text:
Last night's episode of Fringe was far out, far around, and far down. The show returned to its acid-dropping roots, and everything was dreamy. But was it any good? We apply the acid test.
Spoilers below...
I'm going to come clean: I hate "going inside someone's head" episodes. I hate them for the same reason I hate holodeck episodes and "visiting the dream world" episodes. (Although I liked Inception, and I also liked the Buffy season four finale. So I'm not made of stone here.)
Generally, though, these sorts of episodes tend to offer really glib attempts at psychoanalysis, paired with "nothing is real" hijinks. (And they're often done on the cheap, especially when a show uses its regular sets to stand in for someone's subconscious mind.)
So how did "Lysergic Acid Diethylamide" compare to the "Sloan's unconscious mind looks like Deep Space Nine" episode and other similar gems? Pretty well, I guess... it gains points for its daring use of cartoons and other experimental motifs. (Although the cartoons were probably just necessitated by the fact that they couldn't get Leonard Nimoy back in the flesh.)
I guess the thing that's keeping me from whole-heartedly loving last night's episode is that the whole "William Bell takes over Olivia's brain" storyline felt unusually half-baked and boring, and an unnecessary detour from all the fascinating storylines the show has left up in the air. Now that it's over, I'm still not sure what that storyline accomplished, other than to throw out a couple new random plot threads.
So William Bell's whole plan was to take over Olivia's body temporarily, and then port his consciousness over to the body of a brain-dead patient. But this second procedure, with a portly bearded man covered with ice cubes, fails to work – and then Bellivia has a seizure and nearly dies. It turns out emergency measures are needed to keep Olivia's consciousness from getting lost, forever.
So "Belly", Walter and Peter drop acid and go inside Olivia's mind, where it turns out that Olivia is hiding from them, and her subconscious projections have turned hostile and are trying to kill her as well as the intruders. There were a few things I really liked about this whole scenario:
1) The way in which Peter has to save Olivia is by figuring out where in her imaginary world she would go to feel safe – so he has to save her by knowing more about her than anyone else.
2) There are random dream zombies.
3) They travel via dream zeppelin. Which is pretty cool, if you think about it. And the cartoon Walter falling out of the Zeppelin and waking up was a cool moment.
4) There's a really neat cliffhanger in the final commercial break, where both Peter and Walter have woken up, and it's up to Bell to save Olivia – but we're still not sure if Bell wants to save her, or himself. He has a perfect opportunity to dispose of her forever, and ensure that he gets to keep her nubile body for himself, and for a moment we're left wondering if that's what he'd planned all along.
Things I didn't really like that much about it:
1) The conversation between Walter and Bell felt like one we'd had a few times before. I really didn't feel like there was any unfinished business between Walter and William at all, and if William wasn't going to bust out with a brilliant solution to keeping "our" universe from unraveling, or some other actual sciencey stuff, then platitudes about age bringing wisdom, etc., felt pretty useless. Nobody loves you for your grandfatherly wisdom, Belly — they love you for your mad science skills! (Unless that scene was meant to be setting Walter up for a new round of hubris, in which he believes he's wise enough to make the right choice, but he's actually not. In which case, forget I said anything.)
2) I really didn't get the explanation of how Olivia was supposed to be safe in her own mind, but she took the opportunity of having Nimoy's katra in her brain to let her fears overwhelm her because she's her own worst enemy.
2) Olivia overcoming her fears and having some kind of catharsis. I just didn't buy it for some reason. Maybe because it was animated Olivia instead of Anna Torv, with her expressive face. Maybe because it felt too neat. Maybe because the little girl Olivia overcoming her demons felt way too much like my least favorite Buffy episode. Mostly, it felt too pat.
Oh, and I guess we'll never get to see Olivia deal with the revelation that Peter was the serial killer who led her on a wild goose chase for a whole episode, and he was lying to her for weeks about it. I have a feeling that's been swept under the rug, except for the dangling plotline of those shapeshifters' data disks. It's too bad, because I'd rather have seen Peter and Olivia deal with the fallout from his deceitfulness than see Anna Torv trying to do a Leonard Nimoy impression for an episode and a half, honestly.
When the dust all settles, Bell is gone, probably for good this time – and it's probably just as well, given that the show seems to have run out of ideas for him. Olivia seems happier and more confident, because she's faced her demons and stuff.
And then Olivia calmly drops the bombshell that retroactively makes the whole rest of the episode way more fascinating: The mysterious dude who was locked in the engine room of the cartoon zeppelin is someone she's never met before, but she's pretty sure he's going to kill her. Wha?
Meanwhile, in the episode's "B" plot, Broyles accidentally gets dosed with acid, which provides an opportunity for Lance Reddick to break out of his usual stoic mask and get downright silly, including contemplating the infinite expanse of a Twizzler. And for a brief moment, we also get to see Broyles process the trauma of meeting his own dead body from another universe.
I was sad, though, because I thought Astrid would finally get to be proactive and heroic in her own right, coping with stuff in the "real" world while the Bishops were inside Olivia's head. But instead, Astrid's role mostly consists of bringing people food and doing errands, as usual. At least she finally gets her own back when Walter calls her "Astro," and she calls him "Wally" – completely flummoxing him.
All in all, this was a pretty fun episode, and it was only frustrating because it felt like the show's been hitting the snooze button on some way more interesting story ideas. Like the impending cracks in "our" universe, the super-weapon, Peter being a lying scumbag, Fauxlivia's baby, Sam Weiss probably being a lying scumbag, the First People, Charlie and Lincoln realizing that Walternate is a lying scumbag, and so on.
The good news is, the promo makes it look like next week's episode will be full speed ahead, with only a couple more episodes after that one. The next few episodes will almost certainly be the crazy ride we've been waiting for. And I, for one, can't wait.


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Planet of Fire was the fifth serial in season 21 of Doctor Who. In addition to being the penultimate adventure to regularly feature Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, the story featured the final regular appearance of Mark Strickson as Vislor Turlough, the destruction of Kamelion and the introduction of Peri Brown. It was Peter Grimwade's final script and Fiona Cumming's last directorial turn for the programme. For Turlough's last story, it was decided that his mysterious past, outlined in Mawdryn Undead, should be explored.
Exteriors were shot on location in Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. The location was chosen after Cumming promoted it with photos from her holiday. Grimwade decided to use the island for multiple settings and the island's volcanic landscape also doubled for the planet Sarn. Grimwade had trouble writing for the setting, having never been there. John Nathan-Turner denied his request to accompany the select members of the crew to the island. (INFO: Planet of Fire)
Planet of Fire also had a notable guest cast: Peter Wyngarde had starred as flamboyant amateur detective Jason King in Department S and Jason King, while Barbara Shelley had appeared in various Hammer horror films.
Synopsis Edit
A strange signal from Earth draws the TARDIS to the island of Lanzarote, where Turlough rescues a young American girl, Peri, from drowning. Among her possessions is an artefact bearing an alien symbol - the same triangular mark that Turlough has branded into his arm.
The mystery deepens when Kamelion falls under the control of a powerful mind, and the TARDIS travels to the volcanic world of Sarn. As Turlough is forced to face his past, the Fifth Doctor must stop his oldest enemy from harnessing the revitalising powers of Numismaton gas...
Plot Edit
Part one Edit
On the desolate volcanic planet Sarn, chief elder Timanov counsels the young Chosen One Malkon on how to act in the wake of increased seismic activity, heralding the imminent volcanic catastrophe known as the Time of Fire. Their god Logar, the devout Timanov warns, is greatly displeased at the number of unbelievers. As the Chosen One – so chosen due to the triangular "Mark of Logar" on his arm – Malkon has sole authority to assign heretics to burn in the Cave of Fire and thereby appease their god. Malkon doubts his resolve to condemn unbelievers to death. Meanwhile, two such unbelievers, Amyand and Roskal, scale the forbidden Mountain of Fire – believed to be Logar's dwelling place – and find the crater at the top empty. Now fully convinced that Logar is a myth, they return to the village to spread the news.
As the Fifth Doctor muses bitterly about Daleks and the departure of Tegan, Kamelion's agonised cries are heard from an adjoining room. He has linked himself to the TARDIS data core. The TARDIS then picks up a distress signal; Turlough recognises the pattern and is sufficiently dismayed that he disables the communicator to stop the signal. The TARDIS coordinates have been changed, apparently by Kamelion, and they are en route to the source of the signal, the island of Lanzarote.
American archaeologist Howard Foster and his team are trolling the nearby seabed for ancient relics. Among the artefacts they pull up is a strange, anachronistic metal object also bearing the Mark of Logar. Howard's restless stepdaughter Peri Brown, accompanying the expedition while on holiday from university, is bored and wants to travel with her friends to Morocco. Howard appears to relent but strands her on the boat to make her miss her flight. Peri is furious at Howard but finds his wallet full of money and an alien object Howard had fished out of the lake. She thinks it may be worth some money. Peri strips to her bikini and stuffs the artefact, Howard's money and her clothes into a plastic bag. She then jumps in the sea and begins swimming to shore.
