Thanks to the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, I get to see the new episodes of Doctor Who the same day they air in Britain. Yes, I have that power. With great power comes great responsibility; I consider it my responsibility, my solemn duty, to tell all of you people exactly what I think of it, so that you can think just the same.

It's good.

There. I'm glad I had a chance to share that with you.

But seriously, folks...

The second episode, 'The End of the World', was a vast improvement on the first. The third episode, 'The Unquiet Dead', was in turn a vast improvement on that. It's very possible that next week's episode, 'Dalek', might be better still. We live in exciting times.

I enjoyed 'The End of the World' because it took an ordinary contemporary character and threw her completely out of her element: out of ordinary life, into a far future almost devoid of humans, where her very planet itself is about to come to an end. I liked it because it told the audience that Pepsi and reality television and shops and menial jobs and all these horrid crushing soul-sapping and above all trivial and banal things with which our poor lives are packed fundamentally do not matter. That's a message I can get behind. The world, or the universe, or the cosmos, or life, or whatever you like to call the Big Everything, is so much bigger and more marvellous than everyday life would lead you to believe. Carl Sagan knew that, and he ran around with a bong and a plastic spaceship and gave the world Cosmos. Russell Davies seems to know it too, and he gave the world a story about a girl from the absolute ass-end of boredom who suddenly finds herself with an all-access pass to an entire universe she never realised existed.

It's almost Gnostic, really.

I loved 'The Unquiet Dead' for the sheer style of the thing. It's an honestly beautiful piece of television; the opening sequence in particular just makes me go all wobbly. The segue into the theme music...Magnificent. The episode managed to be funny and creepy at the same time, and reinforced the same liberating message: that we are not just trapped into our cycle of food and sleep and shit and pain and death, that there is more to life than waiting for it to end, that there are fantastic things worth learning and worth doing if only we're willing to look beyond the boundaries we set ourselves. And zombies menace Charles Dickens.

'The End of the World' and 'The Unquiet Dead' are, I contend, genuinely good television, as well as being good Doctor Who. I wouldn't be ashamed to show them to a non-fan; in fact, I have. My roommate just eats it up. So much so that he's gone on to consume episodes of the 'classic' series as well. And he's what you'd call a pretty highbrow chap. I'll have him starting flamewars over UNIT dating before summertime, you mark my words.

The fourth episode, 'Aliens of London', did not quite live up, I thought, to the standards of its predecessors. There were some good bits in it. Like the space pig. I happen to like the space pig. A pig in a space suit sounds like some kind of horrible embarassing joke. One that isn't particularly funny. And that's exactly what it is, in the story. Like the farting. Unlike the farting, the space pig only happened once. The farting and farting and farting got a bit...well. As you'd expect, probably. Still, the Slitheen were nice beasties, with their dead baby faces, very Terry Gilliam I thought. Most of what went wrong with 'Aliens of London' is down, I think, to the directing or the editing. It never managed to build up any sense of tension. The cliffhanger hung on far too long.

The sequel, 'World War III', was an improvement. The plot didn't make all that much sense, and the resolution via Internet hackery was, I confess, silly. But the plot's hardly the point, is it? Lots of monsters and running around, and Penelope Wilton's character suddenly starts to work, and the Doctor spouts defiance in the very face of villainy. And the Iraq references. God, the Iraq bits just made my weekend. They weren't what you'd call subtle, at all. You could hardly call it satire. It was blunt as a proverbial spoon. The aliens are trying to provoke a human strike against an imaginary threat they claim has 'massive weapons of destruction' capable of being launched in 45 seconds.

"Do you think they'll believe him?"

"Well, you did last time."

Really, that moment made the whole thing. Subtle as a brick to the balls, I know, but the Iraq war was such a complete and unmitigated travesty that subtlety would frankly be wasted. You've no idea how wonderful it was for me, trapped in this bloodthirsty snakepit they call America, to hear someone on television finally admit that without flinching. Loud and proud for all the world to hear!

That moment, and Penelope Wilton's character at the very end. Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North, a silly ordinary old woman rising up to do great things, infused with the awesome power of representative democracy. The heroes of the story are all ordinary people, not statesmen and generals. Not uniformed quasi-fascists as in Star Trek. Not even magical supergirls, as in Buffy. Just people. Even this new Doctor, when all is said and done, is just an ordinary guy (from another planet), an ordinary guy who slipped the bounds of stifling orthodoxy and humdrum routine and became something wonderful. This is the fundamental narrative: ordinary people becoming extraordinary, willing to lay down their lives for ordinary people and for the hope of something better.

And Lawrence Miles agrees.

It's about hope.

And next week, exterminating Americans. God, I'm so excited for 'Dalek'. So very very excited.

The other day, I was doing my best to pass a group of LaRouchies while keeping my eyes down and my mouth shut, all peaceful and quiet-like. They can't take a hint, though. One of them told me I looked like some kind of 'revolutionary' and suggested they could help me with that somehow. Must be my new tough-as-nails denim jacket.

I told them I had it covered, thanks.

Then another one of them chimed in...

'Are you God?'

I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, so I told him I was and kept walking.

As we all know..."When someone asks you if you're a god, you say yes!"

As my first act as an official divinity, I forgive all your sins. Feel the love, baby.

My Unitarian Jihad name: Brother Spikey Mace of Warm Humanitarianism.

It fits.

This is a bit strange, no?

