The Review Basement #303: Books by Gordon Korman That I've Read

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's Thursday and this week's episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks is the 800th episode total of Star Trek spanning nine TV shows (ten if you count Short Treks) and thirteen movies, spanning 55 years. So that's pretty insane. Otherwise things are pretty quiet right now in my life, which is good. Today I'm going to be talking about the works of an author that I've enjoyed reading since I was a kid. So let's get into the works of Gordon Korman. For those of you who don't know, and are new to my blog, Gordon Korman is a Canadian author who is the author behind the Bruno & Boots books now published under the series name, Macdonald Hall. I'll be talking about all seven books in the series, as well as the two non-Bruno & Boots books of his that I've read. So let's get into it.

The first time I ever heard about Bruno & Boots was in the fourth grade. I was in a grade 4/5 split class and the fifth graders were reading The War with Mr. Wizzle, the fourth book in the series, as one of their novel studies. I think they read it after Christmas though I don't remember for sure. A year later, I had the same teacher as a fifth grader and because he was a fan of Gordon Korman's work, he used The War with Mr. Wizzle as one of our novel studies as well. So I first heard of this book in either late 1996 or early 1997, and then actually read it myself in either late 1997 or early 1998. In the sixth grade I read three more books by Gordon Korman, including two more books starring Bruno & Boots.

The first one I read was the very first book that Mr. Korman wrote, This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall, published in 1978. This book is very different from the other books in the series, because it feels like a book that a 12 year old would write. And that's because Mr. Korman WAS 12 years old when he wrote this as a seventh grade English project. Let me repeat that. Gordon Korman wrote This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall as a project for his grade 7 English class! It got published two years later, when he was 14 years old. I don't think I've ever heard of an author who was published at age 14 before this. So that's really cool. My grades 4 and 5 teacher owned this book and kept it in his classroom library, so he let me borrow it over the winter, when I was stuck inside for two out of the three recesses that we had at Greely Elementary School.

I'm pretty sure I read the third book in the series, Beware the Fish! next. This time I got it from the school library as this was the only Bruno & Boots book they had there. That I ever found anyway. We got a new librarian when I was in sixth grade, and she was in the process of reorganizing and updating the library. In fact I'm the reason she got more Animorphs for it as the old librarian had gotten one random book in the series and that was it. Anyway, I liked this one. It's not my favourite book in the series, but it was still pretty good.

The next Gordon Korman book that I read wasn't a Bruno & Boots book. It was a standalone novel called Radio Fifth Grade. I actually read this book multiple times. Back then I knew I wanted to be on the radio when I grew up, and this book, along with the TV series, Radio Active (on YTV), and the fact that I listened to the radio every single day, contributed to my desire to be on the radio. So much so that the principal at Greely Elementary School allowed me to have a radio show that was broadcast over the school's PA system, and participated as the show's producer and introduction announcer. I wish I could remember the name that I came up with for the show, but there's no record of it anymore as I didn't keep any of the scripts that I typed up and printed out every week from our PC that ran Windows 3.0 and there were no audio recordings of the show either like I did when I was in college. To this day I still haven't been able to find an actual copy of the book as it seems to be out of print, even the 2003 reprint edition. But, trust me, as soon as I can get my hands on a copy, I will read and review it on this blog, because it was an important book in my formative years. Around this time Nana bought me two Bruno & Boots books from a garage sale.

The first one was the original 1982 paperback edition of The War with Mr. Wizzle. The edition that I read in the fifth grade was either from the late '80s, from when Radio Fifth Grade was published (1989), or it was from the very early '90s. Nana was always buying stuff for my siblings and I at garage sales, which is how she came across this edition of The War with Mr. Wizzle. Thrilled that I had my own copy, I read it over and over again, in between readings of whatever Star Wars or Star Trek novel I got at the time. So that was cool.

The other Bruno & Boots book that Nana bought at that garage sale was the paperback edition of the second book in the series, Go Jump in the Pool!. This was my second favourite Bruno & Boots book after Wizzle. Maybe because it was the first proper Bruno & Boots book following This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall, the first one that actually felt like a Bruno & Boots book as I knew them. Most of the main characters we got to know over the course of the series, who weren't introduced in the first book, were first introduced here, like Sidney Rampulsky and Wilbur Hackenschleimer for example. Also, the quartet of Bruno & Boots and Cathy & Diane were in their more familiar roles starting here.

About 20 years later, I read the second book in the 39 Clues series, One False Note which was written by Gordon Korman. He wasn't the sole creator of this series, instead he collaborated with a group of authors, including Rick Riordan, to write and create the series. Kelly lent it to me during the summer of 2018, just before Tropical Storm Gordon hit us. I ended up reading it, along with book 1 and book 3, over the course of the few days where we had no power due to the storm. It was fun reading a book written by Gordon Korman during a power outtage. 

In December 2018 I bought a boxset containing all seven Bruno & Boots books, under the title, Macdonald Hall. I immediately read through the entire series in a span of about a week. I'd only ever read the first four books in the series (out of order of course) so it was interesting to read The Zucchini Warriors, Macdonald Hall Goes Hollywood! (renamed Lights, Camera, Disaster!), and Something Fishy at Macdonald Hall (renamed The Joke's On Us) for the first time. Unlike with The War with Mr. Wizzle (renamed The Wizzle War), I didn't know what changes, if any, were made to the 2004 editions of the three later books in the series, aside from the title changes for the last two books in the series. Since buying the box set, I've reread the entire series once a year. I haven't done so yet this year, but I'm planning on doing so right after I've finished rereading It by Stephen King. Which might take me until October at the rate I'm going. We'll see though.

Sadly I haven't read any of Mr. Korman's books from the last decade. I just never really thought about picking them up. I might someday, but for now, all I want is a copy of Radio Fifth Grade because I would love to read that one again after more than 20 years. Maybe I'll get lucky and a used bookstore will have a copy, because Indigo Chapters doesn't have it available anymore and it's unlikely that Amazon Canada has it available. 

Anyways guys that's it for me for today. I'll probably be back tomorrow for something. Not sure exactly what yet as I think I'm going to get some bloodwork done tomorrow at some point. So stay tuned. I'll probably pop up tomorrow afternoon for something. Until then have a great afternoon and I will talk to you all later. Take care.   