While the Doctor explores the island trying to find the source of the signal, Turlough has returned to the TARDIS, where he finds Kamelion at the console trying to establish contact with an unknown entity. Turlough overloads the console to disable him out of anger, thinking the signal may be from Trion. On the monitor, he sees Peri struggling in the water and beginning to drown. He runs out of the TARDIS, strips to his bathing suit, jumps into the water and swims out to her. He pulls her ashore and takes her to Tegan's old room to recuperate. He finds the alien artefact in the bag, pulling up his sleeve to show that he too bears the Mark of Logar on his arm. While Peri tosses and turns, muttering incoherent apologies, Kamelion seizes on her psychic impulses and transforms into Howard. The Doctor has traced the signal back to the artefact now in the TARDIS. The doors close and the TARDIS takes off automatically, apparently returning the object to its planet of origin, Sarn. Kamelion enters as Howard, but his mannerisms are like someone else's. After putting her clothes back on over her swimsuit, Peri enters the control room, confused as to where she is.
In the great hall on Sarn, Timanov and Malkon attempt to quell the citizens' unrest due to the impending Time of Fire. The arrival of Amyand and Roskal with the news of their findings causes even more disruption. A desperate Timanov calls for a sign from Logar, and a burst of flame from the Cave of Fire is the apparent answer. Timanov seizes this as a call from Logar to burn the unbelievers. Just then, a lookout announces the arrival of the TARDIS, describing it in a way that corresponds with their legend of the Outsider, a representative of Logar. Timanov urges Malkon to condemn the heretics, but he hesitates.
Once the Doctor and Turlough leave to explore, "Howard" announces that contact has been established and that he now has control of the TARDIS. As he laughs maniacally, his features change into those of the Master before Peri's horrified eyes.
Part two Edit
The Doctor and Turlough explore the apparently deserted village square finding the triangular pattern, which Turlough identifies as the Misos Triangle, etched on a column. The Misos Triangle is an emblem of Turlough's home planet, Trion, but he is not forthcoming with further details. They do not notice another TARDIS materialising nearby.
The Master's control of Kamelion is tenuous, and the shape-shifting robot momentarily regains self-control. He removes the TARDIS's comparator and urges Peri to give it to the Doctor, but then loses his self-will and his form shifts back to the Master. He pulls her out into the village square towards the Master's TARDIS, but a sudden tremor knocks it over, door-side down and a large rock falls hitting Kamelion causing him to fall over which allows Peri to escape into the desolate wilderness. The Master, trapped inside his TARDIS, orders Kamelion to pilot the Doctor's TARDIS inside his own, but without the comparator it won't function.
The unbelievers storm the great hall, having found and befriended the Doctor and Turlough, displaying the travellers as the Outsiders. Turlough discovers the Misos Triangle on Malkon's arm, showing his own. He is convinced that the relics in the hall are from his father's ship and that Malkon might be his younger brother. Malkon describes how he was found in the Place of Fire as an infant, and Turlough convinces him to take him there, where they find the wreckage of a crashed spaceship. They encounter Peri, who had been wandering lost since eluding "the Master". When Turlough learns that the Master is involved, they dash back to the village to warn the Doctor.
The Doctor, however, finds himself at the mercy of Timanov and his own Outsider, the Kamelion/Master. Under the "Master's" sway, Timanov orders the sacrifice of the unbelievers to the flame. "The Master" demands the return of the comparator, which the Doctor doesn't have, as his new allies are pushed toward the mouth of the Cave of Fire.
Part three Edit
Malkon demands that the execution cease, but is shot down in the ensuing struggle. Timanov has the unbelievers and the Doctor locked into the cave with the flame. Turlough uses a Trion relic to remotely disable the sacrificial flame, which Timanov shows as a sign of displeasure from Logar at Malkon's apparent assassination. Still fooled by the "Master", Timanov leads a team of Sarns in helping to shift the Master's TARDIS, but once upright, "the Master" pulls Peri inside and dematerialises. Turlough arrives and releases the Doctor and the unbelievers from the cave.
The Doctor struggles to figure out why the Master is on Sarn, and how to rescue the citizens from the impending doom of the volcanic eruption. He also reasons that the Trions had a more productive use for the Cave of Fire than mere sacrifice. Timanov speaks of a time when he was young, and he encountered Logar who took him to a bath of blue flame that rejuvenated him.
The Master's TARDIS materialises in a control room deep below the volcano. "The Master" enlists Peri's assistance, on pain of death from his Tissue Compression Eliminator weapon, in controlling the machinery there to harness the power of Numismaton Gas, which is indeed a bright blue flame renowned for its healing properties. The Doctor takes advantage of the presence of the Numismaton flame to heal the ailing Malkon in the Cave of Fire. Eluding the Kamelion/Master and ducking into the Master's TARDIS, Peri locates what she reasons must be Kamelion's control box. Lifting the lid, she finds the Master lurking within, reduced to mere inches in height.
Part four Edit
The Master, having accidentally shrunk himself while attempting to upgrade his TCE weapon, seeks the power of the Numismaton Gas to restore himself. He constructed the control box to re-establish contact with his slave Kamelion to help him reach Sarn.
Peri accidentally knocks the Master's control box over which allows the Master to escape into his TARDIS. Peri tries to track him down and swat him with her shoe, but he escapes and hides in the TARDIS console. There, he taunts Peri and shorts the controls to open the TARDIS door. Peri runs out and into the wilderness
The Doctor and Amyand, with Peri's help, have reached the Numismaton gas control room. They find protective metallic suits which correspond with the traditional image of Logar. The Doctor realises that the Trions have used the control room to regulate the seismic activity, but the impending eruption will be too big to control. The Doctor sends Amyand back to the ruins wearing the only remaining suit. Kamelion pilots the Master's TARDIS into the blue flame and brings out the control box, bearing the Master within. As Kamelion advances menacingly on the Doctor with the TCE, he overloads the gas control circuitry to give Kamelion a near-fatal "heart attack." Kamelion, now freed from the Master's control, begs for destruction, and the Doctor complies with the TCE.
The Master is restored to full height by the Numismaton gas and gleefully describes the tortures that await the Doctor at his hands. But the Doctor's fiddling with the controls cuts off the gas, leaving the Master to burn in the full power of the naked flames. The Master's pleas for mercy go unheeded and the Doctor watches as his enemy is apparently consumed by fire.
Turlough, despite his status as a Trion political prisoner, swallows his pride and manages to re-activate the communication system in the wreckage of his father's ship, summoning a Trion rescue ship to pick up the Sarn survivors. Timanov, humbled by his easy manipulation by the Master in the name of his god, declines rescue and opts to perish in the ensuing volcano. Acting on instructions from the Doctor, Turlough programs the TARDIS to rescue the Doctor and Peri from the gas control room before it is destroyed. The Trion captain Lomand informs Turlough that due to a general amnesty, his exile has been lifted and he is free to return home. Turlough thanks the Doctor for everything, who understands Turlough's reasons for wanting to return to Trion, and the two warmly bid each other farewell. Peri, on the other hand, asks to travel with the Doctor for the remaining three months of her vacation. The Doctor agrees, and he welcomes her aboard the TARDIS as it takes flight.
Cast Edit
- The Doctor - Peter Davison
- Turlough - Mark Strickson
- Peri Brown - Nicola Bryant
- Timanov - Peter Wyngarde
- The Master - Anthony Ainley
- Sorasta - Barbara Shelley
- Amyand - James Bate
- Professor Howard Foster - Dallas Adams
- Voice of Kamelion - Gerald Flood
- Malkon - Edward Highmore
- Roskal - Jonathan Caplan
- Curt - Michael Bangerter
- Lookout - Simon Sutton
- Zuko - Max Arthur
- Lomand - John Alkin
Uncredited cast Edit
- Elder - Colin Thomas (DWM 206)
- Guard - Derek Hunt (DWM 206)
- Citizens - Ian Marshall-Fisher, Ray Knight, Paul Barton, Stuart Myers, Brychan Powell (DWM 206)
Crew Edit
- Assistant Floor Manager - Robert Evans
- Camera Supervisors - Alec Wheal, Geoff Clark
- Costumes - John Peacock
- Designer - Malcolm Thornton
- Film Cameraman - John Walker
- Film Editor - Alastair Mitchell
- Film Sound - John Tellick
- Incidental Music - Peter Howell
- Make-Up - Elizabeth Rowell
- Producer - John Nathan-Turner
- Production Assistant - Claire Hughes Smith
- Production Associate - June Collins
- Production Manager - Corinne Hollingworth
- Script Editor - Eric Saward
- Special Sounds - Dick Mills
- Studio Lighting - John Summers
- Studio Sound - Scott Talbott
- Technical Co-ordinator - Alan Arbuthnott
- Theme Arrangement - Peter Howell
- Title Music - Ron Grainer
- Title Sequence - Sid Sutton
- Video Effects - Dave Chapman
- Videotape Editor - Hugh Parson
- Vision Mixer - Dinah Long
- Visual Effects Designer - Chris Lawson
Uncredited crew Edit
- Film Lighting - John Barrott (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Props Buyer - Paul Woods (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Location Liason - Judy Grimshaw (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Production Manager - Christina McMillan (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Film Operations Manager - Graham Richmond (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Film Ops - Laurence Miller, John McElroy (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Dressers - Frances Miles, Ron Simpson (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Film Camera Assistant - Tony Bragg (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Film Sound Assistant - Don Lee (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Grips - John Phillips (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Show Working Supervisor - Ted Coates (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Floor Assistant - Anna Campbell (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Lighting Chargehands - Dennis Leach, John Morin (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Make-Up Assistant - Elizabeth Hardiment (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Visual Effects Assistant - Roger Turner (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Design Assistant - Dinah Walker (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Production Secretary - Sarah Lee (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Contracts Assistant - Sarah Bird (INFO: Planet of Fire)
- Senior Studio Engineers - Bill Waugh, Jim Kernick, Ron Frith, John Billett (INFO: Planet of Fire)
References Edit
Cultural references to real-world Edit
- Peri compares the statue of Eros to Elton John. She mentions other deities: Poseidon and Hephaestus.
- The Doctor guesses that a kouros is dated late Classical period and a work by a pupil of Praxiteles.
- Peri hints that her mother is busy exploring a Cro-Magnon cave.
- Peri said, "You don't need to be Albert Einstein to find the off switch" of the Master's control box, conveying she was able to.
Individuals Edit
- The Fifth Doctor adapts his outfit for the hot weather in Lanzarote. His coat and cricket jumper are left behind in the TARDIS, and he wears a beige coloured waistcoat with a gold, white and red flower and plant pattern. Before departing Lanzarote for the planet Sarn, the Doctor discarded the waistcoat but did not put back on his coat and jumper.
- Peri (Perpugilliam) Brown is a young American student. She is holidaying with her mother and archaeologist stepfather, Professor Howard Foster, on Lanzarote.
- Vislor Turlough's rank is Junior Ensign Commander. He is from Trion and he was on the losing side in the planet's civil war.
- Turlough's father and his brother Malkon were exiled to Sarn, where the Trions sent occasional prisoners. Such prisoners were branded with the Misos Triangle and the indigenous population heralded them as leaders chosen by Logar, their fire god. Turlough's father died when the spacecraft crashed. The volcanic forces of Sarn were kept in check for a while by Trion scientists.
- The Master controls Kamelion, forcing him to control the TARDIS. The Master tries to use hypnosis through Kamelion, on Peri, in vain, partly because she has a "strong" will.
- The Master claims he is superior to the Doctor in the same way he claims his TARDIS is superior to the Doctor's.
Places Edit
- Sarn is a prison planet for political prisoners from Trion.
- According to Turlough, the Trions have undercover agents on every civilised planet, and cites as examples an agrarian commissioner on Verdon, a tax inspector on Darvey, and a very eccentric solicitor in Chancery Lane.
- Turlough defines the Brendon Public School as the "worst place in the universe".
- Peri meant to move to Morocco for a while.
- Trion was the battleground of a civil war.
- At the bar, the Doctor pays with an unknown kind of coin, not accepted in Lanzarote.
Science Edit
- Peri's summer studying includes an ecology project. She has exams coming up and her return flight is to New York.
- The volcanic activity on Sarn which will soon destroy the planet also produces Numismaton Gas, "an immensely rare catalytic reagent" with great healing properties.
TARDIS Edit
- Kamelion is endangered when he is connected to the TARDIS databank.
- The Master removes the temporal stabiliser from the Doctor's TARDIS, rendering it inoperable. Kamelion removes the comparator, another vital circuit.
- The TARDIS is provided with a seismic scanner.
- Turlough sets the TARDIS on a time-delayed takeoff.
- Peri Brown compares the Master's TARDIS to the Doctor's own TARDIS. The Master claims his TARDIS is "infinitely superior."
Technology Edit
- The Master accidentally shrank himself while adjusting his Tissue Compression Eliminator.
- Peri Brown finds and uses a telescope on the slope of the volcano.
Story notes Edit
- This story had the working title of Planet of Fear.[source needed]
- Kamelion appears for the first time since The King's Demons the previous season; complications involving the robot model prevented him from appearing in other episodes, although a scene was filmed for The Awakening but edited out before transmission. Kamelion's "death" makes him the fourth known companion to die while travelling with the Doctor, following Katarina, Sara Kingdom, and Adric.
- It was during the production of this serial that Peter Davison and Nicola Bryant participated in their infamous "James Bond" photo shoot, in which Davison donned a tuxedo and prop gun and Bryant a bikini.
- There are parallels with the H. Rider Haggard novel She, whose title character renews herself periodically by bathing in a magic flame. Haggard's great-great-great-niece Daisy Haggard would later play Sophie in TV: The Lodger and Closing Time.
- This is the only televised Fifth Doctor story not to visually contain Tegan Jovanka. The Doctor's reference to Tegan at the beginning of part one means that she was technically a part of every single one of his television stories in some way. To date, the only other companion to have been a part of every televised story of a given Doctor is Rose Tyler, who appeared in every episode during the Ninth Doctor era.
- This was the final serial to feature a male companion until the series revival in 2005. Turlough was the last male companion seen on screen — barring the return of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in TV: Battlefield in 1989 — until Adam Mitchell appeared in the two stories TV: Dalek and TV: The Long Game in 2005. However, there were several non-televised male companions to have travelled with the Doctor in other media between Turlough and Adam, including Frobisher, Thomas Brewster, Hex and C'rizz.
- The departure of Turlough and the destruction of Kamelion mark the end of an almost seven-year span of stories featuring at least one non-human companion. It began with the introduction of the robot dog K9 Mark I in TV: The Invisible Enemy in 1977. The other non-human companions who travelled with the Doctor in the interim were K9 Mark II, the first and second incarnations of the Time Lady Romana, the Alzarian Adric and the Trakenite Nyssa. Turlough and Kamelion would be the final non-human companions to appear in a televised Doctor Who story, until the guest reappearance of K9 Mark III in TV: School Reunion in 2006. Turlough would also be the last non-human companion and last male companion to travel alone with the Doctor until Nardole became a companion in TV: The Return of Doctor Mysterio.
- Radio Times incorrectly credits Nicola Bryant as "Perpugillian Brown" and Gerald Flood as "Voice of Kamelior".
- The Master's final line before apparently being killed is directed squarely at the Doctor: "Won't you show mercy to your own ..." According to the DVD commentary, Fiona Cumming asked John Nathan-Turner how the line was to end, to which he replied, "brother". However, Anthony Ainley never said the word in any take captured on video. Thus fans were free to speculate about how the line was to have ended. In TV: The Sound of Drums, the Tenth Doctor strongly implies that the Master was not his brother.
- The story was the second of three consecutive serials, along with Resurrection of the Daleks and The Caves of Androzani, that saw the departure of one of the season's regular cast members. In this serial, Mark Strickson departs as Turlough.
Ratings Edit
- Part one - 7.4 million viewers
- Part two - 6.1 million viewers
- Part three - 7.4 million viewers
- Part four - 7.0 million viewers
Filming locations Edit
- Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. This was the first Doctor Who story to include filming away from the European continent.
- Papagayo Beach, Lanzarote
- Orzola Jetty, Orzola, Lanzarote
- Mirador del Rio, Lanzarote
- Montañas del Fuego, Timanfaya National Park, Lanzarote
- BBC Television Centre (TC6 & TC8), Shepherd's Bush, London
Production errors Edit
- The studio and location shots of Turlough rescuing Peri don't quite match up. She's still wet from her near-drowning when Turlough gets her to the exterior of the TARDIS doors, but is dry when they cut to the interior, studio shot.
- According to director Fiona Cumming in the DVD commentary, Peri's passport was not specifically made for this production, but was, rather, the reuse of a passport that actor Dallas Adams had used in another production. Therefore, any details gleaned from freeze-framing the close-ups on the prop — such as her birth date and location — were not specific to Peri, but to the character Adams had played in the other production. Thus, they are technically production errors. Oddly, the production subtitles on the DVD champion the information contained within the passport, despite Cumming's revelations about the true origin of the prop.
Continuity Edit
- The Doctor speaks of the Daleks and the departure of Tegan. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks).
- Turlough wonders if the Master is in the middle of "another regeneration crisis".
- Kamelion reappears. (TV: The King's Demons)
- Turlough's origins are explained. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
- The Doctor and Peri encounter the Master following his burning in PROSE: A Town Called Eternity.
- In PROSE: Shell Shock, it is strongly implied that Howard sexually abused Peri when she was younger. Some read this as supporting Peri's dream-state behaviour in this story where she shouts out Howard's name after saying, "Don't turn out the light." However, by concentrating on just these two lines, the two previous lines —"No, Howard. Please don't leave me alone." — are conveniently ignored. It's somewhat unlikely that a person plagued by parental abuse would be begging for the abuser to stay with her. Indeed, the DVD commentary makes it very clear the production team were aiming for a positive, friendly relationship between the two characters and there's not much more than Shell Shock which suggests anything improper between Howard and Peri. In fact, AUDIO: The Reaping details the reasons for the divorce of Howard and Peri's mother Janine Foster and completely fails to mention any sort of sexual abuse. Shell Shock is thus one view of the relationship between Peri and Howard, which has never been supported clearly by any performed Doctor Who.
Home video and audio releases Edit
DVD releases Edit
- This story was first released on DVD in the UK on 14 June 2010 as part of the Kamelion Tales box set, alongside The King's Demons. The two-disc set includes a restored version of the story, as well as the following special features:
- Audio Commentary by actors Peter Davison (the Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Mark Strickson (Turlough) and director Fiona Cumming
- The Flames of Sarn (Region 2 only; omitted from Region 1/North American release of the DVD due to rights issues)
- Return to the Planet of Fire - Fiona Cumming and designer Malcolm Thornton revisit the locations
- Designs of Sarn - Interview with Malcolm Thornton
- Calling the Shots - Behind the scenes
- Remembering Anthony Ainley - Retrospective
- Deleted And Extended Scenes
- Continuity
- Isolated Music Soundtrack
- Coming Soon Trailer
- Radio Times Billings
- Production Subtitles
- Photo Gallery
- Easter Eggs-
- Highlight 'The Flames of Sarn' and press left to reveal a hidden Doctor Who logo. Clicking on this gives you a short compilation of the countdown clocks for the story.
- On the audio menu on disc one choose Isolated Score making sure that the words are highlighted, then press the right button on your remote and the Doctor Who logo should go green. Selecting this gives you a short piece on facts from the story.
- Plus a new Special Edition of Planet of Fire in 16:9 widescreen format, with 5.1 surround sound, CGI effects and extra footage.
- Editing for the DVD release was completed by the Doctor Who Restoration Team.
VHS releases Edit
- This story was released on video in UK and Australia / NZ in 1998 and the US in 1999.
External links Edit
- Planet of Fire at the BBC's official site
- Planet of Fire at RadioTimes
- Planet of Fire at BroaDWcast
- Planet of Fire at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- Planet of Fire at Shannon Sullivan's A Brief History of Time (Travel)
- Planet of Fire at The Locations Guide

subset: commoncrawl


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Kitchen Notes: USDA Beef Quality Grades
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Cooking For Engineers
Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 16776765
Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:04 pm
Post subject: Kitchen Notes: USDA Beef Quality Grades
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Kitchen Notes: USDA Beef Quality Grades
Article Digest:
In most American supermarkets
(not Safeway or Albertson's anymore because they are pushing their own brandings of Rancher's Reserve and Blue Ribbon)
, beef is sold with a USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) Quality Grade. Most people know that USDA Prime is the best (and most expensive) beef you can buy, and it is somewhat rare to find. USDA Choice and Select grades are common in supermarkets with Select being the cheaper option. But, what do the grades mean and how are they determined? I'll try to explain...
In the United States, all beef is inspected for safety by the USDA. The USDA also provides grading services that grade beef according to quality and/or yield. Both types of grading are optional and costs the producer (rancher) some money to pay for the USDA grader to provide a grade. We'll look at quality grades in this article since these are the most influential to the consumer. Two factors are used when the USDA grades beef for quality: physiological maturity and marbling.
The maturity of a beef carcass is determined by examining the bones and the color and texture of the ribeye muscle at the 12th rib. Examining the ossification (when cartilage turns into bone) of the backbone is one of the techniques used to help determine maturity. Each vertebrae has a bit of cartilage on top in young animals. This cartilage slowly turns into bone and generally begins to ossify from the rump and gradually proceeds up the back toward the head as the cattle matures. The level of ossification and area of effect helps to determine the age of the carcass. In addition, the shape and color of the ribs provides more information about the age of the animal. A very young rib will be red, narrow, and oval-shaped. Older animals will have ribs that are greyer in color, wider, and flatter.
In addition to looking at the bone structures, the lean tissue of the ribeye will help determine the physiological maturity of the animal. In a young animal, the muscle will be a light pink-red tone and the texture will be fine. While the animal matures, the lean tissue will become darker in color and more coarse.
Maturity is rated into five groups labeled from A to E (where A is the youngest). For most cattle, the age groups are approximately (some variation from sex to sex):
A - A < 30 months
B - 30 months < B < 42 months
C - 42 months < C < 72 months
D - 72 months < D < 96 months
E - 96 months < E
Marbling is the amount of fat that is distributed within a muscle (not surrounding the muscle). When determining marbling of a carcass, the quantity and distribution of fat in the ribeye at the 12th rib is examined. Beef with higher amounts of marbling usually produce more tender, flavorful, and juicy cuts. How maturity and marbling relate to determine quality grade is shown in the table below.
	Maturity
Slightly abundant
Prime / Choice
Commercial / Utility
Commercial / Utility
Commercial / Utility
Utility / Cutter
Utility / Cutter
Practically Devoid
Standard / Utility
Utility / Cutter
Cutter / Canner
For more information the Official U.S. Standards for Grades of Livestock and Carcasses can be found at
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:05 pm
Post subject:
Depending on your city, it can be very hard to find Prime grade beef. New York or SF, no problem. Elsewhere...tricky as most of it is sold to resturaunts. Luckily I live in Sacramento which for some reason I haven't really figured out yet has "David Berkley Fine Wines and Specialty Foods" (http://www.beyondgourmet.com/food/david.html).
Anyway, the best options I found for obtaining prime:
1. A butcher can usually order it for you, at least sometimes and in some cuts.
2. Some high grade steakhouses will sell their beef to you; which is nice because it's usually been dry aged already.
3. You can order it shipped overnight (at fabulous cost) from
Although there are of course ranges within all the grades. Some choice is very close to prime. Usually the grocery store custom brands and are choice, and pretty decent choice at that. There can be variety though; always check out what you buy.
Is it worth it? If you have trouble finding decent choice grade beef, need consistency, or have one particular dinner that you want to "knock out of the park" then I'd say yes. But if you have a good butcher and can ask him/her for the best they've got, that's going to be pretty close (both in price and quality). I've found some very good choice grade beef.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:05 pm
Post subject:
I grew up on a farm ( now do puters and ITS engineering), and from my experience, the best cuts are the ones you grow yourself. You know what chemicals (or not) the cattle have been fed, and if you finish the last 2 months before butchering with a diet rich in corn, you will have the best beef you can hope to eat (not everyone has a place to raise a cow though, sorry).
Try it if you never have, you won't ever eant to go back.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:05 pm
Post subject:
So, it all boils down to this:
USDA Prime beef means young and fat
I feel so confident now.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:06 pm
Post subject:
Most large cities have wholesale butcher shops that service the restaraunt industry. You can often buy prime cuts at prices comparable to choice in the local supermarked. The catch is you have to buy 12-15 pounds of meat at a time. However, this is still quite a deal if you can round up a few friends to go in on it with you. For example, Puritan Beef Co, in Boston will sell prime filet for 8.79/lb, but only in 12-15 lb blocks. Oh, and they will be happy to cut and trim the meat to any desired taste.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:06 pm
Post subject:
Perhaps I am missing something, but I would assume "USDA Organic" would be a higher quality grade than any non-organic grades due to the lack of pesticides, hormones and other dysfunction causing elements. How does the "organic" rating sit in relation to "quality grades"? Are the even in the same scale? Are they two different scales, such as there being "USDA Organic Prime"?
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:06 pm
Post subject:
I really enjoyed reading this article. It's very informative. More importantly, I totally understood how the beef is graded now.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:07 pm
Post subject:
Hi there,
FYI for most people in the world who appreciate food and cooking, USDA graded meat is *not* a quality product. In fact, people with a real experience of meat will definitely stay away from USDA meat, because the label carries the promise of safety and constant quality levels *in the context of industrial production*.
This context has important implications if you are looking for an absolute or personal rating of quality and safety. (For example: "USDA quality" seems to mean "fat" and "soft" and is mostly a North American aquired taste, as world obesity statistics show. As for "USDA safety" it seems to mean: "will not make you sick from in the next 24 hours" but has little concern for epidemiology, long term effects of hormonal and antbiotic supplements etc.)
So in a way, it's like McDonalds: you know what you will get, and you are guaranteed a certain level of quality... but would you say that they serve "quality food"?
A long a detailed article is available here that may explain a bit more:
PS: the comment applies to US production of pretty much anything. It is quite efficient and prolific... but quite bad in absolute value. Beef. Philosophy. Chicken. Graduates. Music. Movies. Software. Cars... Nobody would really pick US products as "the best" for any of these... but they are cheap and predictable. That is *a* quality. It's not *quality*, at least for most of us.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:08 pm
Post subject:
The term 'Organic' actually has no relation to quality of the meat. From what I've read there are no USDA guidelines on what can be called 'Organic' or not.
Of course how a piece of food can be considered 'inorganic' is beyond me as they are all made of meat and not, say, iron.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:08 pm
Post subject:
Organic does not refer to quality in the usual measures of age or fat, but the quality of the environment that produces the meat.
The term often refers to standards regulated by the government of the state of California, as they have laws regulating when a product may be labeled "organic". These laws can include specifications for things like how long it's been since pesticides or hormones have been used on a farm.
