Thursday, December 25, 2008

Reconcieving Preconceptions

What if?

What if, for all it's faults, Enterprise explains why everyone seems to hate Spock in the first season of TOS?

What if for just an instant in The Man Trap, Kirk resembles Chris Pine.

What if Spock teaches Kirk to play chess in the new movie?

What if it had come out today and I hadn't been able to get there and I'd been stranded in the snow and couldn't see it?

Maybe some things are for the better.

Friday, December 19, 2008

I've been trying

I've been trying to think what to say.

Yesterday was my cousin's seventh birthday, and I didn't allow myself to dwell. Now I don't have that excuse and, yeah.

Sad.

So I decided to let Majel do the talking for me.

"Star Trek will live because - look around you."

"Star Trek is Gene Roddenberry's. No one else's."

Those were the only quotable things she said at our one encounter. Rod did a lot of talking for her. I think it annoyed her.

The woman had spunk.

Actually, it wasn't our only encounter. I was in the vendor's room and there she was, right next to me, in a wheelchair.

She looked right at me, just for a second. For a moment I was in the gaze of someone who was not just an actress or the wife of a producer but a symbol. And she knew it. I don't know what she saw in me. No words were exchanged. It was over in a second and she was gone.

But I felt, in that moment, something we all should know, that the thing that has comforted her through the last twenty years of Gene's demise and death was knowing that his legacy will continue. She was a symbol of his legacy, and now she is dead and we are left to carry on without her. In that second, she unspeakingly charged me and all those like me - not by words or actions, but by the simple act of her being - with the duty and responsibility and honor of carrying on that legacy in her name, as she has carried it in Gene's. She didn't need to speak more at that convention. It has all been said. Her feelings, her thoughts, and her desire for the future of Trek have been made clear. The torch has been passed, her approval of J.J.'s movie has been firmly stamped by a computer voice, and today a thousand, a million, a hundred million fans cry out the words with which our lives began -

"There's still something out there."

Friday, November 28, 2008

Countdown

Just a reminder: in 160 days, the trailers will give way to the movie.

So now all that remains is to decide how I'm going to spend those 160 days.

I work in retail, so my life is basically over for the next six weeks. But after... is after. After that's all over (by which I mean Christmas), I'll be working on something entirely different.

Watching all the TOS, TAS, and the first seven Trek movies in preparation for whatever it is that's gonna be happening here in just a few short days. Precisely 160 of them.

For the record, that's less than six months. Less than five even. Practically no time at all.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

New Trailer! New Trailer!

163 days left, folks, and what do we have here?

Booya.

Check it out, Nimoy's in it!


That's a new order to things. Yeah.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

I think I have it figured out.

So, J.J. can't work within canon, but he didn't want to violate it either. So what he did was he changed the rules. Very TWOK. Anyway, He goes back to before the beginning of TOS and alters something, throwing the entire thing into an alternate universe where anything can happen.

Cool.

Or maybe I'm wrong. That could be too.

Fringe

I'm falling head over heels in love with Fringe.

No, it has no relation to Dawson's Creek, although, Joshua Jackson... My oh my. No, it's something entirely different. It's season 7 of The X-Files in a shiny new wrapper (you know, before there were Super Soldiers). It's wonderful, it's awesome, and it's pure Abrams all the way. And funny! And there's a cow, and a mad scientist, and... well, I just love it madly.

I'm gonna stop now, because I'm starting to sound insane.

Watch Fringe.

Friday, November 21, 2008

So I was on Facebook today...

And there, playing in an ad, was the trailer, with a little note: "Star Trek, May 2009".

It's nice to be loved.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Spoiler Alert

Kirk can drive a stick.

But in "A Piece of the Action," did stick shifts work the exact same way?

Huh?
Huh?

Yeah, I thought so.

Future Tense

I'm not a fan of the Temporal Cold War thingy. Or time travel eps in general. Or most of Enterprise.

But there's one thing I love: Archer's suspicion that the body they find in "Future Tense" is Zefram Cochrane. For starters, because he's wrong. It's not. And also, because he thought of it. Mostly it seems like the style of Enterprise was to rewrite history, maybe leaving it open at the end of the ep as to whether it was Cochrane or not. (We, of course, saw "Metamorphosis" and know it wasn't.)

But I love this, because it's the kind of continuity that was so often missing from Enterprise.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Well, the trailer's out.

I expected fireworks, or maybe a giant flashing neon sign.

I kinda got the fireworks. Or well, the spoiler with the spoiler and then the kid doing the spoiler and then there was the thing where Chris Pine was spoiler and then they also had a great shot of spoiler and showed Spock wearing a spoiler but I still don't know where Kirk gets the spoiler and then Scotty said spoiler and it didn't spoiler but of course it's too soon to be sure. And there was a great shot of the Bridge, it looked very spoiler but of course then they showed the spoiler with Kirk and Spock and that looked very spoiler so I just don't know anymore what I think, but there's this awesome half-second of Bruce Greenwood as spoiler and...

Anyway, let's put it this way:

This movie's gonna be felt around the Trekkie world.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Oh, and...

They're making toys of the new movie. Footnote in history. Treat it as such.

Besides which...

So, the prez is a big geek.

Or rather, the president-elect. Whatever. He's a geek.

Proof?

He's creating the post of Chief Technology Officer. He likes Star Trek. That's right, we elected a Trekkie. He can speak techspeak. He wants to give us all broadband. He wants to allow people to use the internet to access the white house - and there's a really funny picture

Yeah. Geek.

Okay, I stole all this from Wired but they have a point. And I'd been wondering.

There's a story Nichelle Nichols likes to tell.

It goes something like this:

I'd read each subsequent rewrite...and there was a... consistent pattern being formed. You know, I'd see the first draft, the white pages, and see what Uhura had to do this week, and maybe it was a halfway-decent scene or two, sometimes more, and then invariably the next draft would come in on blue pages and I'd find that Uhura's presence in the show had been cut way down. Teh pink pages came next and she'd suffer some more cuts, then the yellow, more cuts, and it finally got to the point where I had really had it. I mean I just decided that I don't even need to read the FUCKING SCRIPT! I mean, I know how to say "Hailing frequencies open," and Uhura's participation in the final version of any given script was rarely more taxing than that... I went to Gene and complained.

"Why is this happening?" I ask him. And Gene does his best to explain his point of view, and he's talking about staying true to the show, but my now I'm really angry and it actually gets to the point where I say to him, "That's it. I quit. I'm leaving."

And Gene looks at me across the desk and says, "Don't do this."

"I have to," I tell him.

[That evening, at an NAACP function] I'm sitting at my table and I was chatting and saying hello to people when all of a sudden a man comes up to me and says, "Miss Nichols, I'm sorry to bother you, but there's someone over here who would really like to meet you, and I said, "Well...uh, I guess that's okay," at which point he leads me up to a table that's surrounded by a lot of people, and he says to me, "I must tell you, the man that wants to meet you is a big fan, a really great fan."

And now I'm thinking to myslef, "Well, that's nice," and suddely the man that's let me through the crowd sort of squeezes in through the people around the table, and the next thing I know, the crowd sort of parts down the middle, and sitting there smiling at me is Dr. Martin Luther King.

So now I'm immediately thrilled. I mean, Dr. King is a fan? of MINE? And we exchanged greetings, and he told me how much he enjoyed Star Trek, and about how happy he was that I was part of the cast.


The rest was history. Dr. King convinced Nichelle to remain on the show and not only did it make her career, her presence on the bridge of the Enterprise influenced the lives of millions - both African-American and women - who saw her leadership role on that ship as a symbol of hope for themselves.

I don't know if Barack Obama is a Trekkie, but you can bet he's had influences. And you can bet some of them are Trekkies. Even if he's never seen a single episode (which would be a crying shame, and not just because David Wu thinks there are Klingons in the White house) we can still see his election as a part of that same legacy of hope - and this time it's not even an actor on a starship 300 years in the future.

Last Tuesday we brought Star Trek into the here and now.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

A Thought

I've been watching Alias for a while, and something came into my brain recently. J.J. Abrams, whatever his flaws, does not milk stuff. Lost and Felicity both came with time stamps on them - both less than seven years. With Alias, he might be accused of milking the show, but I think Lost has proved that he good and learned that lesson.

Trek has a history of being milked, stretching clear back to the days of Gene Roddenberry. It's nice to think that this time, maybe that won't happen.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Some reviews and stuff.

Okay, so Kevin Smith's seen Trek, and he told us something about the environment in which he saw it - and about how Chris Pine so totally rocks.

Thank God.

It's spoiler-free because he signed a nondiscolsure agreement.

Greg Grunberg's probably in it - he's in everything else J.J. does - but he won't talk about it either. I bet he's not a redshirt. Some have speculated that he may be the computer voice. How very The Happening of you, J.J.

Simon Pegg's friend Edgar saw it too. Here's what he had to say. I hope he wasn't including First Contact in that "trio of prequels".

Also, just for the record, MAY IS SPRING. Deal with it people. God, that's been driving me nuts for months now.


Wednesday, October 22, 2008

They all look so pale...

I think the title says it all. Doesn't the 23rd Century believe in sun?

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Pictures

The're out there, but I'm not going to post them. They're on trekmovie.

It's funny. A poster is one thing, or a teaser trailer. But these are real shots from the actual movie, and when I look at them, I see -

Spock.

Kirk.

McCoy.

Sulu.

Uhura.

Scotty.

