Maturity, and why you're probably fine.

Don’t ask me why, but for some reason, I felt like writing something of an autobiographical think-piece (if one can call it that, we’ll see how this post goes.)

I will first preface this with a little disclaimer. This post may (or may not but probably will) contain references to my mother and things she says or has said that might paint her in something of a negative light, I just want to make it known this is not my intention, anything I say about my mother or indeed anything I make reference to is strictly to inform the opinions I am voicing, and will probably be taken out of context.

With that in mind, the subject I’m getting into today is maturity, by now most of you reading this will probably have some sort of an idea where this is going, I’ll keep the obvious parts brief. Like anyone else at some point in their lives, I have many times been accused of immaturity, with varying degrees of fairness in my opinion. I am currently 24 years old, in my 3^rd year of university (bit of a late comer, but not the latest) and I consider myself to be quite hard-working (if more than a little prone to procrastination.) However I still live at home with my mother, and do not possess much of a social life outside of the university, so it is possible, and perhaps not unlikely that I am somewhat arrested in my development.

I essentially stagnated for an entire year before making the decision to come to uni (I had this crazy idea that I was going to do some form of work, I applied for many jobs online, a good deal of them voluntary very few responded and none accepted me, this may have something to do with my disability, but that’s for another post if I feel like being a bit whiny.)

You’ve probably guessed that the person who calls me immature the most is my mother, and to be fair it is sort of her job, as a parent she has to routinely attempt to guilt me into bettering myself, I understand this.  However, it’s completely in vain because my mum and I evidently have vastly differing definitions of maturity.

The only way I can really quantify this is by offering up specific examples of when my maturity was called into question, and why. First the obvious one, my general areas of interest, although to be fair the extent of her knowledge in that regard is that I like a lot of stuff that is also popular with kids, (games/certain films/animated things/etc.) But it’s my belief that the medium of entertainment has no bearing on its quality, but that’s a different subject for another post. Anyway this is what I take issue with, I am of the opinion that it isn’t particularly mature to speak from a place of ignorance, and I speak of someone who, without at any point having met any of them proclaimed that all of my friends were “nutters” based entirely on the fact that at the time I was in a place of education specializing in those with special needs.

On this subject and many others, she wields the word “normal” as a Neanderthal would a club. Without at any point addressing her definition of it, even when specifically asked, and then can’t understand why it annoys me. I will break away to just mention that after spending a total of 19 years in “special needs” education I came to uni to study in a “normal” environment, and the only significant difference I noticed was that there were comparatively fewer wheelchairs.

The point of that little rant is that as much as I understand the point of parental shaming of immaturity, I am completely unaffected by it due to my inability to recognise maturity in the one levelling it at me. Given that she once attributed the fact that I had lost my virginity as a sign of maturity, (my life experience is admittedly limited, but I have seen enough to know that sexual activity has absolutely no bearing on anything but itself and certainly doesn’t require a person to be mature.) I find myself unable to accept her definition of it, and by extension her right to call mine into question. But perhaps instead of making my poor mum look bad (she means well I promise) I should actually contribute a definition of my own before bashing someone else’s.

I would define maturity, as a state of mind before anything else, I am not the most outwardly confident of people, as anyone who knows me will tell you, but one thing I have the utmost confidence in is my thinking, I consider myself to be a person of reasonable intelligence. Not a genius by any stretch of the imagination, just a habitually analytical thinker. I’ll continue by stating the blindingly obvious, there is no concrete definition of maturity, normality, or anything else a person might accuse you of lacking in your personality.

Therefore, as no concrete criteria for maturity exists a person must arrive at their own definition, but then what is the point? A cynical person might then draw the conclusion that “maturity” is just a word used to shame those with differing tendencies to your own. Having said that, the opposite of “mature” is “childish” another societal construct but not one without merit.

There is enough of a consensus on what is childish for it to be considered a word that carries weight, being the mirror opposite you might assume that all it takes to be mature is to simply not be childish. But even that is subject to individual interpretation.

This is just it, all I have ever claimed to be is someone who accepts the world as it is, as opposed to how I’d like it, and acts according to a set of values and beliefs I arrived at independently, and there is nothing among those that suggests that maturity is any more than tangentially related to action. I believe it really is the thought that counts.