The Review Basement #302: Discussing Star Trek: The Next Generation Published by DC Comics

Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm going to be talking about Star Trek: The Next Generation, published by DC Comics from 1988 until 1996 for a total of 96 issues across two volumes including Annuals and Specials and how they were able to tell stories that weren't possible on the TV show due to the limitations of a late '80s and early '90s TV budget. So let's get into it.

 Star Trek: The Next Generation began as a comic book series in early 1988, around the time that the show's first season was beginning to wrap up. Written by Mike Carlin, who would go on to edit DC's entire line of Superman titles, this series was a six issue mini-series set between the episodes "Encounter at Farpoint" and "The Naked Now". It also has some...unique additions to the TNG mythos that aren't explored anywhere else in the franchise. I might review this series issue by issue at some point since I have the entire trade paperback collection. Speaking of which, the first time I ever found out about this six issue mini-series was in an ad for the trade paperback collection that appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation #72 (1995). Even though the collected edition has a different cover, the ad used the cover of the first issue of the series (shown above).

In 1989 DC Comics commissioned an ongoing monthly series for TNG. The first issue of this series took place sometime during the second season as Riker has a beard, Geordi and Worf are in Operations Gold rather than Command Red, Wesley is at the helm, and Doctor Pulaski is present while Doctor Crusher isn't. I've never read the early issues of this series before. In fact, I hardly ever come across any issue from before #31 whenever I come across DC's TNG comics at comic book sales. If I do it's an issue from somewhere in the 20s. I've actually come across the early issues of both TOS comic book series that DC published in conjunction with the TNG books more often than the early TNG issues. Which is crazy.

As you may know if you've followed my blog for any period of time, my first introduction to Star Trek TNG comics was Star Trek: The Next Generation #31, which was the second part of a two-part semi-follow up to the second season episode, "The Outrageous Okona". I say semi-follow up because the only element from that episode who appears in this issue is Captain Okona himself. But it was the first time I realized that the comic would follow up with characters and situations that appeared on the show, but never returned. However, the scope of what the comic was doing got bigger.

From issues 39 to 44, the series did a six-part story arc where the Enterprise encounters the Death Star, gets attacked by a race of Crickets, with the saucer section getting transported to a far off sector of the galaxy and have to find a way home while the stardrive section is attacked by the Crickets. Okay, so it's not actually the Death Star, it's just a transportation device that's the size of Earth's moon, and the Crickets are actually known as the Sztazzan, who had previously destroyed the USS Grissom (not the ship from Star Trek III), with the loss of all hands except for Lieutenant Terry Oliver, who now happens to be serving on the Enterprise as backup Operations Officer. Picard chooses to separate the saucer and during the battle with the Sztazzan, both a Sztazzan ship and the saucer section are transported across the galaxy.

We actually get appearances from several people who showed up on the show. Alexander, Mot the Barber, Chief O'Brien and Keiko, Lieutenant Burke from "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" in season 4, Jenna D'Sora from "In Theory", also in season 4, Lieutenant Solis from "The Arsenal of Freedom" in season 1, and Robin Lefler from "Darmok" and "The Game" in season 5. And obviously the saucer separation sequence is a bonus since we only ever saw it on the show three times due to budget restrictions, which made it unfeasible to use the sequence more often. That's why the comic book medium is so ideal for Star Trek, because you can do things that you can't do in a movie or on TV. Especially back in the '90s when they were stretching the budget for the massive space battles on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I'm also wondering if the producers took inspiration from this story arc for Star Trek: Voyager when they came up with the premise of the show. 

The reason being is that in numerous interview Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor have all said the concept for Voyager came about because they thought of all the episodes of TNG where the Enterprise got flung into the far reaches of the galaxy and had to find a way to get home by the end of the episode. Except, I can only think of three episodes where that actually happens. The first is "Where No One Has Gone Before" from season 1, where the ship gets hurled into different galaxies and the Traveler helps them get home again. The second is "Q Who?" from season 2, where Q sends the ship 7,000 light years from Federation space, and into the path of the Borg, and the third is the season 6 finale, "Descent, Part I" where the Enterprise uses a Borg transwarp conduit to follow a corrupted Data and a Borg drone to a planet 65 light years from Federation space, though interestingly enough the Star Trek Chronology places the planet in the Delta Quadrant, which isn't mentioned at all in the episode, or in any other sources, not even Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki. Anyway, that doesn't matter. What matters is that those are the only three episodes where the Enterprise-D has been thrown across the galaxy due to external forces.

 "The Worst of Both Worlds" which is the name of the story arc in issues 47-50, is probably the most interesting follow up to a TNG episode. It's a sequel to the season 3 finale/season 4 premiere, "The Best of Both Worlds" but it also serves as a "What If?" scenario with the Enterprise arriving in an alternate universe where the crew failed to retrieve Locutus from the Borg Cube in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" and it cost them the entire Federation, including the entire crew complement of the saucer section. Simply because Riker chose not to implement Commander Shelby's plan to fire an antimatter spread at the Borg to mask the movement of Worf and Data's shuttlecraft during their mission to recover Locutus. Other little differences occurred too, but this was the major divergence that characterized this version of events in "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II".

This is exactly the sort of thing that they would not have been able to do on the TV show, with the budget it had. It could be done now since TV shows seem to have movie level budgets these days, but back in the '90s it couldn't be done in live action, even with a movie level budget. At least not without breaking the bank and making a movie so expensive that the box office returns wouldn't even have the film break even. Which is where I feel that the comic books and novels should come in on things like Star Trek or Star Wars. Do the things that can't be done in a movie or on TV. Like the scene in issue #49 where the two Worfs are having a conversation in the corridors of the alternate Enterprise. The same thing goes for Animation too. It allows the creators to come up with some really cool stuff that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to pull off without REALLY heavy CGI effects, and at that point it might as well be an animated movie or show.

I'll show off my Star Trek comic book collection at another time. Right now I just wanted to talk about these two story arcs a little bit, because they were two of the three big story arcs that the TNG comics did in the '90s. There have been others done by other publishers, but these were the two I had the complete stories for when I was a kid and my first realization just what the comic medium was capable of in regards to Star Trek. Especially since the DC Comics Star Trek titles were my introduction to comic books in general. That's going to be it for me for today. Tomorrow I'll be talking about the books by Gordon Korman that I've read over the years, including the entirety of the Bruno & Boots/Macdonald Hall series and showing off which editions I read. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you later. Take care.

