemesis, is a featured guest and he has some big news of his own. Second, they’ve committed to a bi-weekly schedule! That’s right everyone, you’ll be getting your THEOG fix on a regular basis. To mark this joyous occasion, kick back and listen to the crew engage in a spoiler-heavy Captain America: The Winter Soldier discussion, share their thoughts on the Game of Thrones season four opener, and of course, take your questions. What more could you want?

 

The Top Ten Starship Captains of the Small Screen

Science-fiction television shows have introduced a number of legendary starship captains to the public consciousness. However, if you were given the herculean task of whittling down the entire list of captains down to the top ten, who would make the cut? John Eckes was brave enough to answer the call and crafted his lineup of the best leaders of space crews ever to grace the small screen? Who is the best captain of all? Do you agree with John’s reasoning? The only way to be sure is to check out his list, so do it!

 

Watch A Movie With Us: The Worst Films of 2013  

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A short while ago, we asked you, the distinguished voting public of One of Us, to pick the three worst films of 2013. This was no simple poll for curiosity’s sake, of course. Brian and Chris promised to record Watch A Movie With Us audio commentaries for the worst of the worst and giving you the audio for the third and second place losers free of charge. This week, the promise is nearly fulfilled. Behold, the audio commentaries for Grown Ups 2 and R.I.P.D. are yours, no strings attached. Well, there is the matter of having to watch two horrible movies, but at least you’ll have your favorite internet personalities alongside you for this hellish ride.  And keep your eyes open for #1 worst film of 2013, as voted by you, which you’ll be able to purchase for the incredibly low price of $1.99!

 

The Die Cast: Let’s Go To Space Jail

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The Chairman of the Board, Jacob Hall, is back with another tabletop adventure for you board gaming fanatics! The name of the game is Durance and it’s all about colonialism in deep space. To quote Mr. Hall, “What happens when uber-Capitalism, an underground alien drug trade, petty vengeance, wanton violence, and terrorist activity collide in a shabby dome built on a planet where oxygen is a luxury?” Well, you get a pretty insane podcast, that’s for sure! Give it a listen and experience the wonders of space Australia!

 

Ash & Fern: You’ve Got Me Feeling Emotions

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In this new golden age of television, it is increasingly common for viewers to become deeply attached to a show’s characters and heavily invested in a show’s story. Our beloved Fern is no exception to this growing trend. The latest entry of the Ash & Fern blog is all about how television can take you on a wild emotional ride, from idyllic bliss to ferocious anger to profound sadness and everything in between. Check out which shows have Fern bouncing around the emotional spectrum these days and be sure to share which shows have a hold on your emotions in the comments!

If you like what you’ve seen here, please be sure to share our stuff with others who might enjoy it. There’s always more internet to conquer, so help us on our quest to unite the internet under one banner! Have a great weekend!

ITL Tournament Edition: Sports Movies

The sports nerds of Inside the Locker engage in the long-awaited Sports Movie Tournament; a feat that required two entire rounds of fan voting to narrow the field from 64 to 16. The reason we enjoy doing these tournaments is that, by function of how the match-ups are settled, it is impossible to predict which film will reign supreme. This week’s tournament CERTAINLY exemplifies that. You will not believe which film takes the top spot.


And boy howdy did we have a special guest to referee this week’s tourney. Ryan McCann is a former UCLA quarterback who was briefly a member of the Cincinnati Bengals.

McCann

Ryan traded in his helmet for a career as an artist and actor. You might recognize him as Mack Luster, the parody of 80s low-budget action heroes that appeared in the 2008 Zack Galifianakis film Visioneers. Here’s a clip…

 

 


We’ll be hearing more from Ryan here at OneOfUs in the coming days, but for now, sit back and enjoy a rousing discussion of some of the week’s biggest sports stories followed by the knock-down, drag-out scrum that provides the perfect sendoff (for now) for our Totally Accurate, Desperately Necessary Movie Elimination Tournaments!

 


Show Breakdown…


Scores and Stories (2:52)

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Topics Discussed: NFL draft goes meta with Any Given Sunday reference, Moronic 49ers linebacker screams “bomb” at an aiport, Ochocinco might need to change his name to Huitcinq, NCAA amends meal plan for athletes, Twitter says John Calipari will take Lakers job, NBA playoff picture breakdown


Sports Movie Elimination Tournament (49:45)


The starting bracket is pictured below. If you want to see the results (and spoil the fun before you even listen to the show…for shame), click on the image to reveal a filled-in version of the bracket.

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Make sure to follow us on Twitter. Failure to do so could result in getting punched thousands of times by Mack Luster.

MackLuster

The Show Account–@ITLCast
Brian–@BriguySalisbury
J.C.–@jcdeleon1
Elliott–@ITLElliott
Adam–@the_beef
Tyler-@tylermager

Movie Review: ‘Dom Hemingway’

Dom Hemingway is not a reference to great literature, nor is he a purveyor of fine champagne, he is in fact the world’s foremost safe-cracker and a man who for all of his criminal enterprising and connections to the most powerful people on the planet, can’t seem to stop cocking up his life.