But if that’s not enough to satisfy the more self-conscious I  would put it to you that you may be asking the wrong questions, not “am I/are you mature?” but “what even is that?” and more importantly, “why does it matter?” I’m going to throw a quote at you now, (it’s from Wikiquote so I can’t confirm its authenticity, but I think it’s a bloody good one all the same) it’s from C.S Lewis author of the Narnia book series, I think he offers a very interesting take on the subject, of course, he says it in regards to literature but I think it applies to all aspects of life.

Critics who treat adult as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence, they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown-up.

"On Three Ways of Writing for Children" (1952) — in Of Other Worlds: Essays and Stories (1967), p. 25

To sum up that quote, if you want to be seen as mature, you’re probably not very, and I am inclined to agree with that. Maturity is a thing that growing people aspire to, and they should, otherwise everyone would stagnate and we’d be trapped in a world run by petty infantile people with no perspective…Well okay we’re fighting a long-lost battle there, but the point still stands, people should aspire to growth, but the fear of being childish is in itself a childish thing. Nobody can tell you how to act your age, time changes as people do, there’s one person who knows how “mature” or “childish” you are, and that’s you, by your own definition, whatever that may be.

After all, what’s the point in growing up if you can’t be a little bit childish sometimes? 

Doctor Who, Series 9 episode 1 “The Magician’s Apprentice” review

Yeah, I know, I still haven’t finished the season 2 post, I’ll get around to it, I promise, but while it’s still fresh in my mind, I thought I’d write about Doctor Who episodes as they air for the sake of being a bit more topical in a naked bid to increase traffic –uh, what? Anyway, Series 9 of Doctor Who is the 2^nd season to feature Peter Capaldi as the twelfth Doctor (who’s actually the thirteenth, but more on that in a future post) for the sake of this post I will assume you’re all as familiar with the Doctor Who mythos as the show itself seems to, to be fair it doesn’t assume much, just as a disclaimer this review will contain heavy spoilers for the premier episode of series 9, as well as possible spoilers for other parts of the series.

 The episode opens on an unnamed battleground, as we see a man aim a bow and arrow at an aircraft, so I think from that we can assume these people aren’t exactly winning on the tech side of things. Soon after the man spots a child running through the battlefield, he gives chase, assuring the child he won’t hurt him, after asking his colleague to go ahead he says that there are “hand-mines” about, the child points to the soldier’s ankle to reveal that something has grabbed him, at this point I thought Moffat was using the weeping angels again, so my eyes rolled a bit, but instead, the man was just pulled underground really quick, so new monster? Cool.

The kid looks on in silence, (he hasn’t spoken yet by the way) as he is completely surrounded by “hand mines” popping up, then out of nowhere comes a familiar gadget, The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver lands at the boy’s feet, (off-topic, that particular sonic screwdriver always looked to me like it could double as a lightsaber, do I think Steven Moffat would do that? Probably not, but I also wouldn’t put it past him, so if The Doctor reconfigures his Sonic into a lightsaber, or energy sword of any kind, I want you to remember that I fucking called it)

It is here we hear The Doctor’s voice for the first time, The sonic allows him to communicate with the boy in spite of their distance, The Doctor tries his best to encourage the boy, and then asks his name, the boy speaks for the first time stating that his name is Davros!

And credit where credit is due, I did not see that coming, on that bombshell it’s time for the opening credits, after which, we are presented with what looks like a rejected Star Wars villain, he says in his very snake-like voice that simply screams “bad guy” that he’s looking for The Doctor, apparently no one else can find him either. Darth Voldemort’s search takes him to Karn, (KAAAARN!!...sorry, had to) where the sisters greet him politely and inform him that unless he leaves their planet immediately, they will take his skin, and make it clear that his vague, not-really-established powers are useless there, as greetings go, there are those less civil. He then gives them a message from The Doctor, “Davros knows, Davros remembers.”

The Doctor is then revealed to have been there in hiding throughout that exchange, but then we cut to Clara, doing her thing she’s just about to start teaching a class about Jane Austen when it turns out planes are frozen in the sky, Clara is contacted by…UNIT (I think) and summoned to some kind of headquarters, where it’s quickly revealed that all of the planes on the planet are in fact frozen in time, and the one responsible is Missy, who, surprise surprise, is not dead. The first thing she does is demand eight snipers be trained on her (three for each heart and two for her brain) so that Clara would feel safe enough to talk to her in an otherwise neutral location.

