Douglas Adams – Hyperland (1990)

Douglas Adams is dearly missed in so many ways. A remarkable author of rare wit and intelligence he also touched so many lives with a bubbling charm. In addition to his more popular work Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Hyperland is an absolutely prophetic view of the future of interactive entertainment and personal enrichment. Beginning with a dream in which he dumps his television in the rubbish heap (during a showing of the American gameshow The Price is Right), he is greeted by ‘Tom,’ a guide of sorts who introduces Adams to a new way to interact with information.

Played by ex-Doctor Who Tom Baker, the guide provides a thought-provoking view of the world of the future as seen from the perspective of 1990. The comical and charismatic Tom Baker is lots of fun, but doesn’t go over the top (though he does don a tutu at one point and grunt as a caveman at another).

Information becomes video clips and icons that pop up and cough for attention as the world of what would later become readily accepted by the world at large. It reminds me of the first time I was exposed to a digital encyclopedia or was witness to early computer imagery on ‘Live from Off Center’ on PBS late at night. These innovations, at such an early state, are so fueled by brilliance and a desire to use technology in a way that changes the way we experience life.

Of course the stress on Virtual Reality is so very 1990′s and amusing in my opinion. I know that in five years we’ll laugh ourselves silly at the tech in Minority Report (actually I already do… what’s with the wooden balls?). Of course iPads are the 8-track players of the 21st Century in my opinion, so what do I know?

The work of Beethoven is seen in segmented moments, Kurt Vonnegut’s narrative structure becomes tangible shapes, etc. Picasso’s Guernica is represented in a robust interactive multimedia experience courtesy of Robert Abel. The multimedia lab of MIT is also represented in the development of interactive learning using dramatic structure.

It’s a very enlightening film, so why not give it a view?

Doctor Who – The Animated Series

Via Kasterborous.com

In 1989, Doctor Who was off the airwaves. The BBC never formally canceled the program and even stated on a few occasions that they wished to revamp it for a new era, but it’s only return in the 20th C was the TV Movie starring Paul McGann.

In 2003 an animated project written by Paul Cornell and starring Richard E Grant as a not un-vampiric-looking Doctor called Scream of the Shalka was transmitted on line as a flash animated cartoon. Told in four installments, the story was weird, wild and humorous but somehow lacking a certain quality. Perhaps it was all thye subtle changes such as Sir Derek Jacobi as a robotic version of the Master living in the TARDIS or a mobile phone replacing the sonic screwdriver as a magical get-out-of-danger device… but it failed to fully grab fans and remains a somewhat strange piece of Who history.

However, Meredith Burdett of Kasterborous.com blogged today about a previous proposal that would have, like the Leakely scripts attached to the aborted Paul McGann series, utilize the legacy of Who, re-interpreted for a modern audience. Designed by cartoonist I. N. J. Culbard (of the excellent Sherlock Holmes series of graphic novels and a stunning adaptation of HP Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward), the new Doctor was something of a mash-up of the old and new.

Based loosely on actor Stuart Townsend, this version of the Doctor had a darker look and a mysterious past.

I had a season outline and a small handfull of story ideas. The pilot was a two parter; the second episode (featuring Sea Devils attaching 1960′s Brighton) was engineered in such a way that it could also work as a stand alone episode. Animated shows are often subject to non-sequential scheduling so have to work as stand alone episodes because the scheduling may monkey around with the order. I decided to build that into the format as this was a show about Time travel after all. I used that to tell story arcs that could be told in any order, so, the show’s structure had a selling point as far as a scheduler was concerned (which was part of the appeal for doing it in the first place).

The rules were a little different. This Doctor had regenerated along with the Master into one body (in much the same manner as the Fourth Doctor merged with The Watcher to become the Fifth Doctor). Sacrilege, I know, but, that was pretty much it; a pitch that never got pitched, consigned to a file marked “fanboy frivolity”.

While I enjoy Culbard’s style, I’m not exactly in love with the look of his take on the Doctor (no offense, I hope). That said, the general pitch of telling stories out of order and starting off with the Sea Devils is a grand one. Culbard is obviously a fan of the program and when he pitched this to the Beeb he was told that the property was not open to development in any form. I find it very interesting that this incarnation was a fusion of the Master and the Doctor, something that (rumor has it) Barry Letts had intended for the end of Jon Pertwee’s run on the program.

Of course, there was a previous attempt at a Doctor Who cartoon… that thankfully never made it.

I hope that the revival of this design will generate interest from IDW in approaching Culbard for a comic book version of the Doctor as I really enjoy his artwork. It has plenty of character and depth that could suit a classic Doctor Who adventure quite well.

(Note: Culbard’s art will be gracing an upcoming monthly series from the DC Comics imprint Vertigo with Dan Abnett The New Deadwardians. More info here)

Preview art below: