Nerd Culture- Sherlock

Nerd Culture-Sherlock

By Brenna Roberts, Grade 11

          Today, I will be talking to you about BBC’s Sherlock, which is absolutely brilliant. I’m not entirely sure about how well know it is, as my ‘circles’ are well versed in...well...pretty much all nerd areas, actually. Outside of that, however, I’m not sure of how popular this miniseries is. My guess is most of you have heard of it at least, even if you haven’t watched it, as at this year’s Emmys, the first episode of it's second season - "A Scandal in Belgravia", was nominated for several awards.

          In 2010, a total of three 90-minute episodes were aired as season one, created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, based on the popular novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. What they did though, was quite clever. The series is based in a modern-day London, and it portrays a Sherlock (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) that fits into the modern era (well...sort of), making full use of all the new technology and methods that are available to us now. They also pull in other main characters from the books, including, of course, John Watson, played by Martin Freeman (look for him in the Hobbit!), James Moriarty (Andrew Scott), Mycroft Holmes (Mark Gatiss), Irene Adler (Lara Pulver), Detective Inspector Lestrade (Rupert Graves), and a whole host of other names one might recognize have they read the books. It’s very cleverly done, and the casting is absolutely brilliant. Everyone plays their roles extremely well; they really just fit into the whole story seamlessly. The dialogue is witty, and the way they’ve blended the plots into modern day London is flawless. If you’re a fan of the books, and you’ve read them all, you will even find references to the story lines not portrayed on screen hidden in the dialogue. For instance, in the finale of season 2, called The Reichenbach Fall, Jim Moriarty keeps referring to the Final Problem, the Sherlock Holmes short story where Sherlock and Moriarty actually die, going over the cliff of the Reichenbach Falls (except, then Sherlock wasn’t actually dead, because, even in the 1800s, fangirls were forces to be reckoned with!).

          The plot-lines of the episodes are very intricate and amazingly clever, keeping it simple enough to understand but complicated enough to keep you on your toes and guessing at every corner. Blended together with an old fashioned soundtrack; that, though one may expect to clash with the era they’ve set it in, works beautifully; the episodes have a quality of fast paced excitement, that at the same time isn’t loud and in your face, as some intense detective show music tends to be.

          So far there have been 6 episodes, each an hour and a half long, as in accordance with the British miniseries formula, for a total of two seasons. The first season was more of an intro, with John and Sherlock meeting for the first time, solving cases, showing off what they are like as people and how Sherlock goes about doing things; and also the establishment of Moriarty as being the ‘big bad’ in the end of the season. They explore the concepts and methods Sherlock uses, and they display magnificently how technology plays a significant role in the series. In Season Two, the stakes were a lot higher, now that Sherlock and John have come face to face with the infamous Devil in Westwood, Jim Moriarty and lived to tell the tale. As the first episode progresses, it becomes apparent that Moriarty isn’t going to leave Sherlock alone, in fact the words from the finale of Season 1 ‘I will burn you, Sherlock. I will burn theheart out of you,’ becomes that much more terrifying. But I won’t give too much away- I wouldn’t want to spoil the fun.

          Should you wish to dive into this fandom (and I highly recommend you do), just be warned. The gaps between seasons will drive you insane. The hiatus between seasons one and two was a grand total of a year and a half, and now it’s been almost a seven months since season 2 left us with the most unbearably painful cliffhanger. It has been rumoured that season 3 will be airing in August of next year, but no one has confirmed anything.

          Sherlock, quite simply, is brilliant, and if you haven’t seen it, you now have your next six hours planned out for you. Have fun.

UPDATES!

· 53 days until The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,

· 193 days until Iron Man 3,

· 382 days until Thor: The Dark World,

· 417 day until the Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,

· 529 days until Captain America: The Winter Soldier (The Starks would love this guy...),

· 634 days until The Hobbit: There and Back Again,

· 921 days until the Avengers 2,

· And at least 12 years until the next season of Sherlock. Because Moffat likes to put us through pain and agony on a daily basis. But we love him anyway.


Quote of the day! “Look at their brilliant beards!”

~Rory Pond


Nerd Music! This isn’t nerd music, but hey, whatever. That’s fine. No one minds. Try out some ‘Of Monsters and Men’ because they’re awesome and I’ve been listening to them all week.

Le Gran Escape:

Deuces

Written by Chris S.

Cell- Room where a prisoner is locked up

Cell- Structural and functional units of all living organisms

Genius, isn't it?