Clara accepts Missy’s terms and meets her, there she learns that Missy is in possession of The Doctor’s last will and testament, in the form of a funky space-disk that will only open after his death. Missy releases the planes as a show of good faith in return to get Clara to help her find The Doctor, who is apparently not only dying but aware of it to the point that he’s made a will. They tract The Doctor to an unspecified medieval period, that looks to be in the midst of some kind of castle tourney, as a man with a large axe is standing in an arena. Missy tells Clara to look out for any anachronisms, they don’t have to look for long.

Just in case you thought anyone but Steven Moffat was running the show, before Missy can even finish the sentence, The Doctor enters the tourney arena riding a tank rocking some shades and playing an electric guitar, when the other contestant enquires as to what he’s doing, he says “you said you wanted an axe fight.”

It turns out The Doctor has been throwing himself a 3-week party, during which he appears to have “introduced the word “dude” a few centuries early” upon seeing Clara he plays a riff from “Pretty Woman” on his guitar, Clara acknowledges his out of character behaviour and asks “which one of us is dying?” This prompts The Doctor in a rare display of emotion to suddenly hug Clara, (12 is notoriously very specifically not the hugging type) after some brief theatrics with Missy, The Doctor’s would-be challenger appears to be choking, they rush over to help him only to find a snake around his neck.

This heralds the return of Darth Voldemort, who gives The Doctor his message from Davros, before throwing The Doctor’s own Sonic Screwdriver at his feet. The Doctor explains he doesn’t have a screwdriver anymore, as Clara remarks on the look of shame on The Doctor’s face, the three of them are taken off-planet to some sort of space station, where The Doctor is taken before Davros.

In the meantime, Missy has noticed the gravity doesn’t feel as artificial as it should, as apparently she can tell, she opens the airlock and steps outside, seemingly walking on the vacuum of space, it turns out she’s actually standing on an invisible planet, but which one? We’re not made to wait for an answer, as if on cue, the planet becomes visible and Missy, to her considerable shock, recognises the planet as a newly-revived Skaro. (Oh and the challenger from earlier was a dalek drone who stole the TARDIS by the way.)

Missy and Clara are captured as The Doctor looks on powerless from Davros’ chamber, the Daleks reveal their intention to destroy the TARDIS, Missy takes the opportunity to try to convince the Daleks of her strategic value due to the power of the TARDIS and her ability to use it, and it looks for a second that they might go for it, but instead they disintegrate her on the spot, The Doctor is now on his knees begging Davros to spare Clara, Davros says that he only created the Daleks, he doesn’t control them, Clara attempts to run and is quickly shot down before the TARDIS is destroyed, the episode ends with a flashback to little Davros in the hand-minefield calling out to The Doctor for help, The Doctor says he’s going to save his friends the only way he can, he pulls out a weapon and says “Exterminate.” On that bombshell, the episode ends.

This was a particularly strong opening episode of the show, full of its own twists and turns, the same fun dialogue fans of the show will have come to expect and quite the cliff-hanger ending, though I’m curious how The Doctor got back to that time period without the TARDIS, and will he actually go through with it? Him wiping out Davros would be a sizeable wallop to the space-time continuum to say the very least, without him there are no Daleks, therefore no time war, and probably a fair few of The Doctor’s deaths don’t happen, which is quite a gamble when you remember in a 2005 episode, the whole world was put in danger because one person went back in time and saved someone they shouldn’t, I don’t think Moffat likes us to have long memories though.

In all seriousness, I’m not one of the haters, I quite like a fair amount of Steven Moffat’s episodes, though I do understand why others don’t and even I think he’s probably better off not running the show by himself. That said, this was a bloody good episode, I don’t think Clara should come back though, I like the chemistry Jenna Coleman has with Peter Capaldi, but the character of Clara has run its course and then some, it’s time for a new companion I think.