The Review Basement #301: A Look at Enrique Iglesias's 2001 album "Escape"

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing well, it being Tuesday and all. Today I'm going talk about an album that is one of my favourite music albums of all time as well as my favourite album from this particular artist. It came out in 2001 but I didn't get it until 2002, so we're going to be going back to those years and talking about where I was and what significance this album had in my life at that time. So let's get into it.

I think it's safe to say that everybody has that album that defines a particular era in their lives. For me it was Enrique Iglesias's second English language album from 2001, Escape. When the album came out on October 30th, 2001 I had just started high school the month before. The first single from the album, "Hero" had been playing on the radio for two and a half months and I heard it at least once a day, usually on the bus on the way to school though I occasionally heard it on the way home from school too. Now, I was a radio junkie. If I wasn't watching TV or talking to my friends on the phone, I was listening to the radio. So chances are pretty good that I'd hear "Hero" on the radio a few times a day because of how often I listened to the radio. Especially when I didn't have the album the song is on.

Of course this wasn't the first time I'd heard a song from Enrique Iglesias. His first English album, Enrique, came out in 1999 and the singles from that album, "Bailamos", "Rhythm Divine", "Be With You", and "Can I Have This Kiss Forever" had all been on the radio at various times between 1999 and 2000. The radio station that I listened to the most, MAJIC 100 (which no longer exists), continued to play all four songs alongside the new singles coming out from Escape with "Bailamos" being played at school dances when I was in middle school alongside Ricky Martin's "Livin' La Vida Loca". So I was pretty familiar with Enrique Iglesias by the time "Hero" was being played on the radio.

Fast Forward a year and I was in grade 10 and was going to be turning 16 in December. My parents decided to let me have a party because turning 16 was special and I had actually never had a birthday party before though I had been to my friend Claire's surprise party for her 16th birthday a month earlier. So anyway, I could only invite ten people, which was easy since I only had ten actual friends in total. So I invited all of them. One of them was a girl named Jessica. Not the same Jessica who had introduced me to Animorphs back in 1998, a different one. This Jessica and I had been going to OTHS since Grade 9, so a year, though we didn't have any classes together until the first semester of grade 10 when we had History class together. Despite being a geek and she being friends with some of the popular girls, Jess and I became really good friends. Naturally I invited her to my birthday party for my 16th birthday.

With the party coming up, Jess asked me for some suggestions for what to get me for my birthday. I think she was the only one who asked me for suggestions as everyone else coming to my party knew me well enough to know what I liked. So I told her that I wanted the album, Escape by Enrique Iglesias. If I remember correctly, Jess and I had similar tastes in music so she was more than happy to buy the album for me. And she, and her boyfriend at the time, Andy, did get it for me, giving it to me the night of the party. The party was pretty great and a bit weird too. Mainly because I'd never had that many people over at one time before, and with the exception of Keira and possibly Andrew, who I'd met three years earlier when I was in grade 7 at Metcalfe Public School, I hadn't actually had any of my friends over to my house before so that was exciting. I opened presents, we had some cake, and watched Spider-Man (2002) on VHS.

Anyway, the party ended and everybody left. Except for Keira. She had to wait for her dad to pick her up so we stayed in the basement and since I got Escape from Jess and Andy, and Keira liked Enrique Iglesias I put the album on and skipped to "Hero" since that was a favourite song of both of us. The song started playing and before I knew it Keira and I were singing along to the song, and singing it to each other basically, and that was the moment where I realized that Keira, my friend, who had already done so much for me that year, liked me as more than a friend. That, and the fact that we'd spent most of the time when Spider-Man was on sitting on a mattress, side by side, our legs (her right and my left) touching each other, under a blanket with the movie on and nobody paying attention to us, made the lightbulb inside my head turn on with "Oh, Keira and I like each other!" Unfortunately my patience was not like it is now, so I tried to rush things and screwed things up for Keira and I and we ended up staying friends right until just after Amber's funeral in 2009. That's neither here nor there though.

My point is that a single song can bring two people together in an instant. That's why love songs exist and why couples, as cheesy as it sounds, often choose a particular song to be their song. Either because it was playing the day they met or at the place where they had their first date or whatever the circumstances are. "Hero" was that song for Keira and I and even though I haven't seen or talked to her in 12 years, every time I listen to that song today, I think about Keira and just how important she was to me when we were in our teenage years. She helped shape who I am today. And along with my other friends in high school lifted me up when the bullies and jerks tried to put me down. 

There are other songs on this album too. One of the things that I find unique about Enrique Iglesias's music, particularly the albums he put out in the 2000s, is that he includes Spanish versions of three songs on each album. For Escape it was the three singles that I heard on the radio at that time, "Hero" ("Heroe" in Spanish), "Escape" ("Escapar" in Spanish), and "Don't Turn Off the Lights" ("No Apagues la Luz" in Spanish). Which is pretty cool. And I mean, I'm sure other artists at the time did that too, like Ricky Martin, but I had, and still have, all of Enrique's English albums from 1999 through to 2007 and his Greatest Hits album from 2008, and I didn't have any of Ricky Martin's albums, so Enrique was the only artist I listened to who did that. 

Alrighty that's going to be it for me for today. I'm not going to talk about music too much on the blog, but the 20th anniversary of "Hero" coming out as a single was 11 days ago, and the 20th anniversary of Escape is coming up this October, so I decided to talk about it. Especially since it played a part during a pivotal moment in my life, and the 20th anniversary of my starting high school is coming up, in a couple of weeks too. So that's why I talked about this album like I did Savage Garden's 1997 debut album and Planet Pop 2000 last year and earlier this year. It felt like the perfect time to do this post.

I'll be back tomorrow for a look at two of the most epic storylines from DC Comics's Star Trek: The Next Generation series from the '90s from issues #39-44, and issues #47-50. Until then have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Take care. 