You may also be interested in knowing whether a product is the result of genetic engineering, as this is generally banned from import in Europe, and the environmental effects of genetic engineering are still seen as grim... and effects on humans (aside from engineering more deadly contagions) are largely unknown.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:09 pm
Post subject:
Concerning Europe's ban on geneticlly altered products please understand that it is done primarily as an excuse to protect their farmers against imports. They do that a lot, that was how ISO 9000 standards first came on te scene, as a non-tariff trade barrier. As for the safety of genetically altered foods you will have to make up your mind based on some other crieria.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:09 pm
Post subject:
re: genetically engineered foods or "frankenfoods" It should be pointed out that very few people other than hunters and people who forage in the wild are eating anything other than genetically engineered foods...that's all animal and plant husbandry IS is the practice of genetic engineering on a macro, inconsistent, and inefficient level.
I want to know WHICH genes (and therefore what proteins) are being expressed if they're not part of the original organism, past that it's just hysteria.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:09 pm
Post subject:
Good article! I have a question though on a "new" rating I've seen in the markets here in the midwest "Certified Angus Beef". The advertisments (and there are quite a few of them by various people) all seem to imply that this is some sign of quality. Indeed, I've even heard a chef at a local restaurant (and a good one!) indicate that all their meat is "Certified Angus" and that its just a step below Prime, but above Choice.
Isn't this all just a marketing scam? I mean, aren't they really only certifing that the meat is from a Black Angus cow? Has anyone done any studies to show that Black Angus cows produce better meat? Isn't it more important on the marbling, age, dry-aging or wet cryovac aging process used, etc. etc?
Anyway, anyone know what all this madness about "Certified Angus" is all about?
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Michael Chu
Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 1654
Location: Austin, TX (USA)
Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:10 pm
Post subject:
Certified Angus Beef (CAB) is a branding registered with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). (http://www.ams.usda.gov/lsg/certprog/certbeef.htm. It is one of 28 branding programs for Angus beef alone. When you get CAB beef you know:
1. Came from a Black Angus (a breed of cattle)
2. Quality is either USDA Prime or upper 2/3 Choice
3. Young cattle (A Maturity)
And some other requirements with respect to hump size, quality, etc.
Naturally, beef preference is up the diner, but many people believe that Angus beef is more tender and flavorful than other varieties. A lot of it is marketing (for example Burger King's Angus Burger) and hype, but if you're looking for Angus beef, then looking for the Certified Angus Beef brand ensures you will get what you are looking for.
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Soldering Gunslinger
Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 6:10 pm
Post subject:
Ah, Beef!
I really feel sorry for the folks who live away from the main agricultural parts of the country...or at least away from where they know how to feed cattle.
I grew up in the heartland where beef is king and Vegitarian is a Native American word for "Bad Hunter". My parent's home is right around the corner from a neighborhood meat market which buys its sides of beef from a little company called "Omaha Steaks" They custom grind their hamburger from the same sides.
I now find myself living in a part of the country where beef gets fed Cotton waste and prickley-pears. Thank heaven for Costco. (Julia Child bought her meat at Costco...need I say more?).
There are grades of beef with more rmarbling than USDA Prime. The famous Japanese Kobe beef is one such grade.
Black Angus beef is indeed wonderful meat, however, advertising aside, most people won't tell the difference between Angus, Hereford or "Black Baldie" (a Hereford/Angus cross) if the cattle come out of the same feedlot, and are of the same USDA grade.
Now, if, as a previous poster said, this is meat from a steer which was raised by a 4-H kid, there you will have some really good beef, breed of steer notwithstanding.
Every year, the steak houses in Omaha have a bidding war for the AkSarBen 4-H cattle show grand champion steer. The money goes to the 4-H member who raised the steer. Often the bidding is high enough that the kid can pay for his or her college education from the proceeds.
If you are ever in Omaha, Check out Mr. C's, Angies, The Venice Inn or literally any of the home grown steak houses. You won't be disappointed, however, don't be supprised when the waitress asks if you want Spaghetti, Angle Hair or Mostacolli with your meal. Many of the local steak houses were founded and are still run by Italian families.
I remain,
The Old Soldering Gunslinger
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STARKVILLE, Miss.--Abraham Lincoln will be at Mississippi State later this month for a number of university-organized public programs.
Of course, the actual 16th U.S. chief executive who was assassinated in 1865 will be unable to make it, but his transcendent spirit should be well represented at a two-day special event.
A Symposium on Lincoln: The Movie and Man is being co-sponsored by the Office of President Mark E. Keenum and MSU Libraries, along with the campus-based U.S. Grant Presidential Library, Shackouls Honors College, and African American Studies.
Free and open to all, the Sept. 23 and 24 programs--including a "presidential press conference"--are part of the institution's observance of the 150th American Civil War anniversary.
The symposium gets under way at 7 p.m. on the 23rd with a screening of "Lincoln," the epic 2012 historical drama starring Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role that won him Academy Award best-actor honors. To be shown in 124 McCool Hall, the Stephen Spielberg-produced and -directed movie will run approximately 150 minutes.
"We have been privileged to be host to many significant events over the years, but this symposium truly is one we feel will be remembered and appreciated for a long time to come," said Frances Coleman, MSU dean of libraries. "Everyone involved has planned and worked very hard to make the activities the best they can be, and we encourage all who can to take part in any or all of the activities."
Activities on the 24th will begin with George Buss, a nationally recognized character actor who has won widespread acclaim for his stage depictions of Lincoln. A sixth-generation Illinois native, he is, like the man he portrays, bearded, six-feet-four-inches tall and weighing between 160-180 pounds. For more, visit www.woodward.edu/data/files/gallery/ContentGallery/Buss_bio1.pdf.
At Mitchell Memorial Library's third-floor John Grisham Room, Buss will be part of a 9 a.m. panel discussion focusing on Lincoln's lasting impact on the country he led during its most trying time. Other panelists--all speakers at separate programs later in the day--include historians John F. Marszalek and Stephen Middleton of MSU, and John David Smith of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Civil War historian and author Frank K. Williams will be panel moderator. A former Rhode Island Supreme Court chief justice, he leads the U.S. Grant Association that brought the Grant Library to MSU. He also is founding chair of the Lincoln Forum, a national organization devoted to the study of its namesake and the Civil War era.The symposium concludes at 7:30 p.m. in McCool Hall's Rogers Auditorium (Room 100), with an in-depth discussion by Williams of the Spielberg movie.
"The motion picture 'Lincoln' provides a vivid insight into the nation's greatest president" said Marszalek, a retired MSU Giles Distinguished Professor Emeritus currently serving as executive director and managing editor of the U.S. Grant Association.
"When students and local residents saw it, the immediate question that came to their minds was: 'How accurate is it?'" the nationally recognized Civil War author and researcher added. "Judge Williams and the other speakers at the symposium will be providing answers to this question, and a lot more."
He joined Dean Coleman in expressing appreciation for the participation of Buss, Middleton, Smith, and Williams, whom he praised as "all outstanding speakers with vast knowledge of President Lincoln and his era."
Middleton, Marszalek's campus colleague, is a Miami (Ohio) University doctoral graduate who is a professor in Mississippi State's history department and leader of the university's African American Studies program. For more, visit www.history.msstate.edu/people/stephen-middleton/.
John David Smith is UNC-Charlotte's Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor of American History. A University of Kentucky doctoral graduate, he is a prolific author who teaches courses on the American South, Civil War and African American slavery and emancipation. For more, visit https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/john-david-smith/.
Organization of the varied symposium programs also has been coordinated by Stephen Cunetto, MSU Libraries' system administrator.
"Dean Coleman, Dr. Marszalek and a large number of the MSU Libraries staff have been working for some time to help make this major program a reality for our students, employees, Starkville and Golden Triangle residents, and all others interested in Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War," Cunetto said.
"We all are confident those that attend any or all of the various activities will not be disappointed," he added.
Cunetto said a complete symposium schedule is available at http://library.msstate.edu/abrahamlincoln.


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Did you think, prior to recording the retrospective, the band would reunite for a full album?
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How do you feel the experience has been with crowd-sourcing some funds to support the record with Pledge Music?
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How do you think the Internet has changed some of the ways you communicate with fans?
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Do you think this is a one-off project and everyone will go their separate ways?
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What projects have you wanted to work on, but maybe haven't gotten a chance to doing?
"I think there's a lot of people who'd like to see a musical. There have been people who've suggested I write a book. Those are two projects that are a little bit scary to me. I feel like, in some ways, I write musicals all the time, it's jut not a long one, and I write books all the time, I just kind of send them out in other forms. I've started down the musical thing quite a few times, once with Michael Stipe, and we didn't do it, and, actually, the last one I worked on with Stephen Ramis and he musically directed Book of Mormon. The fact he and I didn't work together meant he ended up working on something else, which was that. [Laughs] Right now, I'd just like to take a vacation. While I'm disappointed that we won't be doing The Sing Off, I have to say, I don't have any time."
Would you like to see The Sing Off return?
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We've heard in the past about you and some of the other guys pranking the press by giving out conflicting information -- is there anything we talked about today just to keep fans guessing?
"No, not really. We were really overworked back in the day. We did a lot of promoting to people with interviews all day long. Maybe eight hours long, and seven of those hours were people who might have just listened to our first record 10 minutes before they walked in. So, you start to have fun with them after a while. They ask you really stupid questions, you're going to give them a stupid answer, 'cause like, "What's the point?" We did a lot of that, and I don't remember what we said. So now we're just talking to people who care rather than people who don't."