They're real, they're here, and in whatever context they were ever - they're alive, folks. Whatever happens with the movie, they've done what they set out to do - it looks like Trek.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

The Dent of it all

I was thinking about Star Trek, and why it is that Enterprise and Nemesis failed, and something occurred to me.

We've discovered the true nature of Harvey Dent.

I know that sounds insane. Play along for a minute.

So, Dark Knight, right? Batman Big Spoilers







has to take the blame for a murder committed by another man because that man is Gotham's symbol of truth and purity and all things good. But look at it from the perspective of the Gothamite that looks a little too hard at those events, at what we know of Batman, and at what we know of Harvey Dent - at the death of Harvey's girlfriend, and at the nature of his injuries, and realizes the truth about ol' Harvey.

In the past three years, especially, we have been innundated with truth. The truth of everything. Susan Sackett and the "truth" about Gene Roddenberry. The truth of discontinuity, the "true" story of what UPN did to Enterprise, the "truth" about who's to blame for Nemesis, the "truth" about who should have been cast as Seven.

You know what? Screw the truth.

Maybe if we weren't so concerned with the real nature of Harvey Dent, we'd realize that that crap doesn't matter. This should be fun. Continuity issues should be something you laugh at with your friends, not something you curse at until you feel queasy. UPN can and has gone and bleeped themselves, and Gene's issues with women should be swept firmly under the rug because it doesn't matter anymore. The guy is dead. Let him be.

As it is, we're so busy looking for the truth that no one's noticed that Gotham has lost it's hero.

And here's another thing: you don't reclaim the hero. For those who are truly disillusioned with Harvey Dent, this movie will flop. They won't be able to let it not flop. I know people who are so against it no matter what that they'll never accept it. They're the ones who wrote the biography of Harvey Dent, know where all the skeletons are buried, and secretly want to bring him down. My advice to you? Don't be one of them. Living the lie is a lot more fun.

Monday, September 29, 2008

Kung Fu WTF?

So I was watching Kung Fu today.

Couldn't begin to tell you why I was watching Kung Fu, but I was watching it.

And it occurred to me that I must have put it on my queue for a reason.

Couldn't begin to tell you why.

And then I realized William Shatner was in it.

Why hadn't I realized that before?

Simple.

He's wearing the most ridiculous beard imaginable. If I could find a screencap I would post it. And he has the most ridicoulous accent. I only recognized him because eh couldnt' sustain the accent through the whole episode. And then he sounded like Kirk.Althoughgh I'm sure the rolling around when he was fighting David Carradine would hae clued me in too.


This is what I've been doing with the time I HAVEN'T been blogging.

A/N: The “Tight Sphincters 'R Us” comment is a shoutout to Jolene Blalock, who provided 3500 people with great amusement last weekend at the Las Vegas Star Trek Convention, which may have set a world record for the number of times “Sphincter” was used in a single weekend.

Needless to say, the convention was not entirely PG-13.

Also, Papillion, Nebraska was chosen because my friends live there, not because I know of any psychokinesis occurring there.

Finally, this chapter is dedicated to the Beckinator (Sorry, Wayno and Your Tracyocity) who is the best boss I ever had and is, in fact, so cool that if someone offed her and was after me, I totally think she'd come back as a poltergeist to protect me from the lunatic.

XXXXX

The next few weeks pass mostly without incident. Blevins is silent on the subject of our report that says nothing at all about Ruby. Scully doesn't bring up Samantha. I make quiet plans to drive to Chilmarc for the candlelight vigil that I probably won't follow through with. Our lives go on.

One thing is that Scully doesn't object when I file Ruby under “Alien Abduction” rather than “Inconclusive”. I regard this as progress.

One late afternoon in the middle of September, we are both called into Blevins' office. He greets us with a scowl and a “Come in and sit down, agents.”

Which we do.

“I have a case for you,” he says, which floors me and probably just about gives Scully a stroke.

“What kind of case, sir?” I ask, sure he's setting me up.

“I can't tell you.”

What​​? “May I ask why?”

“National security.”

National Security. I hate those words sometimes. Most of the time. All the time.

“Sir,” Scully asks, “what is it you need us to do?”

“I just want you to go to the Bethesda Naval Hospital and have a look at a couple of bodies.”

Okay, no problem.

“At eleven o'clock tonight.”

What?

“Sir?” Scully sounds as flummoxed as I am.

“We need to maintain constant vigilance, Agent. The hospital should be nearly deserted at eleven o'clock tonight. You will report to the morgue and meet three agents there who will brief you on whatever you're cleared to know.”

“Which agents?” I ask, wondering if it's anyone I know.

“Not FBI,” he elaborates. “Dismissed.”

XXXXXX

I make it out to the elevator before Scully recovers from her annoyance enough to let me really say anything at all, and even then she's tense. She doesn't like what happened in there. I can tell. I don't either, really. Not one bit.

“Mulder,” she finally tells me, “don't start thinking conspiracy.”

This is the very definition of conspiracy.

“There's nothing you can do,” she adds. “We have to trust that there's a good reason not to tell us what's going on.”

I know that – in theory. I also know I'm sick of getting the runaround, and I'm really sick of Blevins. Hopefully, I won't have to be sick of Blevins much longer, because the rumor is he's due for a promotion. God knows he a master of blowing smoke out his ass.

The elevator lets us out in the basement. It's after five, so I'm really only here to get my stuff and go. We walk into the office in silence, gather our things, and then leave for the parking lot. It's not until I'm about to get in my car that I realize that not only have I been mentally bitching Scully out for her silence, I haven't said anything at all.

“Scully-” I begin, but I can't finish that thought because I don't know where it leads. “I'll see you tonight.”

XXXXX

When we arrive at the hospital, we are greeted by a guard (Secret Service? CIA? MIB? IMF, for all I can tell) who leads us into a morgue without saying a word. The door closes behind him and there we are, standing in cold storage with two women – one in a tan suit and one in a lab coat and scrubs – and a man – black man, black suit - who look like they shop at Tight Sphincters 'R Us. “Agent Scully, Agent Mulder, Chief Blevins assures us of your cooperation. We regret any inconvenience at this extreme hour,” the Man in Black says.

Yeah, I could've had a date.

“We hope your expertise in extraordinary phenomena matters will help us in our investigation,” adds Tan Suit.

I wonder if I can get anything out of them. “You're not FBI, are you?”

“Have you ever seen anything like this before?” asks Lab Coat. That would be a “no,” then. Or given my reputation, maybe a “yes”. She hands me the guy's chart and pulls the sheet off one of the corpses for Scully to look at while I try and fail not to flinch. The body also flinches. “Abnormal postmortem muscle reflex. Both corpses are still responding to high levels of electrostatic charge.”

Yeesh.

“Any sign of external legions or surface burns?” asks Scully, frowning at the body.

“None.”

Huh. I manage to look at the body without wincing. The worst part about this is that the body used to be a person – and now it's not. It's something else. You find yourself wondering about the person who lived here, what they ate, who they loved, when they stopped doing any of those things. “Time of death?”

She glances at Man in Black and Tan Suit, but Man in Black just blinks.

“Well, it can't be long,” says Scully. “The body's still warm.”

“Somatic death occurred sometime over 6 hours ago. Their body temperatures have yet to drop below 98.3 degrees.”

That's weird. Right? I'm not a pathologist, but I say that's weird. “Where did you find them?” I ask. Nothing. Man in Black doesn't even blink this time. “Look, at least tell us the mode of transport!” I raise my voice and yank off my glasses. “That might tell us why the bodies haven't cooled.” While they're out of the picture I take the opportunity to press the index finger and thumb of the nearest corpse's left hand onto the right and left lenses, respectively. Man, Tan, and Lab say nothing. It was a long shot anyway. I just keep yelling. “Hey, you called us down here. If you want some answers you have to give some.”

“They traveled 60 minutes by air,” says Man. That's about a 500 mile radius. And also doesn't explain why they're still warm.

“Thank you,” I say, because it's polite and I just stole his evidence right under his nose.

“The most troubling aspect of their deaths is the throat area,” says Lab, walking over to an X-Ray screen. Is she a doctor? She talks like one. “The larnyx, esophagus, and hyoid bone all have been crushed like chalk. There is no evidence of tissue damage. It's as if their throats were crushed... from the inside.”

Well, that sums it up. Crushed from the inside. Not cryptic. Psychokinesis? It has all the elements of psychokinesis, but I've never seen this exact MO before. We both get a good look at the X-Ray and sure enough, even I can tell it's not normal. Scully winces. “Who are these guys?”I ask, but I don't expect an answer.

“If you've conducted your investigation, why consult us?” asks Scully.

“During your work on the X Files, have you ever seen anything like this?” asks Tan.

Yeah, I eat this for breakfast. Right. “Never.” Well there was that one thing, but it's probably nothing. And certainly nothing I'm gonna tell three people in a darkened morgue at eleven o'clock at night when they won't even tell me their aliases.

The man pipes up again. “Well, thank you for your time Agent Mulder, Scully. If any inquiry into this meeting be made, we request full denial.”

Jeez.

“I'd say you people already suffer from full denial,” I tell them before I grab Scully – okay, guide Scully – out of the room and we leave them to their mysterious corpses.

XXXXX

Out in the hall, the guard is gone. We walk back to our cars, and Scully rounds on me. “You lied. You have seen it before, I can tell. You lied to them.”

Shocked? “I would never lie. I willfully participated in a campaign of misinformation.”

“Who do you think they were?”