The Review Basement #300: My Favourite VHS and VHS Boxsets

 Hey everyone! How were your weekends? Mine was quiet compared to the weekend before that, but still a pretty good one. This post is my 300th post on this blog since I started it in March of last year, at the beginning of the pandemic. So to celebrate 300 posts on the Blogger version of The Review Basement, I'm going to talk about some of my favourite VHS releases, including boxsets. The only criteria I have for this list is they had to be ones I either owned, rented, borrowed or watched at some point in my life. This list isn't in any particular order because it's really hard to rank them since they're all my favourites. So, let's get into it.

 First up is the 1991 Walt Disney Classics release of The Jungle Book. If you've read my overview of the Walt Disney Classics as well as my overview of the eleven Walt Disney Classics releases that I had when I was a kid, you know how much I love The Jungle Book. Not just this VHS release, but the movie itself, which is the first movie I remember ever seeing in theatres as it had a theatrical re-release in 1990. Apart from being my favourite movie of all time, the reason this VHS release is one of my favourites as opposed to the 1997 Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection release is because the previews are simple. They aren't promoting EVERYTHING that Disney was putting out at the time. Just a single theatrical release with the behind the scenes featurette on Beauty and the Beast, and a single home video release with the preview for The Rescuers Down Under and that's it. 

As cheesy and stupid as it is, I can't help but include the VHS release of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie on this list. Apart from Alpha's Magical Christmas and six episodes from the first season that a friend of mine taped off the TV for me back in 1994, this is the only Power Rangers VHS tape that we had when I was a kid so we watched it alot. In fact, 26 years later, my dad still remembers Ivan Ooze's line from the scene where he meets the Rangers for the first time. Ivan introduces himself and Rocky tells him to pack his bags because he's going right back to where he came from and Ivan accuses him of having a big mouth, mentioning that not much had changed in 6,000 years. The rest of the scene goes like this:

KIMBERLY: "You obviously don't know who you're dealing with Mr. Raisin Head!"

IVAN OOZE: "Really?"

TOMMY: "Yeah! We're the Power Rangers!"

IVAN OOZE: "Ooh, where's my autograph book? So Zordon still uses a bunch of kids to do his dirty work eh? Well, meet my kids!"

And then he proceeds to bring to life his first set of foot soldiers, the Oozemen. And I apologize for subjecting you to the cheesy dialogue this movie has, but c'mon it's good stuff even though it's dumb. Plus the preview for Dunsten Checks In is a teaser. By the way I've still never seen Dunsten Checks In and it's been 26 years. Anyway, just for the fact that my dad remembers that "Ooh where's my autograph book?" line is enough to include this release on my list.

As you know from my Teddy Ruxpin VHS reviews Guests of the Grunges is the first Teddy Ruxpin VHS tape that I ever got. In fact, it might even be the first VHS tape I ever got when I was a kid. I had it pretty early on in my childhood, as it's in a couple of pictures from like 1988 or 1989, before either of my siblings were born. I must've watched this tape a million times and somehow I didn't wear it out. Even though I watched it two or three times in a row sometimes. I know, that sounds crazy, but what else was I going to do when I was stuck at home for long periods of time, due to illness or recovering from being in the hospital? My favourite part of the tape, and all of the Teddy Ruxpin VHS tapes that I reviewed last year, is that Teddy talked to the viewer in the live-action scenes at the beginning and end of the adventure. Like he did in the book and audiotape sets. Which, to this day, is still cool to me. 

Next up is the first boxset that I want to talk about, Star Trek: The Movies - 25th Anniversary Collector's Set. Now, I didn't own this set. My dad had Star Trek: The Movie Collection which came out in 1993 and included all six movies starring the cast of the original Star Trek series. However, this boxset is the one that I first saw the first five Star Trek movies in. One of my nurses at CHEO had this boxset and she brought it to me in the hospital in 1991, not long before Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek) came to see me in the hospital. While I loved Star Trek: The Next Generation and had seen a few episodes of TOS at this point, I'd never seen any of the Star Trek movies, which totaled five at the time, with the sixth about to be released for the franchise's 25th Anniversary. Of course, watching Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan scared the crap out of me as I mentioned in my review of that movie, but I liked the rest of them pretty well and then completely forgot that the Starfleet uniforms with the coloured shirts (white for command, green for medical etc) and maroon jackets were actually from these movies starting with Star Trek II when my dad started buying me the Star Trek comics published by DC Comics in 1992. Go figure. Lol. Honestly, even though Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country isn't included in this boxset, I still prefer it over the one my dad had because the individual cassette boxes for the first five films were designed specifically for this box set with the picture of the Enterprise on the back of the box. Plus the six film boxset was designed weirdly and the tapes only fit into it on an angle and weren't perfectly lined up like this set was.

Next we have the retail release for the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Encounter at Farpoint". This tape is special to me as my late grandfather would watch it with me whenever I was at his and Nana's place because that's where the tape was when I was a kid. Despite having the first five seasons of TNG on DVD, I wish I still had this tape in my collection just so I could put it on and watch the teaser trailer for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country before the episode and think about watching the tape with Grandpa. Hopefully someday I'll either find the original copy in a box somewhere here, or find another copy at a thrift store somewhere.

I actually saw Digimon: The Movie in theatres when it came out in 2000, though I probably saw it in early 2001 since it was still wintertime but Christmas was over. I was in the Teens First mentorship program at the time, so my mentor, Ahmed took me to see it. We eventually got the tape when it came out not long after. I loved Digimon when it was on in the early 2000s. Pokemon was good too, but I dropped off of the Pokemon anime around 1999 or 2000. Whereas I was watching Digimon well into the third season, which aired here in North America during the 2001-2002 TV season on Fox Kids alongside Power Rangers Time Force (which I wasn't watching in case you were wondering). Anyway, there's a whole segment before the movie which is a catch up on the first season of Digimon narrated by Tai Kamiya. There's also an Angela Anaconda short attached to the movie which is annoying because nobody went to the theatres or bought the movie on home video to watch an Angela Anaconda short even if the short is related to the movie. They went to see Digimon: The Movie. Although the case stands out on the shelf because there's a big image of Davis from season 2 on the spine and not in a window picture like most VHS tapes had. It's so big that it actually takes up half of the spine. 

