Saving the World in Style

DH has been sorting through the 800+ photos we took during our trip. Some of those special interest photos -- focusing on the Enigma or inside jokes -- won't make the main photostream. Also not on the general list are the costume shots I took at the Doctor Who Experience. So I set up a few photosets up on Flickr for the costume geeks among us, with one caveat: These are the raw images. This means I haven't done anything to them, really, other than upload them from my cell phone. I'm going to try and clean things up a bit, but for now the quality on some of the full-size shots is better than others.

You can find the costume pics on my photostream here. There are sets for Amy, Rose, and River; sets for the Doctor will follow on the weekend, with detailed shots for Nine and Ten.

Via Wil Wheaton: The Secret Identity of Wesley Crusher, by Tracy V. Wilson.

If you’re not a big fan of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” or of Wil Wheaton, you may not have heard about Wil’s latest book series, “Memories of the Future.” Imagine if Television Without Pity recappers had been writing about TNG back in 1987, only with more swearing, more digressions and more geeky in-jokes, plus behind-the-scenes memories for every episode. That’s what Vol. 1 does for the first half of the first season of TNG, from “Encounter at Farpoint” to “Datalore” — it’s just the thing for people who love TNG and snark. I decided to wait to read the book until the accompanying “Memories of the Futurecast” podcast wrapped up on Monday, which means I got to the last page of my paper copy this morning.

In the podcast, Wil talks about how working on Vol. 1 helped him come to terms with (and understand) the world’s hatred of Wesley Crusher. It’s a hatred I never had. I loved Wesley Crusher. When TNG premiered, I was just starting high school, and I was a serious know-it-all. Seeing a kid on TV who was essentially correcting his teachers, doing science projects and being a huge nerd all the time was kind of awesome. And enabling. I’m sure I was as annoying to the adults around me as Wesley was to adults trying to watch TNG.

But in listening to and reading “Memories of the Future,” I found a whole new reason to love Wesley. In episode 12 of “Memories of the Futurecast” (and the corresponding book chapter),Wil talks about how Wesley repairs the malfunctioning holodeck in “The Big Goodbye” with one zap of a magical holodeck fixing thing. In the middle of my morning train commute, I thought, “Ha ha ha, Wesley has a sonic screwdriver.” Then, accompanied by lots of mental capital letters and exclamation points, and possibly even a ZOMG, came the follow-up thought: “Wesley Crusher is a Time Lord!”

I didn't hate Wesley with the flaming passion that some of my cohorts did. But this made me laugh out loud, sitting in my cubicle. And in an office as quiet as mine is today, it was loud.

Wesley as a Time Lord is now a mental image that is going to follow me around all day. Think the Chucks would fit? =)