The Vatican Police? I don't know. Personally, I want to say the Impossible Mission Force, but somehow I doubt she'd take that seriously. “NSA, CIA, some convert organization Congress will uncover in the next scandal.” It doesn't matter anyway, really. “It's not important who they are but what they have and I'm sure they have no idea because they pulled us in. I have X Files. Each case with an element of what we saw tonight. Residual electrostatic charge, internal mutilation without any external causality... but none has all the elements combined in one case.”

“How can the esophagus be crushed without the neck even being touched?”

Here we go. I love this part. “Psychokinetic manipulation,” I whisper.

Let the games begin. “Psychokinesis? You mean how Carrie got even at the prom?” She is trying really hard to keep her face straight, in her defense.

I love working with Scully, I realize, and it hits me like a ton of bricks. I love working with Scully. “The Russians were doing studies on it. The Chinese still are. Their findings are kept secret.” We get in the elevator down to ground level, and Scully draws in a deep breath and then lets it out. I love telling her this stuff.

“Okay, I'm intrigued. How can we investigate, we have nothing to go on.” I put an arm around her and ignore the flinching as I hold the glasses up to my face and breathe on each lens.

I win.

XXXXX

So we go back to work the next morning and have the prints run on a pair of glasses in an evidence bag that have a fascinating resemblance to my reading glasses. Ten minutes later the result pops up on the computer in the print lab and Scully's run off his file.

“Mohamed Amalaki. Convictions: Illegal possession of firearms. Illegal possession of explosives. Falsification of export licenses.”

“He has ties to extremist group operating in the US. The Isfahan. They take their name from a city in Iran. Recently they've been working out of Philadelphia.” Scully's already on page two.

Bingo. “That's 60 air minutes.”

One little phone call should do it all. “I'll talk to the Philly P.D,” she says, and heads back downstairs.

XXXXX

I have no idea what she said to them, but she comes back twenty minutes later saying a desk sargeant told her that there was an ATM robbery recently where the robbers dropped dead. I guess everyone's talking about it.

XXXXX

In the end, it's all too easy to get travel approval to Philly. All I had to do was write a 302 for a psychokinesis case, and it sailed through without Blevins even noticing. He must have gotten held up doing some asskissing or something, because that's not like him.

But whatever. Who am I to complain?

The next day, we fly to Philadelphia and rent a car, and from the airport we drive to a nameless motel and from there to the local PD without Blevins even knowing what we're up to which is just how I like it.

The desk sergeant sends us to a Detective Ericsson, who sits behind his desk and frowns at us in the PD's own version of a bullpen.

“Can I help you?” he asks, when he realizes who we're here for.

Scully flashes her I.D. “This is Agent Mulder, I'm Agent Scully. I'm here to ask you about a case.”

“What can do I have that could possibly be of any interest to you?” he asks – and not without a little hostility.

“It was a possible ATM robbery,” she begins, and his whole demeanor changes.

“You're here about that?”

I step in. “We were hoping to take a look, if you don't mind.” One look at his face says he doesn't mind at all.

“Mind? I'm relieved.”

That's a new one on me. “How so?”

He pulls out the file, which we've already read, but the crime scene photos are a lot less grainy. “It's just... spooky,” he admits, “and it makes no sense. If you want it, it's all yours.”

This is not a reaction I get often, and I don't know how to deal with it.

Scully scans through the file. “Is there a way we could see the crime scene?”

“Sure,” he replies, “I'll even have the officer who found the bodies take you down there.”

XXXXX

So an officer by the name of Officer Packard drives us down in his squad car – I have to ride in the back, like a criminal – to an alley downtown, where there is, for some reason that completely escapes me, an ATM that only a crazy person would use at night – or someone with a death wish.

He drives us up to the entrance of the alley and we get out of the car. It smells like a dumpster, and I've avoided alleys since I tried my hand at sleeping in one.

“Where, exactly, did you find them?” asks Scully.

“It was last Wednesday night. I was on routine patrol. This is where we found them,” he points to an area on the ground in front of the ATM.

“Who discovered their bodies?” she asks.

“Nobody. It was about 10. I was on patrol. Just saw them hanging around.” Literally. They were hanging around off a fire escape. “The folks that come around here, they don't witness very much. You hear what I'm saying?”

The file doesn't even say for sure it's a robbery, just “found in the vicinity of an ATM.” Well, no kidding – it's the only thing in this alley. That and the scared-looking woman using it.

What kind of lunatic would use it in the middle of the night I'll never understand.

“If they were trying to rob someone, it would show up on the ATM camera,” says Scully.

It's a place to start.

XXXXX

We drive over to the local FBI and I call US Bank, and sure enough, they can get us the footage. Someone messengers a video to us and we get a room to look it over. The notes with the video show the procedure the ATM uses – it can't record everything all the time.

“A daily visual record is made of everyone who makes a transaction,” I inform Scully, translating the technobabble into something resembling English. Scully's reading the other page – the list of people who used the ATM that day.

“We'll just have to interview everyone who was at the machine before 10 last night,” says Scully, but of course that's rendered moot when we see footage of a woman using the machine and then grabbed by two men and dragged away.

Kind of a giveaway.

It's the entry at 9:45, I note, but Scully is already flipping through the list. “There. Back up,” I mutter, even though I'm holding the remote. Scully, next to me, gasps.

It's on the rewind that I see a blur on the screen – a fourth person? Behind the poor woman getting attacked.

What the hell?

It's there, just for a second, and then it's gone.

“Lauren Kyte. 858 Franklin, Bensalem. Why would the Isfahan being robbing someone for 40 bucks at an ATM machine?”

Not another person. It is just there for a second – it looks like a ghost. “Look at that.” I stop the film and watch it sit there. It's man-shaped, but it only shows for a second or two.

“It's another person.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” I reply, but I don't think it is.

“Well, the resolution is too poor. It won't help much to enhance it.”

On this we are agreed. “That leaves only one person we know we can talk to.”



And so we drive to 858 Franklin, Bensalem, to see Lauren Kyte. There's a U-haul trailer outside her house, which gives me the impression that she's planning to move, so we'd better move fast here. I don't know how long we'll have her.

I knock on the door and listen for footsteps, a pause, and then -

“Hello?”

“Miss Lauren Kyte, please,” I say, and the door opens, revealing the woman in the video. She's just a kid, I realize, and I flash my badge. “I'm Agent Fox Mulder and this is Agent Dana Scully. We're with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Do you mind if we come in?” I'm not taking no for an answer.

“Um, I was just in the middle of ...”

“Thank you. We won't be long.” I squeeze my way past her, and Scully follows. She's good cop this time, and I don't even have to ask. Out comes the file, and next thing we know, Lauren's looking at her attackers.

“Have you seen either of these two men before?”

“No.” Not “maybe,” not “I don't know,” just “no”? Yeah, right.

“Take your time,” Scully prompts.

“I'm sorry. I've never seen them before.”

Yeah-huh. Scully pulls out the surveillance photo from the ATM. I love ATMs. “I'm afraid you have. This is a surveillance picture from your ATM.”

Silence. As it should be. She just lied to the FBI – not that I intend to push it. “Can you tell us what happened that night?”

“Um... These guys, I was depositing my paycheck. They grabbed me, I got away. I ran. I just didn't want to file a report.”

“They were found dead,” I tell her, and she does that freezing thing people do where they aren't freezing at all.

Scully pulls out the blowup of the background figure in the video. “Have you ever seen this person before?”

“No. I'm sorry. I can't tell you.”

Not 'I don't know.' Hmmm. “Does that mean you know?”

“It means I can't tell you who it is.”

Uh huh. She knows something. I pull out my card and hand it to her. “When you can tell me, this is the number where I can be reached at any time, okay?”

“Um hmmm.”

So we walk out her door, and I don't know about Scully but I am totally dissatisfied.

XXXXX

We make it to the car almost before Scully starts poking holes in Lauren's story. “A woman her size breaking free and outrunning those men?”

“And somehow crushing their necks?” We get in the car and put on the seat belts, and when I look up I can see Lauren watching out the window. Creepy.

“She knows who the other person in that photo is.”

Yes she does. “Packing, running away, from what?” I start the car. Time to look into Lauren Kyte.

And that's when the parking brake goes off, the car reverses, and the doors lock.

Without us touching them.

Even as I'm panicking, there is a part of me, in the back of my mind, saying “Explain this, Scully.” Even as the car spins backward and Scully yells, “What the hell's going on?” and I tell her to hang on while I pump the brakes and we back into an intersection where we are hit by another car. Even then, I want her to explain it.

But I settle for, “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

The other driver is shaking his head and looking around, so I assume he's alive. And Lauren closes her curtains. I guess she's done watching.

XXXXXX
They took the car to the garage and put us in separate ambulances to get checked out. By the time they tell me I'm okay to leave, Scully's still getting looked at, so I duck over to where they're checking her heart rate. “Everything okay?” I ask her, since she's a doctor and the paramedics are... not.

“Mulder, I'm fine. They're worried because my blood pressure dropped.”

That doesn't sound good.

“But I'm fine.”

“You're sure?” I ask her. This is the second car-related accident-like-thing she's been in since she met me.

“It's nothing,” she tells me. “They just have to cover all the bases. Go check out what's up with the car.”

I nod at her. Message received. “Meet you at the garage?”

“Okay,” she sighs as a paramedic named Ramirez slides the blood pressure cuff back onto her arm.

XXXXX

The cop who gave me a ride to the FBI garage has to go back on patrol, so it's just me there chatting with the mechanic until we get the green light to do whatever it is we're gonna do. He's a skinny guy with really really blond hair, and he doesn't have a high opinion of Fords.