Next is Barney & the Backyard Gang: The Backyard Show. I've also reviewed this tape on the blog before, so I won't go into too much more detail here, but despite it being the first Barney tape ever, and being so different from what Barney would become, this is still my favourite Barney tape, and my favourite Backyard Gang tape. It's the 1992 release that came out, probably, to coincide with the debut of Barney & Friends on PBS since it has the Barney & Friends Barney on the front cover with his name in the show's font. Mind you this tape was dangerous, because at the end of the tape was previews for some of the other tapes being re-released including Barney's Campfire Sing-Along, Three Wishes, A Day at the Beach, and Waiting for Santa, which was half the Backyard Gang series, which made me want to see the other tapes. And eventually I did, except for Three Wishes, as that was the only one that didn't seem to be available at Rogers Video nor did they seem to have it at CHEO.

I had five releases of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh but the one I watched the most often was the first volume, The Great Honey Pot Robbery. I think I watched it the most because it had the funniest pieces of dialogue in both episodes on the tape. In "The Great Honey Pot Robbery" there are lines like "You can't have cake without icey cream!", "Be quiet Hose Nose!", and "Show 'em what you're made of Buddy Bear." "Fluff?" "I think we're in big trouble!". While the other episode on the tape, "Stripes"/"Monkey See, Monkey Do Better" has lines like, "Hey Banana Breath!". I don't know why I found those lines to be funny, but it's what made me come back to these episodes time and time again, even over the other four volumes that I had in the series.

 And then there's the 1986 Walt Disney Home Video release of Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree. This was the first Winnie the Pooh tape I ever owned when I was a kid. It was difficult to choose between this tape and the 1986 Walt Disney Home Video release of Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day because I watched both them equally as much. Nevertheless I chose this one over that one, because there's no "Heffalumps and Woozles" song on this tape. Lol. 

Rainbow Brite is not something I've ever talked about on any of my blogs. Simply because it's not really something that I'm into now though it was something I enjoyed when I was a kid. We had a bunch of the dolls and toys, a few of the book and tape sets, and we rented the show on VHS from Rogers Video. In fact, that's how we watched the show because it wasn't on in reruns on TV when I was a kid, and we didn't own any of the tapes. One of the ones we rented was the 1985 movie, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer. It's on this list because my siblings and I liked it enough that we made our parents rent it for us multiple times. I don't even know for sure how many times we rented it, but it was alot.

Next is The Care Bears Travels In Space. I loved the Care Bears when I was a kid and watched the Nelvana produced series, The Care Bears Family. I also love Star Trek. So you can imagine when I saw a while block of episodes of The Care Bears Family where the Care Bears, Beastly, Shrieky and No Heart are in space with the Care Bears onboard a starship that looks like the original Enterprise and has a bridge that looks like the Enterprise-D bridge from TNG and a heart-shaped saucer section. Here, I'll show you.

That's the S.S. Friendship commanded by Captain Braveheart. It's basically the original Enterprise from TOS, but with heart and star shapes for the saucer, deflector dish, and warp nacelles and rainbows for the nacelle pylons and the connector piece between the primary hull (saucer section) and secondary hull (stardrive section). Now, here's the bridge.

The image above is the best one I could find, but as you can see it's a mix of Kirk's bridge and Picard's bridge with the sloped railing behind the captain's chair from TNG, and the solo command chair, wraparound aft consoles and combined helm and navigation console from TOS. The first episode of this Star Trek homage block of episodes aired on October 26th, 1988, only a month before the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation aired. The tape I had only had three of the episodes from this block, but man I watched that tape so many times just because it was the Care Bears and Star Trek mashed up into one. It also has a bit of Star Wars thrown into the mix because No Heart was Lord No Heart and his head/mask/whatever that thing was, was a helmet similar to Darth Vader and Beastly and Shrieky were space pirates. So yeah, pretty cool.

Speaking of Star Wars, the next VHS boxset I want to talk about it the 1995 Star Wars Trilogy boxset. I did a review of this set last year for May the 4th so I won't talk about it too much here. This was the way I saw the original trilogy for the very first time. Up to this point the only things I knew of Star Wars were Droids, Ewoks, and Star Wars: Dark Empire #3 as I'd watched the cartoons on Global when I was younger AND I had the Star Wars toys and the comic as well. But this is how I got introduced to the source material, back when it was just the three original movies, and a handful of comic books, novels, and video games and it was much easier to get into the franchise since there wasn't as much material to consume like there is now. 

I also had the repackaged Special Edition boxset from 2000, which contained cassette box design similar to what would be used for the VHS releases of both The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. I'd seen the 1997 Special Edition VHS releases, but I didn't own them until much much later. The opening for A New Hope had a behind the scenes featurette for Attack of the Clones, which was in production by the time this boxset was released. This boxset was the first time that Star Wars was on the front covers for all three movies and "A New Hope" was on the front of Episode IV. Prior to that, even with the 1997 Special Edition releases, the front covers said Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi on the pre-1997 releases and Star Wars: Special Edition, The Empire Strikes Back: Special Edition, and Return of the Jedi: Special Edition on the 1997 releases.

Then, to complete the Star Wars movies on VHS I also had the Star Wars Saga Video Pack which contained the VHS releases for both Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace and Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. It actually fit nicely on the shelf with the 2000 Trilogy boxset with the box design being basically the same. My dad had had the individual VHS release of The Phantom Menace and I'd seen the movie in theatres (twice) back in 1999, but this was my way of owning all five (up to that point) theatrical Star Wars films on VHS.

C'mon, I'm sure you can see why this boxset is on my list. The box is designed like a Borg Cube, how could it not be? Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Bog Collective is the VHS releases of four Borg episodes of TNG packaged together in a Borg Cube. But that's why I like this boxset so much. The episodes included in this set are "Q Who?" (Season 2), "The Best of Both Worlds, Part I" (Season 3), "The Best of Both Worlds, Part II" (Season 4), and "I, Borg" (Season 5). Aside from this set I didn't have any episodes from season 4 or season 5 on VHS, and only one other from season 3. In fact season 1 is the season of TNG that I had the most episodes on VHS from as that was what was available when Nana was buying the TNG tapes for me. I got this set for Christmas in like 1996 or 1997 with Christmas 1996 being the earliest I would've gotten it as the Star Trek: Voyager episode, "Flashback" was on TV in reruns and my paternal grandparents had moved up to the cottage full time, which is why we were there for Christmas. Plus this set first came out in November of 1996.