So "Brick" isn't about construction material after all?
"No, no, it is. We just basically took a couple of words from The Commodores song and moved the melody around a bit."
Visit the Ben Folds Five Pledge Music page for more updates on the album.


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I didn't count on quite how intricate the underlying science is (it became ever clearer to me why there is so much confusion in this area), so the process took some considerable time, but I believe that this post is now something that many will find useful. It has been checked for accuracy by qualified experts. Read more »


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A spiffy new trailer from the upcoming arrived from the upcoming Hammer films release, "The Resident" has arrived.
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After succumbing to illness in the confines of her home, a 68 year old Louisville woman was fed upon by her dogs for nearly 22 days.
1943 - Nikola Tesla dies. The inventor of alternating current, Tesla was driven mad by Edison and spent his final days trying to invent a death ray.


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MANKATO, Minn. (AP) — A former Minnesota State, Mankato football player severely injured in a fight is being transferred from a Mankato hospital to an inpatient rehabilitation program in the Twin Cities.
The family of Isaac Kolstad said Tuesday he continues to make progress in his recovery.
Kolstad suffered a fractured skull and traumatic brain injury in a May 11 fight in downtown Mankato. Prosecutors have charged former University of Minnesota quarterback Philip Nelson of Mankato and Trevor Shelley of St. Peter with assault.
Previously, relatives said Kolstad was doing standing exercises each day and interacting more with family members, including his 2-week-old daughter.
(© Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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syngo.MR OncoCare
syngo.MR OncoCare1 is your new tool for advanced oncology reading, designed to positively address therapy benefit.
With its histogram analysis, back-mapping, and trending functionalities, syngo.MR OncoCare offers a solution for quantitative evaluation of functional lesion response to treatment. It has the potential to allow earlier assessment of treatment response, leading to treatment path optimization and savings of unnecessary treatment costs.
Requerimientos Generales
Minimum Software Version
syngo.via VB10
syngo.MR Onco
Please Note: Additional technical pre-requisites may apply. Upon receiving your request, your local Siemens representative will clarify whether your system meets the requirements.
Productos, servicios y recursos relacionados
1syngo.via VB10 and the syngo.via based software options are currently under development; not for sale in the U.S. and other countries. Future availability cannot be guaranteed.


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Orange is a serialization library for D1 and D2, supporting both Tango and Phobos. It can serialize most of the available types in D, including third party types and can serialize through base class references. It supports fully automatic serialization of all supported types and also supports several ways to customize the serialization process. Orange has a separate front end (the serializer) and back end (the archive) making it possible for the user to create new archive types that can be used with the existing serializer.The code repository has been moved to github. This page will continue to be the main page for the project and all issues should be reported here.
2011-08-16 - The repository has been moved to github: https://github.com/jacob-carlborg/orange
2010-07-25 Version 0.0.1
- Initial release
- Now works with D2


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Box office preview: Will "Just Go With It" flow well? Will "Never Say Never" make Bieliebers of us all?
This is the first weekend in some time when we have more than a couple of new movies opening wide and it's a weird one. We've got a powerhouse team of A-listers vying for first place against a 16 year-old musical phenom whose talent is, as least in the opinion of most adults and nearly all males, vastly less than phenomenal. Gotta love show biz.
If you're betting on this weekend, you should probably demand some odds if your choice for the #1 spot is not "Just Go With It." At least on paper, this is a smartly designed movie in terms of attracting a mass audience. To be stereotypical about it, there's a little romance for the women, and little raunchy comedy for the men and a slightly unusual pairing of rom-com reliable Jennifer Aniston and raunch-com superstar Adam Sandler.
The cinematic seers and soothsayers referenced over at the L.A. Times and THR differ only very slightly in suggesting that the comedy from Sony/Columbia, will do something in the neighborhood of $30 million, or perhaps a bit more. Neither Aniston nor Sandler have ever been critical darlings and their latest outing isn't changing that.
The strange aspect of this is that the film is an unheralded remake of 1969's "Cactus Flower," which had a screenplay adapted by the later-career collaborator of Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond, and starred Walter Matthau and my hugest crush ever, Ingrid Bergman, in the roles now inhabited by Sandler and Anniston. I've liked both Sandler and Anniston in movies from time to time but, my God, talk about devolution. I've never seen model-turned-actress Brooklyn Decker in anything, so I'll spare her the comparison to Goldie Hawn, who won an Oscar for her role.
Meanwhile, there's more than a little mystery about just how much Paramount's "Justin Beiber: Never Say Never" will make. Apparently, Beiber's very young, very female fan base is defying marketers' ability to measure and predict the results for this 3D docu-concert flick. The really weird part of all this is that, of all four movies being released this week, the biographical documentary has the best reviews with a respectable enough 64% Fresh rating over a Rotten Tomatoes as of this writing. A sad commentary, perhaps, or just another sign of the show biz apocalypse. Could this film actually top the week's box office? Probably not, but never say "never."
Next is the 3D animated comedy, "Gnomeo and Juliet." Disney apparently wanted to keep this one at arm's length and is releasing it through Touchstone, usually reserved for racier properties, despite the film's G-rating. My hunch is that animation chief John Lasseter felt the rom-com suitable for the very young wasn't quite up to snuff all around. The reviews, however, are not completely awful and the voice cast — which includes James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Sir Michael Caine, Dame Maggie Smith and, in a voice-acting debut, Jason Statham — is beyond first rate. It also boasts music by Elton John and parents can also feel like they're prepping their kids for Shakespeare even if this is comedy and not tragedy. So, the guess of $15-20 million seems reasonable enough to me.
Finally, we've got swords, sandals, Channing Tatum, and Jamie Bell in "The Eagle." No one seems very excited about this costume actioner and that non-excitement seems to be communicating itself through some underwhelming box office guesses to match its deeply "meh" notices.
In limited release in some 16 theaters according to Box Office Mojo, the world always needs a good, or half-way decent, comedy and the large majority of critics seem to agree that "Cedar Rapids" is just that. With a cast of tip-top comedy veterans including Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, and Anne Heche, among others, it's hard not to have an upbeat attitude about this one.
You can follow us on Twitter @moviebuffs and on Facebook as well.
Posted in: Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, Animation, Documentaries, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, News
Tags: Adam Sandler, Anne Heche, Billy Wilder, Brooklyn Decker, Cactus Flower, Cedar Rapids, Channing Tatum, Devo, Disney, Ed Helms, Elton John, Emily Blunt, Gnomeo and Juliet, Goldie Hawn, Headlines, I.A.L. Diamond, Ingrid Bergman, James McAvoy, Jamie Bell, Jason Statham, Jennifer Aniston, John C. Reilly, John Lasseter, Just Go With It, Justin Beiber, Justin Beiber: Never Say Never, Maggie Smith, Michael Caine, Oscar, Paramount, Sony/Columbia, The Eagle, Touchstone, Walter Matthau


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The father of US President Barack Obama was a Kenyan national.
Kenyan athletes hold eight Commonwealth Games records and 19 world records.
Kenyan athletes hold eight Commonwealth Games records and 19 world records. Dennis Kipruto Kimetto, born in 1984, has won marathons all over the world, and currently holds the world records for the fastest marathon and the fastest 25 km.
Kenya hosts the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and a national chapter of the Commonwealth Human Ecology Council (CHEC).
G. Vassanji won the Commonwealth Best First Book Prize (Africa Region) in 1990, with Margaret A. Ogola being awarded it in 1995.
Kenya lies astride the equator, extending from the Indian Ocean in the east to Uganda in the west and from the United Republic of Tanzania in the south to Ethiopia and Sudan in the north. On the east and north-east it borders Somalia.
The country is divided into eight provinces (Central, Coast, Eastern, Nairobi, North-Eastern, Nyanza, Rift Valley, Western).
Nairobi (capital, pop. 3.25m), Mombasa (Coast, 917,800), Nakuru (Rift Valley, 275,300), Eldoret (Rift Valley, 251,900), Kisumu (Nyanza, 230,600), Ruiru (Central, 167,100), Thika (Central, 106,000), Malindi (Coast, 82,200), Kitale (Rift Valley, 81,300), Bungoma (Western, 76,700), Kakamega (Western, 71,300), Garissa (North-Eastern, 63,900), Kilifi (Coast, 63,900), Mumias (Western, 57,900), Meru (Eastern, 51,600), Nyeri (Central, 49,400), Wajir (North-Eastern, 41,400), Lamu (Coast, 32,400) and Marsabit (Eastern, 16,700).
61,950 km of roads, 14 per cent paved, and around 1,920 km of railway. The main railway line runs between Mombasa and Nairobi, and branch lines connect with Taveta on the Tanzanian border in the south and Kisumu on Lake Victoria in the west.
Mombasa is the chief port for Kenya and an important regional port, handling freight for and from Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, including a substantial volume of food aid. Ferries ply the coast between Mombasa, Malindi and Lamu.
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is 13 km south-east of Nairobi. Moi International is 13 km west of Mombasa.