Fix Or Repair Daily,” he tells me, glaring at the car as it is raised up above our heads so we can see underneath it. “Fords are the most unreliable cars on the planet. They don't have the proper inspections before they leave the factory, the parts are substandard, everything's about cutting costs instead of making a quality vehicle...” he trails off as he examines something. “Nothing wrong with this one though.”

“What?” I'm dumbfounded – especially the way it acted.

Not a thing. Yet. Only a hundred miles on it. All brand new. Not that there wouldn't be, mind you, there's just nothing wrong with it yet.” He pushes the button to lower it down and I examine the side panel with the sizeable dent in it. Nothing wrong indeed. “I have to go back to work now,” he adds. “I'll be around if you have any more questions.” I keep staring at the dent, trying to convince myself that I shouldn't be surprised.

It just happened so fast.

The headlights are reflecting off the inside of the garage door. I stare at it for ten seconds before the meaning of that hits me. The car is turned off.

“Hey!” I call after the mechanic. What is his name?

He turns back. “Help you?”

“The headlights.”

He frowns, walks around to the front of the car, and frowns some more. “That's weird.”

You don't say.

“Doesn't happen.”

Well, it did.

“I guess there must be a faulty connection. The battery's still connected to the headlights. Maybe an electrical problem, locked the doors, made the car go. Only one problem with that.”

“What's that?” I am forced to ask. I don't really know cars.

“Cars don't work like that. Power locks, maybe, but they can't put themselves in reverse.” He opens the hood and disconnects the battery. The headlights stay on. “No, this has to be the filaments themselves. Must still be heated from some electrical charge somehow.”

How? “How does that happen?” I ask him.

“No idea.” He walks away again.

So it's like the bodies. Psychokinesis seems more and more likely – especially with Lauren staring at us during the accident. Creepy. Better wear a suit of armor next time I see her. Or maybe just go without a tie – somehow a noose seems like a stupid idea around a psychokinetic.

This should be fun to explain to Scully.

I move back to look at the door. Dented like crazy. There's no way around it – I could have been killed. Maybe should have been killed. I reach inside and start switching the lights on and off. They stay on.

“Hi.”

Scully's back, I realize. “Hi. The paramedics check you out?”

“Yeah. I'm fine. Except I have a waiting-in-line-at-the-DMV-sized headache.”

Mine's kinda killing me too. I leave the lights off. “Mine's more IRS sized.”

“They check out the car?”

And here we go. Let the games begin. “Yeah, it's brand new. Only a 100 miles.”

“Then someone tampered with it while we were in her house.”

I walk around to the front of the car. “Mechanic said everything is in proper order. Nothing cut, nothing greased. Check out the lights.” And here we go.

“They are on.”

“They're not. The filaments are heated due to massive levels of electrostatic charge. Just like the bodies at the morgue. And isn't it interesting that Lauren Kyte was present at both incidents?”

“She was in our presence the entire time we were at her house,” says Scully. Clearly she doesn't get it.

Well somehow she did this. “What if it's possible somehow to raise a body's electrostatic charge to levels we've been seeing and use that energy to affect objects?”

“If a person could generate that much energy, their body would break down. They'd start glowing like those lights.”

I've seen these files. “Well there's evidence of this all through the X Files.” Papillion, Nebraska. “Furniture moving untouched, objects levitating, unexplained electrical discharges.” That was a fun case – and before her time. “Frequently people who have psychokinetic power are unaware of their own capability.”

“Are you saying Lauren Kyte crashed our car?”

Well who else? “Either that or a poltergeist.”

Scully glares at me and singsongs “They're here...” just like on Poltergeist. Cute.

So I adopt my most serious voice. “They may be.”

She pops the trunk and we grab our suitcases. “Oh, come on Mulder, look at the tangible evidence.” Yep, I love working with her. “Two Mid-East extremists are killed trying to assault a woman working for a manufacturer of parts for the Defense Department. While we questioned her our car is sabotaged.” Or not sabotaged. “Now in both those cases, someone else may have committed those acts. Maybe the same someone we saw in those ATM photos.” We put our suitcases in the new car she brought with her. “The mystery isn't psychokinetic energy, it's her accomplice.” In the time she's ranted, the lights have finally gone out.

At least, either way, the course of action is the same. “So, Scully, what say we stake out Lauren Kyte?”

XXXXX

We pull her record through the FBI and scan through it in the parking lot of her work. I do the spying and Scully does the reading, and this time she makes me use my binoculars, which up to this point were exclusively meant for the spotting of UFOs. Anyway, we park outside HTG Industrial Technologies and wait. Lauren pulls up ten minutes later and walks across the parking lot as Scully reads the file. “She's clean. No arrest, not even a traffic ticket. The only thing is, she's in deep with her credit card company... $15,000.” Typical.

Lauren stops where someone is changing the name on an assigned parking space. I can't really hear what she's saying, but there's a lot of angry gestures and closed body language. The name on the space, I can see, was Howard Graves.

“A little upset over losing a parking space, wouldn't you say?” I ask Scully. Especially when it's not even Lauren's space. “So, who is Howard Graves anyway?”

XXXXX
More microfiche, more Dramamine. The headline we eventually find is “Howard Graves Suicide Creates Shock.” He also worked at HTG.

The pieces begin to fall into place for me. “She was his secretary.” Scully, master of the file, doesn't correct me. “That's three people dead in the last month all associated with Lauren Kyte.” Also a fact. Can't deny that, eh Scully. The article goes on to say that 'ol Howard slashed his wrists in the bathtub. Ugh. I've always hated that one.

XXXXX

When we pick Lauren back up at the end of her workday, she drives to the cemetery to put flowers on a grave. After she leaves, we check it out to discover that it's Howard Graves' grave.

Now I've had some bosses who weren't assholes, but I wouldn't put flowers on their graves if they died. Life would go on. Most of them, I'd actually celebrate. “You don't see too many bosses graves without people dancing on it,” I remark, mostly to hear what Scully'll say to that.

“Look at this one.” Scully is looking at the stone next to Howard's: “Sarah Lynn Graves September 8, 1966 to August 3 1969".

Oh boy.

There is groundskeeper nearby, and I turn to him. “Excuse me, Sir? Is there an office here so that I can get information on those people?” There has to be.

“Who? I attend every funeral. I'm the last person to see them put to rest.” He has one of those incredibly quiet creepy voices.

Did you attend one in 1969? Somehow I believe that you did. “Do you know how Sarah Lynn was related to Howard Graves?”

His daughter. They were at home one day and he didn't latch the pool gate. She drowned. His wife left him a year later. She's buried in a plot in the Northeast corner.” Creepy.

Poor Howard. “Thank you, Sir.”

“You're welcome.” He walks away, and Scully and I both turn to look at Sarah's grave.

“She was only three years old,” says Scully.

She was born the same year as Lauren Kyt.e. “If she'd lived, she'd be Lauren's age.” Scully looks at me and I look back and I think she understands what I'm saying – the same way I have a soft spot in my heart for women who would be Sam's age – roughly Scully's age, actually. You can't blame me – and you can't blame Howard if he did the same thing.

It's in our natures.

XXXXX

After a full day of surveillance, Scully and I fly home. Or at least Scully goes home, but I took darkroom photography in college and so I go into the photo lab to do the surveillance photos. It's soothing and calming and all those things I usually don't bother with, but tonight... tonight I want to.

I drop the photos into the fixer one at a time, hoping for something. Anything. A shadow, a face, a flicker of light. Proof of something. I'm so sick of having nothing, of Scully staring at me like I've gone nuts. She has an explanation for everything – Tooms crawled in an improperly latched window, Ellens Air Base had a good hypnotist, the Jersey Devil had some serious psychological issues, and so on and so forth.

So yeah, I can't help it. I want to prove it to her. Sue me for being a typical guy, only this time it's not about sports teams and who's winning the NBA playoffs and things like that. No, not for Fox Mulder. This is about psychokinesis. What can I say? It's just who I am, and I make no apologies. And I don't mind watching the playoffs either.

I work through the night, developing the damn things. It's not until the next morning, around three, that I get a good look. There is someone in the house with Lauren.

Okay, not someone. A shape behind her, in one photo of her standing at the window. So it's probably not psychokinesis then. Dammit, I hate when Scully's right.

But if it's not psychokinesis, what is it? Someone sneaked out and did something to our car the mechanic couldn't detect? No, something's still fishy. I just wish I knew what.

When Scully gets in, I'll have her come up to get the photo analyzed.

I wander back down to the bullpen and check my email. There's the report Scully wrote on our trips – she's taken to keeping me update on what she's ratting to Blevins, in case there's something I want her to reword. Not that she'll necessarily do that, but at least forewarned is forearmed. This time I have to admit she's done a good job making it look like we didn't go over Blevins' stupid head.

“After hearing rumors of suspicious electrical activity surrounding deaths in the Philadelphia area, Agent Mulder and I decided to investigate and offer assistance to the Philadelphia PD, after a brief conversation with local police secured us an invitation to work on the case. During that time, we were attacked via sabotage of our rented car. Although we sustained no serious injuries, both Agent Mulder and myself are determined to find the identity of our attacker.”

Good-no mention of the bodies we saw at Bethesda. Let Blevins wonder.

“Investigation of the deaths led us to a witness, a woman named Lauren Kyte – an employee at a company called HTG Industries - who had recently lost her boss to an apparent suicide. Miss Kyte has a clean background with no indications of affiliation with any suspicious activities or groups, however we believe our attacker was attached to her in some way.”