  As I said in my review of the movie, Batman Forever was my Batman movie. I was pretty young when Batman (1989) and Batman Returns came out and I was scared to death by Batman Returns so the Tim Burton/Michael Keaton Batman films weren't really a huge part of my life until I got all four Burton/Schumacher films on DVD sometime in the 2000s, when I was a teenager and could actually handle the creepier Batman Returns. But when I was a kid, Batman Forever was the Batman movie I watched the most because I had it on VHS and got it for my 9th birthday from my godfather. Yes guys, I had a godfather. I still watched the recorded off of PBS tape for Batman: The Movie (1966), but this was the most modern Batman movie that I could handle watching on my own.

There is one reason and one reason only for why The Frog Prince is on this list. It was my introduction to Sweetums as a character (he was one of many Muppets dancing in the opening credits for The Muppet Show). I found this character to be memorable in this video because the titular Frog Prince, Robin, sings him to sleep and every time he's about to fall asleep he waves, says, "Nighty Night" and then crashes onto his bed with a thud and a puff of dust, which is great. Plus it was a good movie. My parents rented it for me at least three times from Rogers Video when I was a kid.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is on this list because it's the only time that I can recall renting a 1986 Neon Mickey VHS release. I mean the 1986 Winnie the Pooh VHS tapes had the Neon Mickey logo before the shorts, but that original white box with the Walt Disney Home Video is something I only remember seeing the couple of times that we rented this movie. I did a review of the movie on the blog earlier this year so go read it to get my thoughts on the movie itself.

Follow That Bird! is one of my favourite movies of all time. I haven't reviewed it on this blog though I once did one on the old blog that no longer exists. Trust me though, I do intend to to review it on here at some point since it's a movie that, even though I never owned it, I watched it many times when I was a kid. It was one of the handful of must rent movies that we had on our list and it's one I still don't have a physical copy of. All three DVD releases for the movie are out of print and I never see any of them or any of the VHS releases at thrift stores. It's also not on iTunes or any streaming service, so my search continues for either a VHS or a DVD copy of the movie. My goal is to get this original one from 1986, but I'm happy with a 1990s VHS, 2002 VHS, or 2000s or 2010s DVD copy if that's what I end up finding out in the wild. In the meantime I have a digitized copy, DVD quality, sent to me by a friend many years ago, but I'd still like a physical copy to put on my shelf.

Jetsons: The Movie is on this list because of the music. That's it. It's such iconic late '80s/early '90s music that every time I watch the movie I dance and sing along to the songs in the movie. Plus there's some funny scenes in the movie too. Go read my review, which I did at the beginning of the year, to get my full thoughts on the movie. 

You didn't think I was going to do my favourite VHS list and not include a Disney Sing-Along Songs tape did you? I mean the title alone is why this tape is on my list. It was my very first Sing-Along Songs tape, which I got for Christmas in 1989. It also has some really good songs on the tape as well. And yes, I did do a review of it on the blog earlier this year, so go read that if you feel like it. Okay, five more tapes to go, so let's power through them.

I don't have to explain why the 1991 Walt Disney Classics release of Robin Hood is one of my favourite VHS releases do I? I've done it in so many posts by now that you must be tired of reading it. That's okay though, because this tape was a holy grail for so long since I never got to see it the whole way through when I watched it in the Cardiology clinic at CHEO. Luckily Michelle and Jonathan had a copy in the box of VHS they brought over for me almost a year ago and now I can watch it whenever I want.

I'm lumping the two volumes of the Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Collector's Edition that I had into one, because unlike the ones for TOS, they didn't include the titles of the episodes on the front covers, just the back and the spines. This is how I remember seeing "Encounter at Farpoint" for the first time. Unlike the retail releases for "Encounter at Farpoint", "The Naked Now", and "Code of Honor", I had these Collector's Editions at my house rather than at Nana's and Grandpa's house. I swear if my parents hadn't stopped me, I would've had both of these tapes on an eternal loop, only turning them off to go to sleep at night. Particularly "Encounter at Farpoint". In fact I watched the episode so much that I can recite the dialogue from the entire episode while watching it and recite most of the dialogue while listening to the soundtrack. Somehow I have the ability to recognize what scene the music is from just by hearing particular music cues. Don't ask me how. I just do.

 We actually didn't rent The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland all that often when I was a kid. We rented it at least twice, and I watched it once in the hospital but it was the Care Bears doing Alice in Wonderland, so I enjoyed it. The Mad Hatter's song "You Like Hats?" is what stuck out to me the most about the movie and as a teenager it would get stuck in my head from time to time even though it had been at least a decade since I'd seen the movie last and to this day, I still haven't seen it since I was a kid in the '90s. Unlike The Care Bears Movie and The Care Bears Movie II, this one never got a DVD release with the only release being the original VHS release from the '80s. 

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is another movie that we didn't rent very often, but it's one I enjoyed every time we did rent it. We've also never owned it on any physical media. I did buy it from iTunes because it was cheap and I could watch it to review here on the blog without having to track down a physical copy. Though that seems to be pretty easy to do since Warner Bros. released it on 4K recently, and I think they reprinted the most recent Blu-ray release as well if I'm not mistaken. Or it never went out of print. Regardless, this is such a fun movie, with the Oompa-Loompa song being the creepiest part. 

And finally, last but not least, the 1989 50th Anniversary VHS release of The Wizard of Oz. This was Grandpa's favourite movie. One of them anyway. I watched it at his and Nana's house once or twice, though not nearly as much as many of the other tapes on this list. I have the copy from Nana and Grandpa's house in my collection and even though I have it on Blu-ray as well, this is the tape I watched the movie on when I watched it for my review a couple of months ago. It was wonderful.

That my friends comes to the end of my list. There are a total of 26 VHS tapes on this list, more if you count every single individual tape in each boxset, which I'm not going to do. I'll be back tomorrow for a look at an album that is very special to me. A friend gave it to me for my 16th birthday and it also holds significance for me with another friend from back in the day. So, until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.

Keeping Up as a Geek in 2021 vs. Keeping Up as a Geek in 2001 vs. Keeping Up as a Geek in 1991

 Hey everyone! Happy Friday! How's your week been? Mine's been pretty quiet actually. Given how insane last weekend was anyway. Today I decided to write about a topic that I've been considering for a while. As a geek in 2021 I'm expected to watch and read every comic book and movie and show in particular franchises in order to keep up and I just can't even with the amount of time that I have on my hands given that I don't have a job and run this blog full time. But it wasn't always like that. Which is what I'd like to talk about today. So let's get into it.