With that said I really hope Missy comes back, I loved John Simm’s Master as much as anyone, but I’m not one of those of the opinion it should still be him, that incarnation of The Master completed his character arc with a very satisfying conclusion and any more would just be milking it, besides, Michelle Gomez (Pickwell from Bad Education if you’re not familiar) does a fantastic job as Missy. The gender-flip didn’t bother me anywhere near as much as the fact that it being “The Master as a girl” was treated as a huge reveal even though it was obvious from the beginning, and everyone knew. The moment I heard the name Missy, my brain went, “Missy, probably short for Mistress, that’s The Master.” and I don’t think I’m in the minority there. But regardless, there’s a lot of potential for a fun character there and I’d hate to see it cut short now.

As for The Doctor himself, well, I like Peter Capaldi, last season he played a much more jaded and cynical Doctor more akin to Eccleston than either of those between, which I think suits the character of a centuries-old time traveller very well. As much as I loved Matt Smith’s Doctor, and Tennant’s before him it was a breath of fresh air to see a Doctor who actually sort of acts his age, there isn’t so much of that in this episode, but because The Doctor was convinced he was dying that’s probably why, there’s still plenty of room for growth in this character, and I’m looking forward to seeing where they go with it.

Overall, good episode, maybe a  few niggling worries about where it leads being the worst I can say about it, looking forward to seeing where this goes tonight.

Quote of the week

Missy: (on the subject of where, she, The Doctor and Clara stand as acquaintances) Y’see that couple over there? You’re the puppy.

My thoughts on micro-transactions in games.

Hello all, I’m currently working on the 2^nd part of my Doctor Who review blogs, (there will probably be one part for each season) but in the meantime, I thought I’d share my opinion on something that is bugging me right now.

See, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain hits stores tomorrow, I never pre-order these days but I did pre-order this one just for the sake of a down-payment so that picking it up on launch day wouldn’t be such a blow to my wallet. (Seriously, games are expensive)

I love the Metal Gear series, it is among my favourite game series of all time (definitely top 5.) I love Hideo Kojima for the magnificently mad bastard that he is, and I love that his particular brand of madness has managed to persist in his games even in this modern age of an increasingly homogenous “Triple A” game industry.

It won’t surprise you then to learn that I was saddened when it was revealed he was parting ways with Konami, and as a result, Kojima Productions was disbanding. Initially I was sad, but then I learned more about the behaviour of Konami of late, and am becoming more gladdened by the fact that he’s getting out when he is, but the megalomaniacal influence of the higher-ups seems to have found its way into what may well be his swansong title (certainly for the Metal Gear series as far as I’m concerned.)

Firstly, they scrub his name and all mention of him from the game and all of its related merchandise altogether, as if he never existed, not so much marginalising his contribution as pretending he had nothing to do with a game he created from the ground up, the conclusion to one of the world’s biggest game franchises that he, himself created and the only thing allowing Konami to stay relevant in the modern games industry since the Silent Hills debacle.

Not only do they have him finish the game knowing that, but also announce that they plan to continue churning out Metal Gear titles with or without him because they own the rights. (I won’t be buying any of those, for me, the Metal Gear series ends with Kojima’s involvement in it) reinforcing the reputation that Konami seems to think they can just farm out game development to anyone (if the rumours about their working conditions are to be believed anyway, I would go into further detail but I’m regurgitating enough information here as it is.) I’m still going to buy Metal Gear Solid V, but that decision was not made lightly, especially when I learned, that there were micro-transactions in the game.

It is here we get to the point of this post, I am no fan of micro-transactions, even in free-to-play games where they are often excusable (depending on how they are implemented obviously.) I thought I would write this post to explain my stance on them to those who have thrown the old “they’re optional, so what’s the big deal?” argument my way.

I think we all know by now how micro-transactions work, in their most basic form they offer a premium in-game currency that allows you to speed up, or in some cases immediately achieve progress to a certain goal in the game. Now, in order to sell the “optional” angle, it must be theoretically possible to accomplish 100% completion without spending any money on micro-transactions. Possible, but not by any means realistic.

I have dabbled in one or two freemium games, and some of them are all right, but they are nevertheless designed in such a way to test your patience against your attachment to your money, I’m sure everyone who will ever see this has played something like Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, Farmville or something of that ilk. As different as those games are, the fundamental thing they have in common is that, when you get to a certain point in the game, progress becomes painstakingly slow, and it is at that point when your patience is tested. “Do I wait to run out the timer/gather more resources, or spend just a little bit of money to speed up the process?” and this is how freemium games make their money, they wear away at your patience until you give in and pay to have a more efficient experience, for a little while, and of course once you’ve given in the first time it becomes easier and easier to do it again, it’s a slippery slope.