Scully promised to do a more detailed background check on Lauren when we got home, but we know she's not sacrificing animals and she doesn't belong to the Istafhan.

Further investigation into Lauren Kyte's personal history reveals an estrangement from her family. Phone records confirm no contact with her parents for the last two years. Her actions observed during surveillance indicate a strong relationship between Lauren Kyte and her employer, the late Howard Graves.”

And now we get to the meat of it. He was like a father to her – the father she's not in touch with. And he had lost a daughter. They must have been very close, I suppose, but not in a sexual way. What would he have done to protect her? And why the hell did he kill himself anyway?

“Was this relationship somehow the motivation for his suicide? How are the attack and the subsequent murders of the Isfahan agents related, if at all? I am certain that the answers to these questions lie in finding the identity of Lauren Kyte's accomplice.”

Quite a leap, Scully, but we don't have any reason to think Lauren's innocent – or guilty.

I hate this not knowing.

XXXXX

She comes in at eight, while I'm going over the bank robberies for the thousandth time, trying to predict the robbers' next move. I'm getting nowhere except a headache, and I don't notice when the door opens.

“Mulder, how long have you been here?”

Long enough to have to change into the extra shirt I keep in the closet. “A while. I developed the surveillance photos.”

She nods, once, enough to tell me she at least suspects I didn't sleep last night. “Anything good?”

Would the photo lab be in yet? I glance at my watch. “I don't know yet. We need to have it enhanced.” It's only 8:15 – they might be in already. I pull out the photo. “There.”

“Mulder, that could be a coat rack.”

I suppose it could, except- “I didn't see a coat rack when we were there.”

She sighs. Deeply.

“I just want to have it analyzed, that's all,” I add.

She nods again. “That's probably a good idea.” She punches in some numbers on the phone and waits for a minute. “Hi, it's Agent Scully – Good. How are you?”

She knows the photo lab?

“We have a surveillance photo we want a closer look at, is now a good time? Really? Great, we'll be up in ten. Yes, Mulder too.” Ouch. “It could be nothing, but it's the only lead we- yes, yes, I know. No, it's not small and green.”

I can see where this is going.

“An ottoman? Really? Well, this definitely isn't an ottoman.”

They had to bring that up, didn't they.

“Thanks,” she says, “I'll see you later. Coffee next week?” She hangs up the phone.

Scully has coffee with someone in the photo lab?

XXXXX

We get up there and meet a technician named Malcolm Jones, Scully's friend. Not what I expected. He looks like her father.

“Agent Mulder? Hi, Malcolm Jones.” He shakes our hands. “It's good to see you, Dana.” She squirms a little bit. “This the picture you needed?” He takes it from me and looks it over. “Yeah, that looks like something. Let me see here, we can set you up right over here -” he gestures to a comptuer with two chairs in front of it - “ and I'll just scan this puppy in -” he puts it in a scanner and presses the green button - “ and the program should load. Have you used photo imaging software before?”

Yes, I have, and so has Scully. She nods, since it doesn't sound like he'll stop talking anytime soon.

“It has a built in enchancer that automatically renders everything in the sharpest possible focus. Sometimes we only have a few pixels to work with. Right now I'm on this bank robbery case, and the security camera pictures are just atrocious. We only got a few usable images.”

“That Willis' case?” I ask him.

“Yeah, real stinker, can't see anything you need to on those cameras. Banks really should be the first people to upgrade.”

Probably true. “Thanks,” I tell him, because they've gotten some pretty clear images off those crappy cameras. He sits down in the chair in front of the computer and I take the other one while Scully stands behind. He types in a few instructions and it zooms in on the window.

That's definitely something. In fact, it's a blurry person. I wait to see what Scully's gonna say.

“That looks like something,” Jones tells me. “Let's see if we can clear it up.”

A few more keys are pressed and a bar marked “enhancing” pops up.

“Enhance it by 10,” says Scully. How much does she know about this? And why the hell is this guy doing her bidding? Malcolm Jones clicks on the number 10. A face appears. But not just any face. No siree. “That's Howard Graves. He's alive.” Scully, master of the scientific standard of obvious.

Huh. Somehow, I doubt that. They tend to be pretty clear on people's deaths when they cut them open in the morgue. “Not necessarily.”

“He's standing right there.”

Yes he is. “You may have been right about the poltergeist,” I tell her, because I don't know how else this is possible. I mean, by Scully's rules, it's not possible.

“Mulder, that's him. He's alive.”

Fine, Scully, you think he's alive? Let's check. “Okay, who do we call about that?” I could find out, but she'll know.

She frowns. “The doctor who autopsied him,” she says, but it sounds more like a question, almost. And then she swallows and turns back to Jones. “Thanks so much, Malcolm. We owe you.”

He smiles. “Just buy the coffee next time, Dana, and we're even.” He nods over to another area of the room. “If you'll excuse me -” He goes back to work.

Is he flirting with her?

Is she flirting back?

XXXXX

So we drive back to Philadelphia, which is 90 minutes of License Plate Game, and wind up in the local offices of the National Medical Examiners. Apparently, the National Medical Examiners Office is essentially where they keep the coroners when they're in a city where they have one of these offices. Which I did not need to know ever before and probably never will again.

We check in and walk down to the basement, because even in Forensic Bureaucrat Heaven, autopsies must be conducted in the most dreary place possible. Scully is looking for someone whose name she saw in the Graves file, whose office is down here – somewhere.

I still think she should just let go and admit that Graves was a ghost, but I think we all know she won't do that. She can't.

Ghosts are pretty out there. I'm the first to admit that.

And if someone had been in the house I think we would have noticed while we were watching. I know that, and so does Scully, so I have to push her buttons a bit.

“Scully, don't you think it's plausible that maybe just maybe Howard Graves is a ghost?”

She doesn't spare me a second glance. “I think Howard Graves faked his own death.”

Uh huh. “Do you know how difficult it is to fake your own death? Only one man has pulled it off, Elvis.”

She ignores the King.

“He and Lauren Kyte are in on something. Maybe an illegal deal through his company. Something the CIA was interested in.”

Possibly true. “You may be right.” She stops in front of a door. Ellen Bledsoe, ME. She may be right, which is why we're here. Just one teeny little problem.

“Wait, you think I'm right?”

Did I say that? I said may be right. “Sure, all you got to do is prove that Howard Graves is still alive.” And with that I knock, cheerfully.

She'll never pull that off.

XXXXX

Ellen Bledsoe invites us in when Scully pulls out her badge, and I let the two of them chat. Scully explains her medical background, Bledsoe nods her way through that, and then Scully pulls surveillance photo, which Bledsoe scans and then nods.

And then Scully drops the bombshell.

“I think he may have faked his death.”

She stares at us.

I love that I'm not the one getting this look.

“Howard Graves is very dead.”

“May we see the autopsy report, please?” Bledsoe pulls out a file and tosses it to us.

“Knock yourself out.”

Scully scans through it. Way more detailed than what we had.

“Cause of death... arterial hemorrhage...”

“4 to 6 liters of blood down the tub.”

Yuck.

“Well there seems to be some blood work missing here,” says Scully.

“We only do that when we suspect homicide.”

Yeah, great. Missing bloodwork is just what will help Scully get past her theory. Maybe it was someone else will be next. An imposter! I'll just beat her to that. “I don't suppose you ran any dental conformation?”

“What for? It was him.”

Oh boy.

“How did you know?” Scully asks.

“It said so on the toe tag.”

Yeah. Great. Better and better. And I bet I know what's coming next.

“Who made positive ID on the body?”

But I know.

Scully's the one who says it. “Lauren Kyte.”

And I remember the size of his plot at the cemetery. Not exactly 6x2. “But Howard Graves was cremated. There would be no way to run a dental check or to get a DNA sample.”

But Scully has a little ray of hope. “Yes, there is. His body's tissues and organs were donated.”

Okay, so that could help. “How do we track those down?”

She scans the rest of the page. “Extraction was performed at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital. I'll call and talk to someone in the donor program.”

She dials her cellular phone and steps out into the hall, leaving me to sit there with Dr. Bledsoe and try not to fidget, which turns out to be pretty easy, because when Scully's done we'll all know that not only is Howard Graves dead and cremated, but first they cut his organs out, so there's no possible way he could be alive.

No way.

I love being right all the time.

Scully steps back into the room. “We have an appointment with a Doctor Ryker in cryogenics in an hour,” she informs me, and then turns back to Dr. Bledsoe. “Thank you for the files. If we need anything else, may I call you?”

Bledsoe takes her leave of Scully and me, to which I barely pay attention, because I'm right and about to be proven it. Howard Graves is dead dead dead, which means that whoever is in Lauren Kyte's hosue that looks like him is definitely either an impostor or a ghost, and I'm pretty sure when he starts walking through walls the ghost bit will seem a lot more likely.

But, I realize as I'm heading to the car, the first part is that I need to get Scully to believe that Howard Graves is dead, so I keep silent except for map reading as we drive across town to the hospital, park the car, and make our way to the cryogenics lab. Even as I want to be doing backflips, I don't say a single word, because this time she is going to admit it – that I am right right right.

And then I may very well start cackling.

But that will be justified.

We take an elevator to the basement, because where else would you have a cryogenics lab, and come to think of it - “Why is it we need a cryogenics lab, Scully?”

“They stored his neural matter for scientific research,” she tells me. “We're going to run a DNA and compare it to the bloodwork from his last physical. That was a week before his death, the hospital still has a sample on file, and it was his personal physician who did the exam – he should know if Howard Graves was really Howard Graves. It's airtight, Mulder.”