Escape. It's time. The bent spoon lies sorry next to the hastily concealed tunnel you've dug, the mountain of dirt hidden in your digestion tracts. You steal a quick glance at the cell bars for one last glimpse, before diving in the cruddy shaft, and burrowing faster than you’re capable of... Cramp. Cramp cramp cramp. You clench your teeth tightly, as the passage sags and dust falls. Sound of guards patrolling overhead pauses the pain. Before you start crawling even faster now, beads of sweat roll down your face mingling with the tears. Being discovered now... Too grizzly a fate to fathom. A field-trip in the sucrose chambers, perhaps. Or worse. Pinpricks of light appear in the distance, before slowly expanding into a hole. You climb out, eyes adjusting to the cheap glare. You dust yourself off, before hobbling down the corridors, posters of once-were boy bands and female itches adorning the immaculate walls. The tripped-out sighs of chemically satisfied inmates fill your ears, as a faint buzzing approaches over your shoulder and...

“We caught up with your buddy, it's gonna be alright.” Pain. Writhe. Through dilated pupils, you spot the prison guards- yuppies, by the look of the Armani suits and android cell phones, speaking into radios. They roll you over, your fat bloated frame landing heavily. The game is up. There is no escape.

“Yes, sir we've caught 110112, we're on our way back...” The clean-shaven brute replied. “Regular capitale, a week force-feeding in the canteen before another in the hole...”

No care for what they shared after. No nothing. Until he looked at me through his rose-tinted frames. Would he feel sorry? Sympathy... He read me my rights.

“As a valued customer, we treasure you and your relationship between Indus. Inc and....”

Mall moles. Pixel junkies. Sucrose teddyboys. SWAG lemmings and auto-tune fiends. You have all been sleeping.

Wake up

Nerd Culture-The Avengers

Nerd Culture-The Avengers

By Brenna Roberts, Grade 11

                I don’t know how many people missed all the commotion in April/May about the Avengers movie, but it can’t be that many. For those of you who did, well you must have been living under a rock, or in Vladivostok or somesuch because it was everywhere. For those of you who have no idea what the Avengers are,  just think of the Marvel’s equivalent of the Justice League. I cry a little bit inside for the ones who are giving me that look, like I’m growing a second head or something. Let me explain at little more for those unfortunate souls.

There are two major comic book companies, Marvel and DC. Marvel does X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Avengers, and much, much more, obviously. DC owns Superman, Batman, the Flash, Green Lantern, the Justice League, etc. DC comics had the brilliant idea of having all of their most well-loved characters be in a team together, in a comic book series called the Justice League of America, where they worked as a team to take down the villains they could not take alone. A couple years later, Marvel, seeing how big a success the JLA was becoming, decided to run with the idea of a superhero team too, and so they banded together of all of their main characters, and thus the Avengers were born. Since then there have been the New Avengers, the Mighty Avengers, the Dark Avengers, and coming up soon will be the Uncanny Avengers, with a roster mixed between X-Men and Avengers. The team has also appeared in 2 cartoon series, 3 animated films, and the live-action film that I’m trying to get around to talking about here.

Now back to the original topic. Marvel decided to take their team and make a live-action movie with them. They did a huge lead up, releasing movies for Thor and Captain America, and a second Iron Man. What with the amazing job they did with all the publicity, The Avengers must have been the most highly anticipated movie of 2012. Originally the idea was met my scepticism, because of the issue of trying to balance having multiple main heroes on screen. However, I was very impressed. They managed it beautifully (because everything Joss Whedon touched is GOLD), balancing the dynamics of 6 completely different heroes, thrown together in a rather undesirable situation. It’s quite possibly the best use of 143 minutes of your time. If you’re going to watch it though, I would advise watching Thor and Captain America, because certain aspects of their plotlines are very significant in the Avengers. The casting was done perfectly, the actors’ portrayals of their characters were amazing, and don’t even get me started on the costume design. It was done perfectly. <<Editor’s note: Hi! Because I’m a huge Marvel fan, I’m going to interject and expand on this. Not only were the acting and costumes incredible, but so was the screenplay, and the directing. A lot of superhero movies fall victim to terrible puns, awkward moments between characters, and fight scenes that drag on and get a tad boring(Just an opinion), but the writers of The Avengers did an impressive job of making sure that never happened. And expanding on Joss Whedon’s superb direction of this movie, I would just like to point out that during a battle sequence, Hawkeye runs out of arrows. Can we all just take a moment to appreciate this? How many battle scenes have we sat through going ‘Oh come on dude, seriously! You should be out of arrows! Or ‘Golly jee you’ve invented never ending bullet magazines! Seriously?!?” The believability that was achieved with this superhero movie was one of the things that made it a great for all ages to enjoy!>>

 I realize this has been me just ranting about how amazing the movie was, but I don’t want to give away any plot spoilers for those who haven’t watched it, so I do apologize. Maybe once you’ve all seen it I’ll expand!

UPDATES!

·         67 days until The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,

·         207 days until Iron Man 3,

·         396 days until Thor: The Dark World,

·         431 day until the Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,

·         543 days until Captain America: The Winter Soldier (The Starks would love this guy...)