Kenya is a member of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, African Union, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, East African Community, Indian Ocean Rim Association, Non-Aligned Movement, United Nations and World Trade Organization.
Kenya was a member, with Uganda and United Republic of Tanzania, of the East African Community, which from 1967 had a common market and many shared services, but collapsed in 1977. The three countries again embarked on developing regional co-operation in 1993, bringing about progressive harmonisation of standards and policies across a wide range of activities and launching a new East African Community in January 2001 and East African Customs Union in January 2005. The Community was enlarged in July 2007 when Burundi and Rwanda became members.
Kenya is also a member of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, which was established in 1986 by the six countries in the Horn of Africa to combat drought and desertification and promote food security in the region.
Kenya hosts the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi.
There are four main regions. The north-east plain is arid. The south-east region is fertile along the Tana river, in the coastal strip and in the Taita Hills, which rise to 2,100 metres. The north-west is generally low-lying and arid but includes Lake Turkana, 260 km long, and many mountains, including Nyiru (2,800 metres). The south-west quarter, a plateau rising to 3,000 metres, includes some of Africa's highest mountains: Mount Kenya (5,200 metres), Mount Elgon (4,320 metres) and the Aberdare Range (4,000 metres). The Great Rift Valley runs across the plateau from north to south, 50–65 km wide and 600–1,000 metres deep. West of the Rift the plateau falls to Lake Victoria and eastward the rivers Tana and Athi (or Galana downstream) flow into the Indian Ocean.
The coastal areas are tropical, with monsoon winds. The lowlands are hot and mainly dry. The highlands are much cooler and have four seasons. Nairobi, 1,700 metres above sea level, has a mean temperature that ranges from a minimum of 13°C to a maximum of 25°C; Mombasa, on the coast, from a minimum of 23°C to a maximum of 29°C. Rainfall varies from a mean annual 150 mm at Lodwar in the north-west to 1,470 mm at Kisumu, near Lake Victoria in the west. Northern parts of the country were hit by severe floods in the latter part of 2007.
The most significant issues are water pollution from urban and industrial wastes; degradation of water quality from increased use of pesticides and fertilisers; water hyacinth infestation in Lake Victoria; deforestation; soil erosion; desertification; and poaching.
Thornbush and grassland are characteristic of much of the country. Varied forest covers about 13,000 sq km of the south-west quarter, at 2–3,500 metres above sea level. Forest covers six per cent of the land area, having declined at 0.3 per cent p.a. 1990–2010. Arable land comprises ten per cent and permanent cropland one per cent of the total land area.
Kenya's wildlife is probably the most famous in the world. Wild mammals include lions, leopards, cheetahs, zebras, antelopes, gazelles, elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotami, baboons and many kinds of monkeys. There are 359 recorded species of mammals, of which 28 are endangered (2012). Reptiles include crocodiles and more than 100 species of snake. There is a rich variety of native birdlife and the country is visited by migrant birds which breed in Europe. There are 344 species of birds, 34 of which are endangered (2012). Wildlife is protected in reserves extending to 45,500 sq km, or some eight per cent of the total land area.


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The Chicago Architects Group will be holding its next meeting on January 19th. Please come and join us and get involved in our architect community.
Presenter: Tim Murphy Topic: Dependency Injection and Inversion of Control Containers Location: Illinois Technology Association 200 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 1500 Room A Chicago, IL 60606 Time: 5:30 - Doors open at 5:00
Print | posted on Thursday, December 17, 2009 3:55 PM
Tim is a Solutions Architect for PSC Group, LLC. He has been an IT consultant since 1999 specializing in Microsoft technologies. Along with running the Chicago Information Technology Architects Group and speaking on Microsoft and architecture topics he was also contributing author on "The Definitive Guide to the Microsoft Enterprise Library".


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When Michelle MacPhee gets ready for bed, she grabs her pyjamas and ducks into the bathroom to get undressed away from her partner.
"If he's in the room, I'm a quick-change artist," she said. "It's, like, the fastest changeover you could ever imagine."
The 42-year-old wasn't always shy about her body.
It's something that she says changed last year — after she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had her right breast removed.
The resident of Dartmouth, a Nova Scotia community across the harbour from Halifax, went under the knife in March 2011. She had her entire right breast removed, along with 25 lymph nodes in her armpit.
Her surgeon had told her that breast reconstruction would be possible within a year after the mastectomy, months of chemotherapy and radiation.
"In the back of your head, you make do," she said. "It's a year. It's going to suck. But it's just a year."
But on the day of her mastectomy, in fact just before she went into surgery, a health-care worker told her the wait for reconstruction would be closer to two years. Later, another specialist told her four years was a more likely scenario.
"I said, 'You need to stop talking to me right now. You have to leave this room,'" she recalled.
"Why would you tell me that going into surgery?"
In the hospital bed, MacPhee seethed with anger and tried to keep from crying as her partner tried to calm her down.
"How am I going to keep a smile and keep going?" she wondered.
"You feel stupid because it's not your arm and it's not your leg. It's something you don't need to get through your day. It's not hindering my life."
But the thought of waking up without a breast and living that way for four years was difficult to swallow on top of chemotherapy drugs and radiation treatment. Today, she has finally met with a plastic surgeon, but she has no idea how long she will wait for surgery.
"You're just kind of floating around," she said. "You don't know if they have your name. You don't know anything.
"It puts you in a limbo."
MacPhee is one of thousands of women across Canada living with disfigured bodies, waiting for months or years for a plastic surgeon to give them back what cancer stole away. They survived chemotherapy and radiation, but many say they now feel lost and forgotten as they join the seemingly endless queue for reconstructive surgery, floating in the unknown of what comes after breast cancer.
The problem is two-fold.
For breast cancer patients who undergo a mastectomy the option of reconstruction is available. Reconstruction can either be immediate, performed at the same time as a mastectomy, or delayed, performed in a separate operation later.
But many women have fallen through the cracks of an information gap in which they aren't told about immediate reconstruction, even if they are eligible for it. Other women are aware of it, but their surgeons encourage them to delay it. The priority, they say, is to get the cancer out and think about the cosmetic aspect later.
Surgeons often don't refer women to a plastic surgeon because they know patients won't be able to get an appointment quickly. Immediate reconstruction requires general surgeons, who perform the mastectomy, and plastic surgeons, who do the reconstruction, to co-ordinate operating time, which can delay the mastectomy.
Preference is also often given to younger patients as some surgeons feel older women aren't as concerned with their body image.
But once women have finished their cancer treatment, if they still haven't been offered reconstruction, they usually never go on to ask about it. For those who do request it, once their breasts have been removed they no longer have active cancer and aren't considered priority cases. At this point, they face multi-year wait lists.
In 2009, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons published statistics showing that nearly 70 per cent of U.S. women eligible for breast reconstruction are not informed of the options available to them. While there is no official data on how often women are informed about reconstruction in Canada, many plastic surgeons believe the numbers are similar here.
Dr. Toni Zhong, a plastic surgeon at Toronto's University Health Network, said a major factor contributing to the information gap is misconceptions held by referring physicians about the procedure. She said a patient's age is often key in the referral process.
Some physicians believe older women face a higher complication rate after reconstruction, or that they aren't as concerned about how they look, she explained.
"As physicians, we all sort of hold certain preferences," Zhong said. "I don't know what it's based on, but some physicians really feel that if you are a woman above a certain age, perhaps body image shouldn't be as important to you."
However, studies on surgery complication rates in older women are mixed, Zhong said, and "there is a huge difference between chronologic age and physiological age."
Zhong said she has performed the DIEP flap, a complex, eight-hour microsurgical procedure on a healthy 76-year-old woman, yet has also refused to do the surgery on a 45-year-old woman who was obese, diabetic and a smoker.
Some surgeons also still believe reconstruction can hinder the ability to detect cancer recurrence, although the research is mixed on that, too, said Zhong.
"If your general surgeon is going to tell you, right or wrong, that having a reconstruction is going to decrease your chances of being able to detect recurrence or delay your chemo, of course it's going to scare women," she said. "They're not going to pursue it."
The discrepancy in attitudes from one physician to the next highlights the need for standardized protocol for determining which patients are candidates for immediate reconstruction, said Zhong.
"Because we don't have guidelines, it's up to individual interpretation," she said. "Even if we can come up with some sort of consensus of who should at least be given a referral to see a plastic surgeon, I think that would at least address some of the issues. At least it's making access more uniform."
Until that happens, "you really end up having to advocate for yourself," Zhong said.
While many women have mastectomies in Canada, Dr. Edward Buchel, a Winnipeg plastic surgeon, said "very few, the number is usually less than 10 per cent, go on to get immediate reconstruction or even delayed reconstruction."
"People don't even really know what's going on, that they can have reconstruction two years later, five years later, 10 years later," he said. "That information is really poorly available to patients."
The low rate of reconstruction is especially frustrating, said Buchel, as there is rarely ever a need for a woman to live for any period of time without her breasts. Most women who require a mastectomy are candidates for immediate reconstruction and should be offered it, he said.
"If anybody in their right mind had a choice, they would have the cancer treated and their body part reconstructed," he said. "You wouldn't cut off a body part and wait a year. . . . You would go, 'OK, make me as whole as possible.' "
Buchel said the ability to perform just a mastectomy is "not something to be proud of," especially in a developed nation where the goal should be delivering exceptional quality-of-life care.