Yes, it really does sound that way doesn't it.

We turn a corner and come face to face with a man in a lab coat. “Doctor Ryker?” asks Scully.

“That's me. Agents Scully and... Mulder?”

Wow, she bothered to tell him I'd be coming along.

“That's right,” says Scully, as Ryker and I shake hands. “Have you had time to pull the records for Howard Graves?”

He gestures toward a window in the wall, where we can see hospital employees working. “Howard Graves is in 5 different people. They harvested his organs immediately after death. His kidneys were sent to Boston, his liver to Dallas, and his corneas to Portland, Oregon. They've all been transplanted. Because of his age, we could only cryo-preserve the dura matter, the membrane of the spinal column. We have Mr. Graves' hospital records, we'll extract a sample, run a test and in a couple of hours... confirm the identity of the donor.”

Perfect.

“That should give us the confirmation we need,” Scully tells him. “Thank you.”

And then I'll win.

So we sit in the waiting room in our uncomfortable chairs and wait. And wait and wait and wait. I've never been good at waiting.


Naturally, my phone rings just as they come with the results. I pick up the phone. “Mulder.”


Scully's wrong anyway.


“It's Lauren Kyte. How soon can you get to my house?”


Now she comes forward? Now? “Why?”

“Please hurry.” She hangs up.

I put the phone back in my pocket and turn to Scully. “The tests are conclusive, the dura matter does belong to Howard Graves. He is indeed very dead.”

I win, but it doesn't feel like it.

“That was Lauren Kyte. She said to meet her at her house and then she hung up.”

Scully sighs. “Whatever's going on, we need to get her to tell us what it is. How long do you think, half an hour?”

Or so. “Let's go.” Whatever's in the house has been there at least since Graves died. I should have gotten some salt or something. Holy water, I don't know.

When we get to Lauren's, the screaming can be heard so loud that I don't know how it is the neighbors haven't called the police. I take the front and Scully takes the back. There's a dead woman right behind the door. There is a man hanging from the rafters. Seriously, in the middle of the living room. Lauren is crying in a corner, so I'm guessing she didn't kill him. When Scully comes in, the man falls to the ground and I can see very clearly that he was held up by nothing at all.

Not a poltergeist my ass.

Lauren's crying and clinging to Scully, who is patting her back with one hand and reaching for her cell phone with another, so I decide to ease her burden a bit and pull out my phone. 911 awaits.

XXXXX

We end up taking Lauren in to the police station, even though there's not a shred of evidence she killed anyone, because two people just wound up dead in her home. They stick her in Interrogation, because where else would you talk to a victim of poltergeist activity? The police want to question her, but I'm FBI and what I say goes so Scully and I get first crack at it.

We walk in and I sit down while Scully leans against the wall and waits for me to do my thing so she can jump in and prove that someone could possibly be alive when their dura matter is in cryogenic storage (she'll never be able to prove that).

Lauren continues to shake.

“Lauren?” I ask her. No answer. “Do you mind if we ask you some questions?”

She shrugs. It's a start.

Scully jumps in. “You know, you're not under arrest. You're just here for questioning. The sooner you talk to us the sooner you get to go home.” Nothing. I didn't expect there to be. She's probably thinking if she tells us, we'll think she's crazy. Of course, I have to remind myself, she's half right. “What happened to those people tonight?” Yeah, Scully. That'll help. She thinks you won't believe her. “Do you have any idea who they might be? Why did they attack you?” Let's just throw all the questions at her. I pick up the picture, the one from the ATM that is Howard Graves' ghost and walk around the table, invading her personal bubble without trying to be threatening.

“Do you know who this is?” Which is when Man shows up.

Crap.

“Scully, Mulder... He'll keep an eye on her.” He motions to the officer who followed him in. “Come. Now.”

Not good.

We follow him into the hallway, where we find Tan waiting for us, only now she's in a pink suit. Great. Tag-team. “You've seriously compromised our investigation.”

Our investigation has nothing to do with their investigation – I guarantee they're not looking into the paranormal. They're counterterrorism or something. “We were following leads pertaining to an X File,” I explain, which is allowed no matter what they're up to.

“I want to know every detail of your activities concerning this case,” the man says.

Scully, to my shock, jumps in. “What case? You're the ones who've been withholding information.”

Score one for the visiting team. Everyone clams up.

Time to nip this in the bud. “Then we have nothing more to talk about,” I tell them, and we both go tor return to Lauren when I realize they're following us.

They want to talk now. The woman begins. “We believe HTG Technologies was selling restricted parts to the Isfahan. Partial serial numbers from their manifest were recovered in the wreckage of a July bombing of a Navy transport van.”

Well holy shit. I was right. Counterterrorism. “How's Lauren Kyte involved?”

The man answers this time. “We don't quite know. Your actions impeded our investigation.”

Our actions? How could we possibly have interfered? So far we got in a car wreck and tested some donated dura matter. It doesn't matter anyway. “In any case, we don't have enough evidence to hold her. If she doesn't talk, she goes free and we lose our chance to break this company.”

“I could make her talk,” Man says, and he is scary. I don't think this is a good idea.

But he could stand a little bit of the run-around. Still, if I don't warn him, that's manslaughter. “My advice to you: don't get rough with her.”

He doesn't bat an eye, just turns and walks into the interrogation room. I take a chair outside and wait for the screams. Scully sits next to me, and the woman goes in to observe the interrogation. At least there'll be a witness this time to the fact that Lauren's not doing these things.

We wait for twenty minutes before the woman leaves observation and enters the interrogation room. Another forty minutes later, the door to interrogation opens. “That was a waste of time,” the woman is telling her partner. She keeps walking, but the man stops and regards us for a moment with something that looks suspiciously like respect.

“Your turn,” he says, before he follows her off into the sunset.” I love being right.

So we take our turn now, and walk into the room.

Scully begins, cautiously. “Lauren?”

“I won't talk to you, either.”

Occam's Razor. And reverse psychology. “Okay, then you're free to go.” She gets up then, and walks to the door, and then she stops.

“I can't go back to that house.”

Bingo. “Why? Because of Howard Graves?”

“He's dead.”

Yeah. “I know. He's watching over you, isn't he?”

She does that freezing without freezing thing again. “Yes.” She nods.

And now I get my turn, oh my yes. “Tell us, Lauren. We can help end it.”

She walks until she gets to the corner of the room and leans against the wall, facing us. “Okay.”

Scully hits record.

“I don't know if you've ever been a secretary. Sometimes your boss can talk as if you weren't even in the room, which can hurt, you know? Sometimes... you're all he has to talk to. Which is how it was all the time with me and Howard. One night, late, I went into his office. He was crying, more scared than sad. The Pentagon contracts were being canceled, the company was going under, he felt personally responsible for each of his employees... seeing and feeling their fear every day... it really wore him down. Then this one time, Dorland came with that group... that Mid East group... Isfahan, that terrorist group. They'd buy parts at an outrageous price. Not just once, but for as long as they could get away with it. That night Howard was crying, he'd just found out the Isfahan had just claimed responsibility for killing a couple of sailors in Florida. He was never the same. And I thought that was why he killed himself. But he didn't... I saw ... Howard showed me how Dorland had him killed. Made it look like a suicide because he see Howard was going to put an end to the deal.”

Okay, so Dorland's the bad guy and Howard is trying to – what? “So now Howard is protecting you?”

“It sounds so ridiculous.”

Scully sees the benefit of playing along, at least. “But you believe it.”

“He was closer to me than my father. I told him that. I still feel his presence. Sometimes... I even smell his aftershave. If you just could've ... seen ... the things I've seen... I just... want all that to go away. I'm leaving. Maybe he can move on.”

Scully stands then, and moves to Lauren, and I'm sure it's over. But then she blows me away. “That's not enough. You've been given the chance to tell him again. Take it. Tell him you love him, by showing him, by... helping us finish his unfinished business. Lauren, how will you ever be able to rest if he never can?”

Holy Shit.

Holy Fucking Shit.

“Okay.”

Scully and Lauren nod at each other.

“I'm a mess. I'm um, going to wash up.” Lauren leaves to find a bathroom.

I'm peeling myself off the ceiling. “What are you doing Scully? You don't believe.”

“Mulder, there's no such thing as ghosts or psychokinesis. I'm sure there's an explanation. But I believe that she believes. And my priority is to get to her help us stop Dorland.”

Terrif. Still, she was willing to play along. Not that I have to let her get away with that explanation. “Well we may have just sacrificed our best opportunity to observe spectral phenomena.”

“I'm giving us a chance to solve a case that's tangible instead of chasing after shadows.” She leaves the room too.

Shadows?

Is that what I'm chasing?

I think I can live with that.

XXXXX

Scully gets us all a change of clothes while I recruit the agents we'll need. Man in Black shows up when they tell me my agents are assembled. Not a word of apology.

But he doesn't take over either.

I guess it's a start.

XXXXX

When we load them into the cars, I'm almost sure Lauren is going to bolt. But she doesn't. “You ready?” I ask her, and she nods.

Just nods.

Scully is the drill seargeant. “All right, everyone. We have a warrant to search the premises for evidence of the sale of restricted manufactured parts. The evidence may be in the form of falsified export licences, parts manifests, communiques. It could be on computer disks or hard copy.”

Man in Black also has something to say. “Once there, when in doubt, ask. We need this to be clean. This is the culmination of a year long investigation. If we don't come out of there today with something proving a connection to the Isfahan, this guy could walk.”

“Lets go,” Scully adds.