ST. JOHN'S, NFLD. - All offshore oil platforms on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland are being evacuated before a U.S. missile test that could shower the area with debris. Offshore oil platform.

The U.S. air force will launch a Titan IV rocket on Monday from Cape Canaveral. The debris – including a 10-tonne solid rocket booster – is expected to fall near the Hibernia platform.

Non-essential workers are being removed on Thursday, while remaining staff will leave over the weekend.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams said he and federal officials are attempting to persuade the U.S. air force to delay the launch of the rocket, or to change its trajectory.

"As soon as we were aware of it, we got on to it immediately," Williams told reporters Thursday afternoon.

The evacuation involves the gravity-based structure at Hibernia and the floating platform at Terra Nova.

The drill rig GSF Grand Banks, which is working at the White Rose field, is being towed from the area.

The Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board said Hibernia's operators have been advised that debris may fall within about 27 kilometres of the platform.

Fred Way, the chief executive officer of the petroleum board, described the evacuation as "precautionary."

About 245 people work at a time at Hibernia, which is located about 350 kilometres east of St. John's.

Another 80 people work at the Terra Nova platform in a shift.

Oops. I spoke too soon. The story's been changed, and the launch postponed. Macleans.ca has more:

"This just simply can't happen," said Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams, who was briefed on the problem Thursday by the provincial offshore petroleum board.

Williams said Hibernia, the Terra Nova development and the drilling rig Glomar Grand Banks are all in the area.

"I don't think the Americans were aware, or had really thought it through, as to how close this was to the Hibernia platform," Williams said following two urgent phone conversations with Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan and a call to Frank McKenna, Canada's new ambassador to Washington.

"That has to be the case. Why would they drop a piece of space debris out of the sky and take a chance that it happens to be 15 miles in the right spot? If it's off, it could obviously have very serious consequences."

...

But the shutdowns could have had a significant economic impact, taking up to two weeks to return to maximum capacity again, Williams said, at a cost of $250 million.

What the devil is the Air Force playing at? Why on Earth is a Titan IV passing over that area in the first place? Is the DoD putting a satellite into a polar orbit?

A site called Spaceflight Now, which keeps track of launches and suchlike, indicates that the rocket is a Titan 4B, launching something for the National Reconnaissance Office:

Launch period: Exact time is classified but liftoff will happen sometime between 8 and 10:30 p.m. EDT Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

The Lockheed Martin Titan 4B, known as B-30, will launch a classified payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. The launch will be run by the U.S. Air Force. Launch delayed from Dec. 18, 2001 and July 3, 2002. It was then transferred from the original launch site of Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, to Cape Canaveral. Delayed from October 2004. Delayed from Feb. 20 due to payload issue. Delayed from April 6. Delayed from April 10 due to ground equipment troubles. [April 5]

Seems very likely the satellite is destined for a polar orbit, then. The original launch site, Vandenberg AFB, as far as I know, just does ICBM tests and polar launches. It's probably quite a large satellite, as the Titan 4B is a heavy-lift booster. Could be a weather satellite, I suppose. As it's the NRO, it could also be some form of spy satellite. As it's classified, one can't help but suspect the latter.

This probably isn't a big deal at all, apart from the brainless fuck-up of dumping debris near something important...But given the current regime's interest in weaponising space, it might be prudent to keep a close eye on such things.

UPDATE (4/10): Not a polar orbit. Probably something like 57 degrees inclination. The mission was originally intended to launch from Vandenberg...Perhaps it was destined for a different orbit before? Or perhaps you can get it to the same orbit from either place. I suppose I could try to find out, but...I'm lazy.

....Okay, I checked. Titan rockets have been launched from Vandenberg, putting reconnaissance satellites into an orbit with inclination 57 degrees.

Pope John Paul II is dead, but do not despair, o my children! For it is all part of Nature's great plan. We weep, but our grief is tempered with a sort of joyous expectancy, for we realise that death is not the end for a Pope...God still has much in store for the Holy Father.

The papacy, you see, is simply one stage in the life-cycle of the Christ. Popes, simple grazing beasts, live on a diet of hosts, plentiful in their natural habitat. These hosts are made of the body of Christ; over the years of a Pope's life, this Christ-essence accumulates in the gastro-intestinal tract, producing Christ-eggs. These eggs are incubated within the Pope, who produces a steady stream of bulls and encyclicals to provide these eggs with the heat and sanctity they require to hatch at last into little larval Christs. These migrate from the gastro-intestinal tract into the heart, kidneys, and brain. This incubation period can take, in extraordinary cases, over twenty years, although the average has been found to be approximately seven and a half. The larval Christs then begin to draw their nourishment directly from the Pope, hollowing him out to form a chrysalis within which the tiny baby Jesuses, having achieved their pupal form, can safely metamorphose. As his flesh and organs are eaten away, the Pope may begin to show some signs of distress. It is vitally important that his life be preserved by any means possible, at the cost of any shred of dignity, peace, or pleasure the Pope may retain, lest the pupal Christs be disturbed before their metamorphosis is complete. When the pupae are ready at last, the remaining shreds of Pope give up their feeble grasp on life, which is where we stand today.

In a manner of weeks or possibly even days, the imago Christs will be ready to move on to the next stage in their life-cycle.

A clutch of tiny little baby Jesuses will eat their way out of the old Pope to bring us all salvation and the love of the Immortal Father.

Then they will be ground into a fine meal and baked into more hosts.

The great journey of life continues!