Back in 1991 I was only 4 years old, turning 5 that December. I was going to school at OCTC and I was limited in what I watched to what was on TV, what my parents rented for me from the video store, and what my family bought for me on home video. There was no Netflix, no Disney+ none of that. CDs were just becoming a thing though cassette tapes and vinyl records were still the primary forms of listening to music outside of the radio. The biggest comic book movie to date was Batman (1989) and people were eagerly awaiting the arrival of Tim Burton's second Batman movie, Batman Returns. On the TV side of things the only two super popular comic book shows at the time were The Flash and Superboy. The only geeky franchise I was aware of at the time was Star Trek. I hadn't been introduced to comic books yet, I wouldn't see the Star Wars Trilogy for another five years though I was watching Droids and Ewoks and wouldn't know about superheroes until reruns of Batman started airing on YTV the following year. There were other geeky shows on TV and movies coming out, but I wasn't aware of any of them. I was also 4 years old so I was more focused on cartoons like Ewoks, Care Bears, The Real Ghostbusters, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, and Inspector Gadget as well as kids shows like Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Sharon, Lois & Bram's The Elephant Show, and Mr. Dressup among others. Even then, I watched what I wanted to watch and it didn't matter if I watched other shows and movies. 

Even people who were between the ages of 13 and 35 (and older but most of my friends are in their thirties now) were limited by what was on TV or what they could rent or buy from the video store and if you missed an episode of a TV show and didn't tape it then you had to wait for the episode to come on again in reruns, or hope it would get released on home video, which most shows didn't have a complete set of home video releases. In fact the only shows I know of that did were Star Trek, Star Trek: The Animated Series, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. At that time anyway as Sailor Moon would have a complete run up to the end of the English dub of Sailor Moon S (season 3) in the mid 2000s. Which also coincided with the show's early DVD releases. But back in 1991, the first two Star Trek shows were the only ones to have full series sets of home video releases, with TNG starting it's VHS run that would last until every episode had been released in 1996. Every other show that had home video releases only had a handful of episodes released, maybe a complete season if we were lucky.

But there was no pressure to watch and read ALL of it. You watched what you had access to and read what you had access to and, especially here in Canada, if you didn't see it on the channels you got on your TV, whether you had cable or not, you didn't even know about it, even when magazines like Wizard, Entertainment Weekly, Nintendo Power, The Official Star Trek Fan Club Magazine (which became Star Trek Communicator), and Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine (which became Star Wars Insider) were the sources of information for many of these shows, movies and games. 

Ten years later things had begun to change. DVD and the internet had become a thing as had internet message boards, though social media was still five or six years off. Netflix was around, but it was a DVD rental service back then. Because, let's face it, most of us were still on dial-up in 2001 with so little bandwidth that streaming services would've destroyed the internet if they'd been around 20 years ago. But being this geeky, autistic, physically disabled kid from Canada, I was never on message boards or anything like that until the late 2000s. So my geekdom was limited to my group of friends at school and my family. DVDs of complete seasons of TV shows started coming out around this time, but they were extremely expensive at the time, so I was still limited to what was on TV at the time as TV shows, with the exception of animated shows, weren't being released on VHS anymore.

In terms of where geekdom was at the time, our options were starting to grow. X-Men had been released the year before to critical and financial success and Spider-Man due to be released the following year. While DC Comics lacked representation in movies, it was being represented in various animated shows, and Smallville was about to become a huge hit, particularly among the teen drama crowd who enjoyed shows like Beverly Hills 90210 and Dawson's Creek. Unfortunately Marvel wasn't being represented on TV outside of the animated series, X-Men: Evolution and there weren't really any other comic book based TV shows out at that time either though Mutant X was about to debut. Science Fiction was huge with Star Trek ending it's nearly fifteen year streak on TV with Star Trek: Enterprise though other shows like Andromeda and Stargate SG-1 were huge at the time, with others like Lexx and Farscape coming into being. And while comic book based movies were basically limited to the Marvel movies, Star Wars was in fully swing with the prequel trilogy being made and was being hotly debated amongst fans. 

But because I was still in my own little bubble, I didn't feel pressured to watch all of it, or really even any of it. I watched Enterprise because I loved Star Trek. I watched the Star Wars movies because I loved Star Wars. I watched Justice League because Batman and Superman were in it. Heck, a few years later I watched Power Rangers Dino Thunder because Jason David Frank was returning to the series as Tommy again and I missed Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, particularly season 1 as I didn't have any of the few VHS releases the original series had, and there were no DVD releases for it or reruns on TV. Though I still had a VHS tape full of six season 1 episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers that a former classmate of mine had taped off the TV for me back in 1994, which I watched, with three of the episodes having Tommy in them as the Green Ranger. I watched Sailor Moon and Digimon on YTV because I loved both of those shows. But this was also the period where I was a teenager with hormones and being a geek got in the way of getting a girlfriend, even though I couldn't let go of the shows and movies that I loved.

Fast forward to 2021 and there are three (soon to be four) Star Trek shows on with all three airing throughout the year, dozens of comic book based movies and TV shows from every comic book publisher you could ever think of, each of them being successful to varying degrees. Science Fiction is steady in both movies and TV shows, though the genre is much stronger on TV than in movies. We have dozens of streaming services each with their own brand of original programming. Anime is huge and not as underground as it used to be, thanks to the efforts of Studio Ghibli and franchises like Sailor Moon and Pokemon continuing to entice fans to this day. Social media and YouTube keep fandoms alive and connected to the creators of our favourite shows, movies, comics, novels, and video games. And in the last ten years there's been this growing belief that being a geek means you have to watch and read EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA BEING RELEASED!!!! And so it's become a huge pressure.