Scully turns to Lauren. “Now, it will most likely be in Dorland's office. We'll conduct the search, but we need you to guide us so we need you to be strong, okay?”

Scully's good at this part, I note.

We load into the cars and pull out for HTG.

XXXXX

Busting in is equally fun. Scully pulls out her badge and rounds everyone up. “Everybody stay calm. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Ma'am, could you step away from those files, please?”

She and Lauren go into Dorland's office, and I wait outside. And wait. While I'm waiting I fill fifteen boxes full of export paperwork, but there's nothing here.

Nothing incriminating.

Scully comes out of Dorland's office at one point and looks at me. The tiniest shake of her head tells me all I need to know.

Tan Suit (who is wearing purple today) and Man in Black come out with boxes too, but Dorland is standing there with the employees, calming everyone down.

“This is all we could find,” says Tan Suit.

It's not enough. “We don't have him. He's not even breaking a sweat.”

“Our case is blown. A wasted year. This guy is going to walk.” They leave.

Blevins is gonna kill me.

So I go into Dorland's office. Is putting fabric on the walls the new thing now? I wouldn't know. My walls are are solid sheetrock.

“Let's get out of here,” says Scully as she leaves with her own box.

Lauren is about to cry. “Lauren, it's over. We have to go. What we're looking for isn't here.” She smashes a picture in it's frame, and I'm tempted to join her. Unfortuneately, Dorland joins us right then too.

“Look! She isn't an agent. I don't want to be uncooperative or combative, but she has no right destroying my personal property.”

Lauren pulls a painting off the wall. “Lauren-” I begin.

“Destroying property? What about that van that blew up and killed those servicemen?”

“Oh, I don't know what you're talking about you stupid bitch!” She rushes at him with a letter opener. Great.

“Lauren, No!” I go to stop her -

But Howard beats me to it.

“He'll kill him. Help us find it!” Lights begin exploding and a tornado moves in. I can hear Scully yelling outside, papers fly through the air, and Lauren's letter opener flies directly into a fabric covered wall. It slides downward, revealing a computer disc.

Buried in the wall.

Nice.

“My God.”

Scully has a talent for understatement.

I walk to the wall and pull out the disc.

“I guess what we're looking for is here,” I tell her, and I hope she understands that what I just saw had to be a ghost.

Had to.

XXXXX

Lauren leaves town the next day. We stop by to see her and she's loading up the car at ten o'clock at night. Scully doesn't even bother to try to talk her out of it.

“The US Attorney's office is going after Dorland with everything they've got. Including the murder of Howard Graves,” she tells Laurent instead, which is what we came to tell her anyway.

“I'll come back to testify.”

I get that.

“Where are you going?” I ask her as I help her get the box in the trunk.

“Away from here.” Must be the last box, because she gets in and starts the car. “Thanks.”

So much she could tell us. “Boy, she's in a rush to get out of here.”

“Out of here, or away from the ghost of Howard Graves?” We walk to the car.

Why is it so hard to believe? There's something I've always wondered about her. “Hey, Scully. Do you believe in the afterlife?”

“I'd settle for a life in this one.”

I guess it doesn't matter that she flirts with fifty year old photo lab techs and manipulates young women. She, like me, is just trying to get her life back.

However she can.

“Have you ever seen the liberty bell?”

“Yes.” We get in the car and buckle up.

“You know, I've been to Philadelphia a 100 times and I've never seen it.”

“You're not missing much. It's just a big bell with a big crack, and you have to wait in a long line.”

She wants a life. So do I. Maybe we can have a little piece of one.

“Yeah,” I pull the car into the street, “but I'd really like to go.”

“Why now?”

What am I supposed to say? It would take too long to articulate. Too many feelings. Too much that would have to be left unsaid.

And I don't know where to start.

“I don't know. How late do you think they stay open?”

Friday, September 26, 2008

Trying some ads. Click on me!


Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Okay...

This video is making quite a splash. Kill me now.


CERN Rap from Will Barras on Vimeo.

Ghostbusters!

So, they're writing Ghostbusters 3.

Yeah...

Personally, I'm a little frightened. Especially since the article I read on Sci-Fi Wire was... let's just say he forgot to proofread and leave it at that, so I'm a little fuzzy on the details. But Bill Murray's gonna be in it. Has he done anything lately? Do we remember him working at all in the last ten years? Because I'm drawing a blank.

Monday, August 25, 2008

My question for the day

I was watching Crossfire, which is about Odo realizing that Kira definitely isn't in love with him and he needs to pull out of her life and I was watching him turn away from Kira making out with Shakaar and it occurred to me - how does Odo see?

I mean, the way I see it there's two options. a)Odo sees with the eyes he makes. But that creates all sorts of problems when he's turned into a bag or a piece of the wall to spy on people - how does he see anything then? Or hear for that matter?

Yeah.

Okay, so b) Odo percieves everything from his entire surface space. But that creates problems too. What if he were gaseous? Liquid? And why would turning his eyes away from the distressing sight of Kira making out with Shakaar help him in any way? Because now he can see it out his elbow.

You see the problem?

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Water is Thicker than Blood

I was rewatching "Ties of Blood and Water" last night and I realized two things:
a) Major Kira's character has a lot more depth than when she was screaming at Sisko's desk in the first episode, and b) The Ghemor storyline was never fully fleshed out, which means there's a fanfic in there somewhere.

On a side note, if you've never seen the ep, I highly reccomend it. It's from DS9 season 5. It has Dukat, Weyoun, and a large helping of Kira. Sisko, Dukat, and Weyoun sit down to have a drink (of poisoned kanar), Nerys and Julian have a cute moment (the actors were married at the time), and it's really sweet and sad and all those things we love about DS9.

Monday, August 11, 2008

And Friday... Partial

Friday, August 8

The first guest this day before my birthday was Malcolm McDowell. What a guy. Just – what a guy. What a guy, what a guy, what a guy. He has an amazing presence, plus what he said about my question was just – perfection.

See, when they filmed Generations, Soran shot Kirk in the back. Wait, you say, didn't Kirk fall off a bridge? Well, yes, he did. See, people were upset by the whole shot-in-the-back thing, so they decided to reshoot so that Kirk fell off a bridge instead, because someone thought we'd like that better. Yeah-huh.

So, anyway, my question for Malcolm: “Originally, you shot Kirk in the back and he died.”

He was all, “Uh-huh.”

“And they changed it so he fell off a bridge.”

“Uh huh.”

I was waiting for a reaction, so I said, “So you went from being a murderer to manslaughter.”

“Who let her in here?!?!?!” he yelled.

When the laughter died down (go me!) I said, “How did you feel about that?”

“Well,” he said, “I thought it was pathetic.”

Booya. I got high-fived as I walked back to my seat.

He's not a Trekkie. He's actually a fan of 2001. I knew there had to be at least one out there. He says it took Sci-Fi from Flash Gordon to 2001. Never mind that Star Trek was in the middle of that. Lousy thing to say at a convention.

There was a lot of talk about Heroes, which he didn't want to do but his son was so excited that he did it anyway, and by the way, his character is not so wounded as we were led to believe.

There were lots of Clockwork Orange questions, which I've never read or seen but really should, but anyway his most challenging role was something called The Monster of Rostoff, in which he played a pedophile cannibal serial killer. Good grief.

He's a good villain.

A little side note – he made Time After Time with Nick Meyer (in which he did not play the villain) and met his wife on that film. Good deal. And if you don't know who Nick Meyer is, you suck.

Someone also asked him probably my favorite question, which you could tell he was unprepared for because he never really got it. “What would you do in Soran's place?” As in, if you had to kill 230 Million people to get your dead wife and children back, would you.

Jeepers.


Susie Plakson isn't my favorite, but she passes the time and she's tall. Really tall. Extremely tall. She's been launching a musical career, which is neat. And she's older than you'd think, is all I'll say there.

One amusing thing – did you know she was Selar? Selar and K'Eyhlar and SheQ and one of the Andorians. She beat Jeff Combs.

Anyway, she audidtioned for a doctor on Star Trek got it, and then they called her in to be measured for her ears. And that's how she learned she'd be playing a Vulcan.


I won't pretend I'm not bitter about Enterprise because that would be a lie, but Jolene Blalock, guys. Amazing.

I've always seen T'Pol as a big problem, not because of the character or actor but because she's so obviously there for the sex appeal. That said, she's so funny, so charming, and so much a fan that it just kills you.

She's been a fan her whole life.

I actually feel pity for her now – because she was the fan in the show that failed. Not that that was her fault, but what a horrible thing to have happen.

There were a lot of questions dealing with the Vulcan restraint. Leonard Nimoy has said often that he really felt repressed as Spock, that the character took a while to take off on the weekend and then he had to be back at work. She never consulted with Nimoy (“God, I wish.”), but she had a very different experience. Nimoy had to remain stoic all the time. Jolene, well...

“I was the one leaving hershey bars in Connor's toilet....and then I'd get outside and go, [crap]!, I forgot the saran wrap!”

Yeah.

She didn't feel it like Nimoy, I think, but she did have dreams about doing Hamlet in her living room in T'Pol's catsuit, and yes, she did say catsuit.

There was one that became a running thing: “If you were in the desert, would you want Archer or Trip with you?”

Trip.

Yay! My shipper heart beats faster. She indicated that she was in favor of that particular ship, too, so good on her. I mean, she certainly seemed enthusiastic.

She wasn't a big fan of the Xindi arc – maybe if it had been more about Enterprise than the Xindi, that would be different. But it wasn't. Manny made the show better, she said. No argument here. He took the shows and took risks and they “started to bend and mold and shift.”