This is fine when the games are free, they have to make money somehow and if you download a free-to-play game you’re as good as agreeing to that psychological battle as your cost of entry. However, this is a post about Metal Gear Solid V, a boxed retail title being priced at £40-£55 a pop depending on where you go, and the presence of micro-transactions in such a product is beyond sleazy. It’s not enough that Konami charges us premium prices, but they have to implement these mechanics to try and coax as much money out of the user base as possible? Fucking disgusting.

Yes I’ve heard that it is “optional” this is a lie, and it’s the worst kind of lie, the kind that isn’t entirely untrue, see, on the surface, you don’t have to use these micro-transactions, I certainly won’t but the fact that they are there means that the game has been designed in such a way to implement them, their very presence has impacted the core design of the game to try to tempt you into using them, and that is not optional at all.

I will state that I don’t know as of this writing how they will be implemented, but I have seen a screenshot of the available transactions, (as a side note, I should mention that no transaction of more than £3 at most has any right to be called “micro” that is not so much disingenuous as it is an outright lie.) The transactions are for mother base coins, an in-game currency that can apparently be earned in game and, I’m not sure at the time of writing, but it appears to be excusive to an online mode, which you are under no obligation to use.

This might sound better, but it really isn’t, all it serves to do is create a divide between online players, you can opt not to have it come into play, so, what? Just not use an entire portion of the game I paid for? I don’t think that’s a reasonable compromise. If you do find yourself going online, you’ll probably go up against people who have used the transactions to gain advantage, putting even more pressure on you to spend more money on a game you’ve already paid a high price for, even if you don’t do it, you’re still at a disadvantage to those who do. That disadvantage is not something you opt into, there is nothing optional about it.

This is assuming (possibly wishfully) that the micro-transactions are only implemented in the online multiplayer parts of the game, which may be a generous assumption, I’ll find out when I get the game but I certainly wouldn’t put it past the Konami of late to implement them into the core game as well, I do however have faith that good old Hideo Kojima has done everything he can to make the game good, I have read a few reviews and they all say it’s great, as angry as this post was I fully expect to love the game.

But even if I do, my opinion of it will forever be tainted by the shitty business practices of the publisher, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be buying from Konami after this anyway.

10 years in 4 months: A Doctor Who Retrospective. Part 1

As a British citizen what I’m about to say may come as a shock to some of you, but for the sake of context I feel like I should put it out there. Until quite late in my life (last year in fact) I had never watched Doctor Who, Apparently, according to some, that is a crime for which, had the government known, my British citizenship would have been hastily revoked and all relevant documents incinerated in the core of a dying star. In my first year of Uni, (currently awaiting the start of my third as I write this) at the behest of a couple of friends, one of whom claimed to be “very disappointed” in me, I gave the first episode of the 2005 revival a watch.

For those who don’t remember, or haven’t seen it. The episode focused on a southern London girl named Rose for the better part of the first half, Mannequins had begun to come to life and were slowly replacing everyone around her. As she tries to get away she encounters The Doctor in his ninth body (Played by Northy McNorth-North the Black Pudding Man Christopher Eccleston), he introduces himself and then…honestly, I don’t remember much but running after that, at some point they ended up where the big-cheese of the operation was located, and Rose did something…to be honest I’d pretty much stopped paying attention at that point, not a great start far as I was concerned, as such I didn’t really think about Doctor Who again for a while.

Fast forward another year, around November I think, one of my new friends from halls was positively flabbergasted when she found out I hadn’t really seen Doctor Who, by this time we had established a precedent for getting together to watch things, so I begrudgingly agreed to give Doctor Who another try.

It took a few episodes, and I don’t know precisely at what point it happened, but eventually I did start getting into it, and a few months of the occasional Doctor Who night later, I was all caught up with the 10 years I had missed (I have yet to watch any pre-revival Who at time of writing so I won’t be commenting on anything from that era in this post)

And so, after cramming eight seasons in about four months, here are my thoughts on the past ten years of Doctor Who, unburdened by nostalgic love for the classics.