·         648 days until The Hobbit: There and Back Again,

·         935 days until the Avengers 2,

·         And at least 12 years until the next season of Sherlock. Because Moffat likes to put us through pain and agony on a daily basis. But we love him anyway.

Quote of the day! “You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weed?”

~Tony Stark to Bruce Banner

Nerd Music!: Theme song for Avengers-Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. It is the most badass theme song for a children’s cartoon ever.

Nerd Culture-Doctor Who

Nerd Culture-Doctor Who

By Brenna Roberts, Grade 11

                DOOOOOOOOOOOOWEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... Ah, the Doctor Who theme. So classic. Doctor Who is the longest running sci-fi TV show, airing from 1963 to 1989, and then again from 2005 to the present. Currently, we are in the middle of the 7^th season (counting from the 2005 reboot), except Steven Moffat, the head writer, being the HORRIBLE person he is, cut the season in half. So the last episode of the first half aired on Saturday, and then we’ll have a Christmas special to make sure we don’t go absolutely crazy before the rest of the season airing, probably at some point in the spring of 2013.

I fully realize that there is absolutely no way possible to explain Doctor Who and sound like a sane person, but I will do my best. In my defense though, on Doctor Who they can do absolutely anything and have it make sense- there is nothing that cannot be put into this TV series. Anyways, let us begin.

Basically, the protagonist of this show is an alien, more specifically a Timelord, from the planet Gallifrey. No one knows his real name, but he just goes by ‘the Doctor’, as he likes to help people. He looks completely human, but the differences are that he possesses almost all of the knowledge of the universe, has two hearts, and can regenerate. Originally, a Timelord would only have 12 regenerations, for a total of 13 faces, but they’ve apparently subtly changed that so he now has infinite regenerations (I mean come on, it’s not like we would accept Doctor Who ever being over!). When a Timelord regenerates, they change over every single cell in their body, completely altering their physical appearance. In our world, this means they change the actor playing the Doctor. Ingenious, no?

Throw a crazy time machine into the mixture, the ship that the Doctor owns is called the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimensions In Space), and you’ve got your typical Doctor Who episode. The TARDIS appears as a blue police box from around 1963, but it’s bigger on the inside, with bedrooms, libraries, wardrobes, and even a pool. This machine can travel through all of space and time, and is the preferred method of time travel for all Timelords.

So now we get into the plotline. Pretty much what happens is that he finds an exceptional human (usually a gorgeous woman), and they become his ‘companion’ when he travels. They go around from planet to time period to time period on a different planet, doing lots of running and saving people, cities, and knowledge from destruction. Since the reboot in 2005, it has been revealed that the Doctor is now the last of his race (other Timelords appeared in the 1963-89 seasons), having sealed them away to prevent their war with the Daleks (we’ll get to them) from escalating across the entire universe. So he’s alone, and consequently rather angsty sometimes.

Villains are always the best bit of anything. The Doctor fights against a lot of monsters, but there are really only two main ones you really have to worry about. Others are recurring, but these are the big two. First off is the Master. He’s a Timelord who managed to escape the Time Vortex that the Doctor placed around Gallifrey by becoming human (yes, that can happen) and hiding himself at the end of the universe (literally). He’s rather insane, and has tried many times to destroy the human race, but The Doctor can’t bring himself to get rid of him, as he doesn’t want to be the last Timelord again. I won’t say anymore about him, to avoid spoilers. The next villain is an entire race, the Daleks. They are the ones that wander around going “EXTERMINATE!” all the time. Google image them. They’re hilarious. Daleks aren’t particularly scary looking, but they can be creepy when it counts. They are the Doctor’s arch-enemy so to speak, and the reason the Doctor was forced to place the Time Vortex around Gallifrey- to stop the Time War between Daleks and Timelords. There is quite possibly nothing the Doctor hates more than a Dalek.

That is all for your Doctor Who education (or at least for today). Now, should you choose to get into this fandom, remember. Fezzes are cool. You are called a Whovian, not a Dweek. Moffat is evil (but we love him anyway) and will kill ALL THE THINGS. Last of all, screwdrivers can always be a little more sonic. Enjoy!

UPDATES!

·         6 days until Pokémon Black/White 2,

·         74 days until The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,

·         403 days until Thor: The Dark World,

·         438 day until the Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,

·         550 days until Captain America: The Winter Soldier (The Starks would love this guy...),

·         655 days until The Hobbit: There and Back Again,

·         942 days until the Avengers 2,

·         And at least 12 years until the next season of Sherlock. Because Moffat likes to put us through pain and agony on a daily basis. But we love him anyway.

Quote of the day! “Is there a word for total screaming genius that sounds modest and a tiny bit sexy?”

~Oswin Oswald

Nerd Music! Just to stay on the theme here, try out Chameleon Circuit for some timelord rock.