"Survival of cancer is expected," he said. "We should be able to deal with cancer and not disfigure, maim, harm, hurt, cause pain or change anyone's life to any great degree."
In Alberta, Edmonton general surgeon Dr. Kelly Dabbs, who performs mastectomies and regularly refers patients for reconstruction, said reconstruction surgery rates are "very low."
Only 15 per cent of women with DCIS, a type of non-invasive breast cancer, who undergo mastectomies get immediate reconstruction, "although well over half of those patients would be eligible for immediate reconstruction," she said. And only three per cent of invasive breast cancer cases get immediate reconstruction, she said.
"Isn't that terrible?" she asked.
Dabbs said not all patients qualify for immediate reconstruction if they require radiation therapy. "But still, there's more than three per cent of those women who would be eligible," she said.
Many women aren't aware the procedure is covered by their provincial health insurance, said Dabbs.
"It's a misconception that they think they have to pay for it," she said. "And I think a lot of times, surgeons don't bring it up because they know they can't offer plastic surgery in a timely fashion."
Under-informing patients about their options is only half the problem.
Once women have mastectomies, they face incredibly long wait lists for reconstruction. Vancouver plastic surgeon Dr. Nancy Van Laeken says her patients wait at least one to two years for a consultation and another two to three years for surgery.
"Right now, I'm not even sure if I'm seeing any new patients," she said. "I'm referring them elsewhere."
Van Laeken has two days of operating time each week. Sometimes she is able to lobby hospital administration for more time, if there is an urgent need.
"It's very difficult," she said. "You're in a difficult position, and I feel like I'm working as hard as I can."
The number of mastectomy patients waiting for reconstruction surgery is so overwhelming that Vancouver plastic surgeon Dr. Peter Lennox said he was forced to stop accepting new cases. His practice is now focused primarily on immediate reconstruction at the time of the mastectomy.
"It got to the point that I thought it was not really ethical to take new patients when I had no idea when they would get an operation," said Lennox, head of the Breast Reconstruction Program at UBC Hospital.
Plastic surgeon Dr. Sheina Macadam, who specializes in microsurgical breast reconstruction, was recruited to help take on Lennox's patients in 2009. The two surgeons have more than 200 Vancouver women on their wait list, about one-third of all women waiting for delayed reconstruction in B.C., according to the province's surgery wait times website. The list doesn't include the women still waiting for their first consultation.
Although she also faces an overwhelming volume of patients, Macadam said she does still accept some new cases.
Many of her delayed reconstruction patients were not informed about the option of reconstruction before having a mastectomy, she said, and to deny them the opportunity of getting their breasts back would be unfair. Others live in areas where there is no plastic surgeon, she added, and the priority for their oncologist was to get the cancer out.
"I think they deserve a chance to get breast reconstruction, but at this point people are waiting a year for a consult, and one or two years to get into the OR," Macadam said. "It's a problem."
The gravity of the problem is compounded by the fact that some provinces do not make wait times for delayed reconstruction public.
In 2007, a steering committee for the Canadian Society of Plastic Surgeons developed a list of recommended wait-time benchmarks based on a questionnaire sent to its members. The society reported plastic surgeons felt that delayed breast reconstruction patients should wait no more than nine months for their surgery, and immediate reconstruction patients should wait no more than one month.
Despite the recommendation, the Fraser Institute reported in its December 2011 report on Wait Times for Health Care in Canada that patients seeking plastic and reconstructive surgery wait the longest compared to all other elective procedures, more than 10 months.
Across Canada, plastic surgeons express the same frustrations.
In Edmonton, the problem is a lack of plastic surgeons performing reconstruction, said Dr. Blair Mehling. Of those who do, many are also expected to work several on-call shifts every week handling trauma cases in emergency rooms.
"It's getting to the point where we just can't be two places at once," said Mehling. "We're not even coming close to scratching the surface of demand (for breast reconstruction) up here. I mean, wait lists are insane."
The delayed reconstruction patients are "the ones that really suffer," he said.
Delayed patients, who wait a year to two years for a consultation and at least six months for surgery, get bumped down to make room for women who are offered immediate reconstruction, he added.
"It's kind of unconscionable," he said. "The poor ladies who wind up getting bumped again and again and again are the delayeds, because (they) can wait. And there comes a point when it's just not reasonable how long these poor ladies are waiting."
The surgeon shortages means the majority of Edmonton women who are told they need a mastectomy are never informed about immediate reconstruction.
"General surgeons don't even bother offering it to patients who are interested simply because they know they're not going to be able to get them in the operating room or find an available plastic surgeon," he said.
By the time many of those women see him for a consultation months after their mastectomy, Mehling said they've done their own research and, in frustration, ask why they were never offered it.
Mehling said the question places plastic surgeons, who were never consulted at the time of their mastectomy, in a tough position. "How do you answer that question?" he asked. "You don't want to go there."
While initiatives are being launched to improve access to breast reconstruction, like the Breast Reconstruction Awareness day, or BRA day, which took place last October across Canada and has now spread to the United States, Mehling said raising awareness about the surgery could bring the unintended consequence of a bigger backlog.
That would put even more pressure on a limited number of resources that are already stretched to the limit, he said.
"If (plastic surgeons) can't even accommodate the ones who do have awareness, my God, what are we going to do when that level of awareness goes up?" Mehling asked. "We haven't seen that support from the government and health-care providers to address the bottleneck that we already have."
In Calgary, plastic surgeon Dr. Christiaan Schrag said his delayed breast reconstruction patients wait about a year to see him for a consultation and another year for surgery. However, Schrag said his limited operating room access, just three days a month, "artificially increases" his wait times.
"I only want to see as many patients as I can treat within a year," he explained. "Because I can't get in (to the OR), I don't see as many breast cancer patients as I potentially could if I had better access."
The Canadian system differs dramatically from what's happening south of the border.
Dr. Toni Zhong, who specializes in microsurgical breast reconstruction at Toronto's University Health Network, completed a one-year microvascular and reconstructive surgery fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Practising in Canada is a far cry from her experience there, she said.
"There are so many plastic surgeons there that it's the opposite," she said. "They are recruiting patients, they are actively going out to seek patients because there's so much competition."
In the U.S., wait times for patients with health insurance are virtually unheard of, said Dr. Sameer Patel, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
"The waits are not horrendous," he said. "Probably a couple of weeks."
Upon hearing how long delayed reconstruction patients are waiting in Canada, Patel's reaction was one of shock.
"Really? Wow, that long, huh?" he said. "Wow."
Dr. Martin Jugenburg, another Toronto surgeon, also completed a fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York. The glaring difference between the two health-care systems stood out to him as well, he said.
In New York, Jugenburg said the more he operated, the more the hospital was able to bill and he was encouraged to take on more surgeries. In Canada, the more he operates, the more he consumes the hospital's budget.
"In the States, I was an asset," he said. "In Canada, I feel like I'm a liability."
Jugenburg's patients wait four to six months for surgery, a much shorter time than other plastic surgeons, especially considering he is allocated just 3.5 hours of OR time every week.
In Toronto, he said the limited OR time is due to a shortage of funding for breast reconstruction.
"People say there is a shortage of doctors, but there is a shortage of resources," he said. "Hospital administrators are constantly crunching numbers trying to get things done."
Part of the problem, said Vancouver's Van Laeken, is a perception that breast reconstruction is a purely cosmetic surgery, akin to breast augmentation.
"It's seen to be not as important as someone who has hip pain or knee pain and can't go back to work or do the things they like to do," she said. "This seems to be something that hasn't had a high priority."
However, studies show women who have breast reconstruction have a better psychological and emotional outcome. Reconstruction not only improves a patient's body image, said Van Laeken, but also affects her relationships and even her desire to return to work.
"These are things that, unless you are talking to the patients and hearing it from them on a daily basis, you don't think it's important," she said. "It has an economic and social impact that I think is measurable and is valuable, and should be considered in the resource allocation."
Jan Collins of Calgary is an example of that psychological impact.
On a warm spring day, a glowing Collins is a picture of health as she strides into the Second Cup coffee shop after a yoga class at a nearby studio. But it wasn't always that way. Collins, 55, was diagnosed with breast cancer at 46 and suffered a recurrence six years later. She had a mastectomy after her second diagnosis in early 2009, but only finished reconstruction last November.
"You feel kind of like a freak," Collins said. "If I wore a V-neck T-shirt and then I went to yoga class and did a downward dog or something, other people might not have noticed, but I would notice."
After her first cancer diagnosis, Collins was given the option of a lumpectomy or mastectomy with immediate reconstruction. Her chances of survival would be the same with both courses of treatment, she was told, so she chose the less-invasive lumpectomy.
But when the cancer came back and she underwent a mastectomy, she wasn't given the option of reconstruction. Once she had her breasts removed, it took three years before she was finished with reconstruction, which was difficult on her emotional well-being.
"If you have to wait a year just to get in to talk to somebody, and then wait several months after that just for surgery, you've always got that anxiety," she said. "It's always in the back of your mind."