Because of the amount of content that people are putting out there, it can be overwhelming for alot of people to try and watch and read everything that comes out. Especially if you're a blogger like me who does this for fun, or a YouTuber who reviews entertainment media and get paid to do it as their job. Which is never something that I even thought would happen back in 2012 when Arrow aired and the MCU exploded due to the critical and financial success of The Avengers, which was released mere months before Arrow aired. I don't do the gaming thing as I made the decision a long time ago that financially I couldn't support that hobby, even if it was retro gaming, which has gotten more expensive. But, before the pandemic I was seeing pretty much every comic book movie based on Marvel and DC and every Star Trek and Star Wars movie that came out on opening weekend, if not opening night. Because we share the same interests for the most part, as soon as he was able to, Brad would take me to the movies. And for the first four years of the 2010s I was also seeing every movie produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, except for Winnie the Pooh (2011) and Wreck-It Ralph (2012). I ended up seeing both of them on home media platforms. Big Hero 6 (2014) is the last one Brad and I ended up seeing together and it was the last WDAS film that I saw in theatres mainly because Disney's slate of other movies, like Star Wars and the Marvel Cinematic Universe began to pick up speed by 2015, with the Star Wars movies coming out around Christmastime, which is when the Disney animated movies had been coming out and I had to choose between the Disney franchises that I was most interested in.

Since the pandemic hit early last year and my interest in both the MCU and the DCEU started to wane, I began to become way more aware of the fact that I just can't keep up with it all despite the pressure to do so from the world around me and the fact that I run this blog where I, you know, review movies, TV shows, novels, and comic books. There's too much of it and I don't have the money or the time or the interest to put into EVERY movie, TV show and comic book to come out anymore. I dropped Supergirl way back during that show's third season, Arrow is over, I dropped The Flash after Crisis on Infinite Earths wrapped up last year, and I never had any interest in the Marvel Netflix shows, or most of the Star Wars shows that have come out. So I've decided to pull back on alot. 

Season 2 of Star Trek: Lower Decks debuted last week, and I had planned on reviewing the season premiere, and I didn't because, without going into detail as I'm not THAT kind of blog, the show did something that upset me immensely to the point where I couldn't bring myself to talk about the episode as a whole because of that one element. And this week's episode just didn't click with me the way the first season did, despite the fact that Boimler had a solid storyline in the episode. But I feel better about dropping Lower Decks because there's a ton of Star Trek that is out, and is coming out, these days that I'm not concerned about missing out on brand new weekly Star Trek. And it's the same thing with everything really.

I want to get back to watching shows and movies because I want to watch them not because they're a DC thing or an MCU thing or a Star Wars thing or a Star Trek thing so I HAVE to watch them or because I have to review them. Like my sister and I are going through The Orville this year because she hasn't seen the second season yet and I'm having fun getting to watch the show with her. Especially this week because we got to "Identity Part I" and "Identity, Part II" and that was the MASSIVE two part episode that had every Star Trek fan on the edge of their seats when it initially aired back in 2019 because to those of us who are fans of The Orville and Star Trek, who were too young to really remember seeing "The Best of Both Worlds" when it originally aired on TV back in 1990, that two-parter was our "Best of Both Worlds" only we didn't have to wait three months to see the conclusion. I vaguely remember seeing "The Best of Both Worlds" on videotape because my dad taped it for me as I was in the hospital and didn't get CHRO on my tiny bedside hospital TV set and the only thing I really remember was the saucer separation sequence and Worf and Data retrieving Locutus from the Borg Cube during that battle. But, I digress.

My point is, I don't feel like I'm less of a geek for not watching, reading, and playing EVERYTHING under the sun just because it's a geeky thing. In fact, I actually feel like I am myself for picking and choosing what I watch and read going forward, because I've always had to be choosy. Either because network television is different here in Canada than it is in the United States, and so we don't get every streaming service ever, and not every show appears on traditional TV or the streaming services that we do have here. That's how I've always lived my life, either because I had limited access to things, or because my own personal interests have kept me away from the things I wasn't interested in. 

Movie wise there really isn't much that I can actually see right away since I don't want to pay $30 to see movies on Disney+ or iTunes, and despite being fully vaccinated, even without the Delta Variant floating around, I'm not comfortable going to the theatres yet so while there are certain movies that I would like to see, like Pixar's upcoming film, Turning Red, I'll wait until the theatrical run is over and it's on Disney+ to see it, there aren't any upcoming MCU films coming up that I'm interested in seeing so I won't see them, I'll watch Hawkeye when it drops later this year, but most other MCU Disney+ shows are ones I'm not interested in so I won't watch them. On the DC side of things I'm going to continue to watch Superman & Lois and I'm going to give Titans and Stargirl a try as I have season 1 of both shows on iTunes, but otherwise I'm dropping DC shows and movies as well. For Star Wars, I'll see Rogue Squadron when it comes out in two years, and I'll watch Obi-Wan Kenobi when it drops and possibly Lando and season 3 of The Mandalorian but only Obi-Wan Kenobi is a guaranteed watch for me. As for Star Trek I'm dropping Lower Decks but will try out Prodigy when that drops later this year, presumably after season 2 of Lower Decks ends in October, and the Captain Pike series, Strange New Worlds whenever that drops, and will continue to watch Discovery and Picard because Discovery is starting to become really good and I'm intrigued by the plot of Picard season 2. Particularly by Q's involvement and John De Lancie's return to the role that he's become beloved for.

As for this blog, I'm changing it completely to nostalgia and writing about movies I had on VHS when I was a kid, comics and books that I read, and albums that I remember listening to. Because, let's face it, I can talk about the past way better and more passionately than I can talk about the present. And all of those things helped shaped who I am today and where my interests lie. I'm not going to talk about all of Doctor Who the way I ambitiously planned on doing it. Instead I'll talk about the things that got me into the show like The Day of the Doctor, Twice Upon a Time and Series 11 (as I get to them in my watch through) as well as aspects of the series that I find interesting, like the Companions, the Doctor as a character and each actor's run as I go through them and things I am excited to see. So these won't be formal reviews so much as ponderings and discussions as I continue my journey through the world of Doctor Who. I promise that will be more fun than me reviewing every single season as I finish them. Though if there's a particular season that stands out to me I will definitely talk about it.

And that my friends is it for me for today. I'll be back next week with more reviews and posts including some Star Trek stuff that I would like to talk about pertaining to Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager as they are my favourite Star Trek shows of all time, but you never know, I might return tomorrow to talk about the first couple of episodes of Doctor Who which I'll be putting on as soon as I've finished here. Stay tuned if you'd like to find out. Until then, have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.