Season One:

This season is primarily notable for being the only one to feature Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor, so if you’re a fan of that actor you’d probably want it to be good right? Does it deliver?….eh, sort of, in certain parts.

Season one was very hit and miss for me, it seemed like the show as a whole was still trying to figure out precisely what it wanted to be, I can forgive the understandably bad CGI as it was a TV show in 2005, which was before TV shows were given the budgets that some are today, but the general wishy-washy nature of a show that hadn’t yet decided on a target audience was very noticeable. The Doctor himself was, in my opinion the least eccentric incarnation, being essentially a down-to-earth no-nonsense and sometimes sarcastic northern bloke, (for the most part at least) this, for me hinted at the show going for a broad appeal, it seemed to me that Rose was there in the beginning for kids to better identify with, so that The Doctor wouldn’t have to appeal to those sensibilities as much, not that he never did, (I said least eccentric incarnation earlier, but that doesn’t mean the quirkiness wasn’t there.) Which is where the tonal inconsistencies I mentioned come into play, I understand it’s a wide universe and there has to be variety in the adventures and such, but at least three separate episodes of Season one were dedicated to thwarting (REALLY crappy-looking) alien body-snatchers whose key distinguishing feature is that they fart a lot, now I’m willing to grant that those episodes were probably aimed at kids and thus, not at me, but I think there’s a very good reason the slitheen weren’t featured much post-season one.

On to some positives, the sixth episode, “Dalek” (Guess what the danger is in that one?) was, and looking back still is, pretty great, the oft-alluded to dark nature of The Doctor is brought to bear for the first time, contrasting with his usual down-to-earth attitude as he lashes out and tortures a captive Dalek in anger over the horrors their two races have inflicted upon each other, a common theme throughout the show between The Doctor and the Daleks is that for all of The Doctor’s compassion, he hates the Daleks every bit as much as they hate everything else. (For those unfamiliar the Daleks seem to basically be Doctor Who’s obligatory Nazi Allegory, which I can only imagine was all the more haunting back in the early days of the show when WWII was still a fairly recent memory. The Daleks are possibly my favourite monsters in Doctor Who, mainly because they provoke a reaction from The Doctor that nothing else can, and in this episode when The Doctor is told “You would make a good Dalek” I almost felt how badly that remark must have stung.

Soon afterwards the reason for The Doctor’s hatred (and his generally brooding persona) is revealed (unless I’m mistaken and it happened before that) At some point before the show was revived, there was a “Time War” primarily between the Timelords and The Daleks, the war raged out of control until The Doctor did the only thing that would stop it, he destroyed both sides, committing mass genocide of not just the Daleks, but his own species as well, I think you’ll agree, that’s pretty heavy stuff.

Another episode that sticks out in my mind, would be the two-parter starting with Episode 9: The Empty Child, this episode is notable for the first appearance of Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman, this character would go on to become a recurring cast member and star in his own spinoff show “Torchwood” which I haven’t watched at time of writing so I can’t speak on its quality. But for me this episode was also notable for its change in atmosphere, the tone shifted frequently for comedy moments, but the episode largely carried a pronounced vibe of horror, coupled with a little mystery, I found the suspense to be very effective, I won’t go into detail as I know at least one person who reads this hasn’t seen it.

And of course, another notable episode would be the season finale, “The Parting of the Ways”

Season finales in Doctor Who are always big, and this is the one that set the bar for that trend, it’s another Dalek episode, this time confronted by an army of them, The Doctor has to face the threat of the time war breaking out yet again, I really felt the stakes in this one, and the decision the Doctor makes partway through the episode only reinforces that, but with all said and done at the end The Doctor absorbs a lethal amount of energy from the TARDIS in order to save Rose, the episode ends as he is seen in the TARDIS telling Rose that he is dying, fortunately, whenever The Doctor is fatally wounded, he can survive by simply re-casting himself as another actor for whom the fatal wound never occurred. Thus ended Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor and began the run of David Tennant. Bloody hell the season one bit was longer than I expected, I think I’ll have to do this in parts,

So to sum it up Doctor Who is very much an adventure of the week type of show, there are a lot of fun nods to continuity throughout and you’d have to pay attention to catch them all, and there is a lot of subtle character development even in the not so good episodes, so if you can stomach the plastic farting bodysnatchers I would recommend watching them all.