Yes, they did. And the most telling statement:

“Berman had a formula from TNG and it carried over to the next incarnations...first two seasons he just would not bend, would not budge.”

Which is what I've been saying for years.

She would be open to being in the new movies – T'Pol should still be alive then.

I can't say I'd object.

“My biggest influence is James Cagney...everything I do is in homage to Jimmy Cagney.”
-Malcolm McDowell

“There's nothing wrong with doing six scenes and having the world hate you.”
-Malcolm McDowell, on playing villains

“If I was gay, I probably would have married him.”
-Malcolm McDowell on Colin Firth

“Only through science fiction do you pose the question, 'what if-?'... only the sci-fi genre divides the lines between us.”
-Jolene Blalock

“Berman had a formula from TNG and it carried over to the next incarnations...first two seasons he just would not bend, would not budge.”
-Jolene Blalock

On Thursday...

Thursday, August 7

I started out with Rigel and Patrick Woida, who designed the Phoenix lander. That was cool from an intellectual capacity, but it wasn't exactly layman-friendly. There were some neat pictures, which I think you can get on the web, and a lot of humor about the ice they found on Mars, which they're very excited about. Anyway, like I said, fun, not hugely layman friendly.

However...

Grace Lee Whitney, dude. Wow. What an amazing person to have onstage, even with two co-guests. She really has a grip on herself now, despite the problems she had at the time, and she was just amazing to listen to. Her wig that she wore – that got stolen. We'll discuss that later. She was onstage with Michael Forrest (Apollo) and Sandra Smith (Janice Lester), who were also wonderful. Sandra Smith especially – I've often thought she made a better Kirk than Shatner did.


The Okudas were also there. I missed them last year, which was a mistake. They talked about the process of TOS Remasterd and showed some great footage. Their production work was something like this:

1.Watch ep and take notes
2.Meet and rewatch ep
3.play with starship toys
4.order pizza
5.eat pizza
6.meet with CBS
7.digital work revised over the internet

Sounds complicated.

“The Menagerie”, with the dome shot, was one that they had to force the people at CBS digital to look at ahead of time, and when they did they went “Oh, crap,” or something to that effect. I can see why. It's not exactly a common shot for today, much less in 1964 when they shot it.

They also talked about why it was needed, and I have to admit that that reason is fine with me. I always hated TOS Remastered when people were talking just for the hell of it, but it is pretty. Veeeery pretty. Doesn't change much. Okay, I lied. It changes a lot of little things. Just look at Murasaki 312 before and after. We'll live.

They added some things that weren't shown (the Gorn ship in Arena) and clarified things that were just blurs of light (Mudd's ship in “Mudd's Women”). All okay.

One thing I was not onboard with was the changing of the tombstone in Where No Man to “James T. Kirk”. We've been knocking that around for years, and now they want to come in with a magic eraser and fix it? They debated, and waffled back and forth, and finally asked the fans at a convention, who wanted to do it – but they ran out of time and couldn't. Which I'm fine with. Actually more than fine, thanking God.

I've often thought about the look of the NX-01. It's crap, and I mean that in the nice way. It doesn't look like a pre-1701 ship. It just doesn't. More on that later too, but anyway, I got the Okudas to answer my question about that. Their answer – it just rocked my world. I was so upset with them, for so long, and now, well... I still am. But at the same time, I'm not.

See, apparently, it wasn't actually more futuristic. They were shooting for something that resembles the style we have today evolving toward the tech level of TOS, and keeping in mind that in TOS they had no idea what computers were going to be capable of. Now that doesn't excuse Archer's ready room (Kirk didn't get no stinkin' ready room), but it does make me relax a little bit about their intentions. But that's not all. The best is yet to come.

Had Enterprise run all seven years, we would have seen their display panels evolve toward the blinky pattern of TOS. They were so concerned with continuity, they studied the panel blinking on TOS. But that's not the best part.

No the best part is a quote from Michael Freaking Okuda: “Since you're asking that question... we obviously weren't entirely successful.”

Holy. Freaking. Shit.

He doesn't say, “I'm sorry,” but I'll call it an apology. Which was all I wanted.

“The last year,” Denise added, “was actually a gift.”

I couldn't agree more.

Brent Spiner and Marina Sirtis were next, and they were amazingly funny. Brent is such a crackup. What I love is hearing them joke about Patrick Stewart, and how Brent is trying to be him (not really). Marina said at one point that he could do it if he'd just start dating 28-year-olds. Ouch. Marina sang Avril Lavine (I know I spelled that wrong) and then took a question from a woman who had named her son “Patrick James Tiberius Kirk”. Marina's response? “Oh my God, what did you do to your child?!?!”
Brent just wanted to know if she'd considered “Brent Data Spot”?

My cat's name is Genesis Spot.

But I digress.

They took a question from someone who was nineteen. (She was an embryo when we started!) and were asked to go into character a bit and do some improv, but they couldn't just do that. Finally Marina says, “Captain, he's hiding something,” and Brent did the head twitch. You had to be there, maybe.

One of the best questions was for Brent: how did you play Data so serious when you're so funny?

Answer? “I faked it!” Which is pretty much my whole philosophy of confidence. If you don't know how to do something, just pretend you do, or you know you can learn, and then go out and get the For Dummies book. That simple.

Anyway, it turns out someone stole the Troi wig too. What is it with wig security at Paramount! Ugh!

I'd love to love Rod Roddenberry, but he's just not being loveable. He comes and talks about Roddenberry.com, he's not funny ever. This time he brought his friend Trevor, who is his co-conspirator on Roddenberry.com and that was better, plus his mom was there briefly. She is not looking well, but then she's gotta be about eighty. She was in a wheelchair and looks very thin – but you can still see Number One, and Nurse Chapel, and definitely Lwaxana.

Anyway, Rod was annoying me there too, because he was running interference for her. Is she really so feeble that she can't answer questions put to her? Her answers, when she got a word in edgewise, wouldn't indicate that at all. And yet she's been doing this longer than Rod's been alive, why would he run interference for her now?

It worries me.

They snuck her off the stage during the showing of a video and part of me wonders if we'll ever see her again at a convention. What was sad was that there weren't many questions for her – and yes, I did ask one. Rod spent five minutes making me repeat it while she tried to answer in the background. It was frustrating.

Garrett Wang was up next, and he was really hilarious, just like I always thought he'd be. Okay, so I still have a liiiitle crush. Anyway, he had great stories, one I just love about George Takei and a similar one about Kate Mulgrew. He complained about Harry's lack of promotion, and then he told a story about meeting someone named Harry Kim who was, at one point, Ensign Harry Kim. In the Navy. Our Navy. Too cool.

He wanted to have Endgame to To Be Continued. Yeah, I think many of us, despite the years of torture by such masterpieces as “Shattered” and “The 37s” would have liked that too, given the actual ending of Endgame. Then make a TV movie or something.

Anyway, there was another story about Jeri Ryan's elbow and one about Pon Farr that I'll probably write up later. Just trust me, hilarious.

Great quotes of the day:

“Some of them I'm not enamored of.”
-Michael Forrest on Shakespeare's plays

“We love the originals – Star Trek was the first.”
-Michael Okuda

“Look, if you feel this strongly about it, why don't you come onboard. Otherwise, don't complain.”
-Dave Rossi, as quoted by Michael Okuda, after Michael had turned down TOS Remastered but then listed about 8 billion things they had to do.

“...maybe we weren't entirely successful.”
-Michael Okuda, on trying to make the NX-01 look less futuristic than the 1701.

“The last year [of Enterprise] was actually a gift.”
-Denise Okuda

“Shouldn't it be Doctor Whom?”
-Brent Spiner, on Doctor Who

“Between [Brent] and his CD and Michael Dorn and his airplane it's a wonder I can get a word in edgewise.”
-Marina Sirtis

“Star Trek will live because – look around you.”
-Majel Barrett Roddenberry

“Star Trek is Gene Roddenberry's. No one else's.”
-Majel Barrett Roddenberry

“Ensign Kim is the love child of Uhura and Data.”
-Garrett Wang

I'd just also like to say that I was gifted during this weekend by the incredible generosity of the Trekkies at this convention. They made it possible for me to do things like go to the strip and visit the Experience (for the last time ever), and I am eternally grateful.

What do you do if the matter/antimatter containment fails?

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1683878951/bctid1691247585

That's a video of some guy at comic-con asking JJ Abrams and Bob Orci one question.

He got a good one.

It's spoiler-free. More of a Trek knowledge one.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Hey, guess what!

Really briefly becaue I found a wifi spot but forgot my notebook - I got the Okudas to answer The Question, I addressed Majel Barrett Roddenberry, I got within touching distance of George Takei, and now I discover that not only do I share a birthday with Gillian Anderson - I share one with Eric Bana as well. How cool is that!

I'll be posting a more complete thing... just...later. I have to go to the convention now. Yay!

Monday, August 4, 2008

Now I'm Angry

I love Rose Tyler. Like, a lot. She was an awesome character and I love wearing hoodies because of her, m'kay? If that's stupid, so be it. Also, I was a huuuuge Ten/Rose fan, so... yeah.

And then here comes Steven Moffat, the new head Doctor Who guy (I know I'm new to the show, but who cares, it's awesome, which is probably why I never watched it sooner - I got hook-ed) Anyway, he says, and I quote, "You have to hand it to the Doctor for dumping a slightly needy girlfriend by palming her off on a copy of himself."

Way to bring in the Ten/Rose fans, Moffat old chap!