We meet Dom (Jude Law) right as he’s about to be paroled from a twelve-year prison sentence, and follow him as he tries to put the pieces of his life back together; or should we say the pieces of both his lives back together. Dropping F-Bombs and C-Bombs and all over forms of explosive expletive, Law defies audiences to ever again pigeonhole him as an actor with a performance as vulgar as it is strangely compelling.


But a great performance does not necessarily a great movie make, and The Unusual Suspects are here to crack open the titanium core of Dom Hemingway to see if all its moving parts are properly assembled. Brian, J.C., Ashley, and Beau may be four of the dodgiest reprobates west of the East End, but if there’s one thing they know…it’s how to make dick jokes. But if there’s a second thing they know, it’s film.


Don’t be a c***, give a listen to the review!

The Humble Origins of ‘Rick and Morty’

First off, if you are not watching Rick and Morty, you need to make that one of your top priorities in life. What is this show about? Well, we have a super genius alcoholic scientist by the name of Rick, and his grandson who may or may not have a slight mental disability (according to his dad). Together, they go on “high concept sci-fi” adventures that range from trans-dimensional escapades, to an Inception parody involving dogs acquiring sentience, creating mech-suits, and trying to bring an end to the dominion of mankind. You know, standard stuff.

One of my favorite episodes involves a species called the Meeseeks, a group of strange blue beings created via a Meeseeks box. Their very purpose in life is to complete the single task you give them. After they complete that task, they cease to exist. What happens when they can’t complete that task? Well, they start losing their minds because existence is pain to them, and all they want to do is die.

 

“Meeseeks aren’t suppose to exist this long! It’s getting weird…”

The show parodies everything from M. Night Shyamalan twists to Jurassic Park. There are no limits to the creativity and cleverness of this show. Some are claiming that this show is potentially the next Futurama, and I’m inclined to agree with that. Imagine if the spawn of Doctor Who and Adventure Time was traveling at the speed of cocaine. Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.

When watching this show, you might say that the dynamic between the main characters have a striking resemblance to Doc Brown and Marty McFly from Back to the Future. Hell, Rick even looks like Doc, and Morty spelled backwards is Marty (I didn’t get very far in the 5th grade spelling bee). Interestingly enough, co-creator Justin Roiland actually made a short back in 2006 called The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti:

Warning. This video contains graphic depictions of cartoon sexual content. Viewer discretion is advised.

 

Great things come from humble beginnings eh?

Despite it’s crudeness, what you get here is the seed of an underdeveloped idea. Structurally, it is every bit Rick and Morty. By that, I mean we have Doc/Rick coercing Marty/Morty into doing something that is insane and beyond his comprehension. However, it is an essential task for them to overcome an obstacle. The repercussions of overcoming that obstacle leads to another problem in the original timeline/dimension, and they need to overcome that and so on. The bones are clearly there, but it wasn’t fleshed out.

“I need you to take these seeds Morty… and put them up your ass! I need you need to put them WAAY up there! I need them for my research, and they won’t go through interdimensional customs.”

Had I seen this first, and was told that this was what Rick and Morty was based on, I would have turned my nose up and walked away. I was confused when I first saw this, and wondered how such a juvenile short would get its own series. In my curiosity, I retreated into the woods, and decided to hone my skills in the ways of Google-Fu. What I found out was that this short was created by Roiland in an attempt to annoy Universal’s lawyers. Why? Revenge perhaps? Was he one of the writers for Back to the Future but was unjustly cut from the project? Well, he was born in 1980, meaning he was 5 years old at the time of release. So that is unlikely… unless… he had a DeLorean. But let’s not open that can of worm holes.

The truth is… I don’t know. That’s the only thing I could find on why he made that short. If he wanted to piss off Universal’s lawyers just for funsies, then that’s awesome. The last bit of information I could find, was that he submitted Doc and Mharti to Channel 101, which is a non-profit short film festival, in where submissions need to be in the form of a pilot in just under 5 minutes of length. The festival was created by Rob Schrab (who wrote the comic Scud: The Disposable Assassin and co-wrote Monster House) and none other than Dan Harmon, the showrunner of the much beloved NBC sitcom Community. Obviously, Mr. Harmon saw some great potential in this material and voila, we now have the greatness that is Rick and Morty.

So what did the Us nation think about this short? Do you have anymore information you can tell Us about Roiland’s vendetta against Universal? What’s your favorite episode? Whatever your thoughts, comment below and discuss with the Us.

Channel101/Doc and Mharti

Movie Review: ‘Transcendence’

Let’s face it, at some point, we will all live inside the internet. We want to pilot our own Flappy Bird, we want to be able to throat-punch certain people on Facebook, and I’m not even gonna touch upon the revolutions this would represent for the internet porn industry.