Season One was not without its problems and Eccleston is probably my least favourite Doctor, as he’s basically just, every character Christopher Eccleston ever played, (apart from the bad guy in Thor 2) but with a time machine. But I did still enjoy it and I would still recommend it, although I would recommend watching it with someone else, I found it to be something best watched socially, so even the parts that are bad you can at least laugh at. 

On the subject of Nerds and being a Nerd

I have to wonder about people sometimes, especially those who self-identify (and if you don't put yourself into a vaguely-defined sub-cultural identity, it's a good bet any number of people are already doing it for you.) but the one I find most confusing is the one, if one is applicable, to which I most presume to belong, namely Nerds.

As someone who has long identified as a nerd, (and frequently been called one throughout my life) I think I'm more qualified than most to say what does and does not constitute a nerd/geek or whatever you like to think you are because you have a slightly more than passing interest in any given thing, but I find myself questioning if my identifying as such is really right, or even relevant.

For example, Superhero and Sci-fi fiction has made a huge transition in the last decade or so and is currently dominating much of mainstream pop culture (thanks in part to attractive men named Chris for those that way inclined, and for everyone else, the same stories and characters the "nerds" always knew were there, and some pretty great action scenes.)

Therefore, liking the Marvel movies does NOT make you a nerd, everyone likes the Marvel movies, but not having read the comics doesn't necessarily disqualify you, (since apparently the title of "nerd" is a badge of honour now and not the insult it was not more than 6 years ago at most) I've never read through a comic in my life (unless you count the odd manga, but even then it's only one or two.)

For context, let me tell you about some of the more “nerdy” things about me throughout my life, my earliest of note is this, at age 9, I had the entire first-generation 150 Pokédex completely committed to memory, (this was back before there were almost a thousand of the buggers and catching all of them was still a somewhat attainable goal) to the point that if you gave me any number from 1 to 150, I could tell you the corresponding Pokémon and whereabouts in the original Red/Blue releases it could be located, and in the case of exclusives, which version you needed to get it, no one I knew bothered getting any guide, and even those who had discovered this function of the internet at the time normally just came and asked me anyway. I was what could justifiably be called a Pokémon master…Until I discovered Dragon Ball Z and lost interest in Pokémon altogether, I’ve forgotten most of that information over the years, I vaguely remember Voltorb being at number 100 and the first 9 being the starters and their respective evolutions in the order of Grass, Fire, Water, but I digress.

As mentioned earlier I lost interest in Pokémon when I discovered Dragon Ball Z, which gave birth to a new obsession that endures to this very day, to the point that I have felt it necessary to establish mathematically to my own satisfaction that Super Saiyan God is indeed much, much stronger than the now defunct Super Saiyan 4. The characters were all impressively realised (even if everyone but Goku basically got the shaft in terms of usefulness) and for a show airing on Cartoon Network it was pretty brutal in its depictions of violence. Also Cell was the first villain in anything that I found genuinely scary, seriously, watch the scene where he first appears carrying that guy then impales and drinks him through his tail again, legit freaked me out the first time I saw that. As I said this obsession is one that never left me, and probably never will.

So you’ve read about just 2 of the many obsessions I have had, (just a quick mention of a third, if you can name a professional wrestler, I can probably tell you what their real name is) and I haven’t even mentioned Doctor Who yet, but I won’t punish you with more details, my point is that I’ve grown to see myself as something of a nerd, but I wonder if I arrived at that conclusion independently, or if I have simply been forced to internalise that idea through being completely unable to get away from it.

Writing this I start to wonder if there's any point in identifying as a "nerd" or anything else for that matter, or if pretending to do so is just a lie thrust upon us by the companies that make the things we love to better segment audiences and inspire brand loyalty. (Also a demographic for other companies to cynically target and exploit while simultaneously insulting. *Cough* Big Bang Theory *Cough*) With the internet age being what it is, everyone is free to just like what they like, nobody else even has to know.

So in summation, and in saying this I speak both to the genuinely passionate about their chosen fiction, and to those who think knowing who Superman is gives you geek cred (it doesn’t it means you are a person who is alive in the 21^st century) if you’ve ever been called a nerd or geek or asked if you were one, to the question “Am I a nerd?” I would answer “Does it matter?” my answer to both…Not really.