In Transcendence, Johnny Depp plays a scientist who uploads his consciousness into a computer. No, he’s not playing Arnim Zola…although it is funny that The Winter Soldier JUST beat Transcendence to the punch. Given the fact that Transcendence is the directorial debut of cinematographer Wally Pfister (longtime Christopher Nolan collaborator), anticipation was running high. Would the film be able to handle the anticipation bandwidth or would it crash, forcing us to reboot our expectations?

The Unusual Suspects are here to help! Just consider Brian, J.C., and Ashley your filmic IT department, and we won’t even make you turn the review off and on again. Listen as the crew breaks down all the bits and bytes, arriving at a final system report.

If nothing else, now we know why Johnny Depp wears all those funny hats in his movies: because he’s got plugs! Acid. Burn.

Vote Now! Sports Movie Tournament Second Round!

Well, you’ve done it. From the opening collection of 64 sports movies, your votes have narrowed the field to 32.

We want to thank you all for making your voices heard and delivering no small amount of surprises along the way.

But as you well know, we can’t start the on-air tournament until we shrink things down to the Sweet 16.


So it’s time to vote once more!


Below is the bracket as it stands right now…

ITL_Tournament_Sports_Round2


As you can see, there are sixteen new match-ups that need to be settled before we record the episode. Below are graphic breakdowns of those new match-ups and, just like before, clicking on each one will allow you to vote for each match-up. Go to it!

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED, THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING!!!


Baseball Division…

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Football Division…

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Basketball Division…

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Misc Division…

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Again, click on each image to vote for the winner of each match-up. Let’s tip this thing off!

VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!

Watch a Movie with Us: Free ‘R.I.P.D.’ Commentary

Continuing along this countdown of shame (where’s Disgrace-y Kasem when you need him?), Brian and Chris arrive at the #2 worst movie of 2013 as voted upon by you, our sadistic fans. Today, we are enlisting ourselves in the questionable law enforcement agency known as the R.I.P.D.

At first, we weren’t sure that R.I.P.D. could actually be any worse than Grown Ups 2, which we survived earlier this week, but as our special guest for this commentary so eloquently put it, “it is the most pointless movie ever made.” A relentless parade of Men in Black ripoffs, R.I.P.D. has nothing in the way of its own personality. I mean heck, even Jeff Bridges isn’t creating an original character for the movie; opting instead to copy and paste his garbled cowboy schtick from True Grit.

Rest assured, Bridges’ incomprehensible tongue-tumbling becomes the subject of many an impression and joke during this COMPLETELY FREE commentary.

Joining us for this free commentary is Joe Parsons from Master Pancake Theater, also a former member of the LEOG. Feel free to download the commentary and see if our running skewering allows you to stomach the cumbersome, CG-laden, internal-consistency-devoid R.I.P.D. Huzzah!

Digital Noise Episode 39: Alternate Dimensions

Some really weird stuff happening in this week’s episode. It started off normal enough, with Chris and Brian reviewing some of the big tent pole releases like The Desolation of Smaug and the latest Paranormal Activity, and even finding time to rip the new Friedberg & Seltzer film to shreds. But then, in the middle of the show, Brian found…the artifact.


Suddenly the barrier between dimensions came crumbling down and a transmission from one of the darker Digi-verses managed to enter our airspace. In this dimension, Chris is still (mostly) Chris, but Brian no longer exists. Instead, Chris’ co-host in the parallel dimension version of Digital Noise is some guy named Richard with a strange accent. This week, in their timeline, Grudge Match, I Am Divine, and Nurse 3D are covered.


We’ll have to keep close tabs on this alternate universe Digital Noise, but for now, having returned again to timeline prime, Brian and Chris announce a special DN Grab Bag giveaway that will net you, the lucky winner, not one, not two, but four mystery titles from the show’s past. Troubling quantum physics issues aside, really great show.

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Please do consider using our links below to make all your Amazon purchases! Much appreciated!

Desolation of Smaug Blu-ray Review   August Osage County Blu-ray Review   Paranormal Activity Marked Ones Blu-ray Review

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Cry Danger Blu-ray Review   Bamboo Saucer Blu-ray Review   Bang Bang You're Dead Blu-ray Review

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Best Night Ever Blu-ray Review   Grudge Match Blu-ray Review   I am Divine Blu-ray ReviewEmpty Space

A Touch of Sin Blu-ray Review   Nurse 3D Blu-ray Review

 

GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAAAAAAAAAY!!!

 

DN Grab Bag

How To Win This Week’s Giveaway:

1.) Follow @OneOfUsNet on Twitter

2.) Tweet at us with the most random quartet of actors you could think of to play The Fantastic Four (e.g. Nick Cage, Captain Kangaroo, Animal from the Muppets, and Tiny Tim). Don’t forget to tell us who each would play.

3.) Add #GrabBagGiveaway

4.) We’ll select our favorite and contact that winner via Twitter (open to U.S. Residents only)

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Follow Digital Noise on Twitter and make sure to review us on iTunes.