Dr Who revealed

[G-Stud]

I really liked it

[Chiefski]

Really good episode for a christmas special, tho the old man meeting his younger self (or was it his son?) seemed a bit paradoxy. The preview for next year looked awesome if a bit X-files in areas, hell im sure I saw a 'grey' in there.

[LusciousLucy]

Twas a bit strange but I enjoyed it. It tugged at the heartstrings and despite finding Katherine Jenkins far too sweet and smug in real life, her sweet smugness worked quite nicely in the show.

[Purple Monkey]

The special was good!

The next season looks interesting. Is this going to be the point where we first meet River (as in, this is the very first time she meets the Doctor?)

[jump]

They should just do a straight panto xmas Doctor Who next year, really enjoyed it but it looked cheap espically the ship.

[Halcyon]

So it was just me that hated it then?

Too much christmas, not enough Dr Who.

[metallimuse]

Umm...it was a special Christmas episode,did you expect anything else?All of the Christmas specials could be omitted from the canonicity and it wouldn't matter...barring Tennant losing his hand,that came back to actually play a part in a future story arc.

[Alcatraz]

My one criticism was that Katherine Jenkins actually sung. Did it really need it?

[LusciousLucy]

They should just do a straight panto xmas Doctor Who next year, really enjoyed it but it looked cheap espically the ship.

Buffy managed the musical...Doctor Who the panto/musical would certainly be interesting.

[metallimuse]

HMV has slashed the price of Who boxsets at the mo.

[radish]

HMV has slashed the price of Who boxsets at the mo.

Is this in-store? 'Cause Amazon is cheaper online.

[metallimuse]

Yeah in store.£20 for each series.I picked up 3 & 4.

[radish]

Yeah in store.£20 for each series.I picked up 3 & 4.

£12.93 and £15.99 respectively on Amazon. Plus a wait for them to deliver of course.

I have no sympathy for HMV going under by the way, they've been charging far too much for years.

[metallimuse]

Didn't realise they were that cheap online.HMV has series 2 priced at £70!

[radish]

Not checked anywhere else today, but Amazon have been cheapest for a while so doubt that's changed, and currently:

Series 1 - £12.93

Series 2 - £12.99

Series 3 - £12.93

Series 4 - £15.99

Series 1-4 boxset - £45.49 (bargain, but only includes 'cut-down' confidentials)

Specials - £16.93

Series 5 - £44.99

That's my good deed for the day done. Back to being a miserable git. HMV can still go do one, bloody lucky they've survived this long, helping to kill off every decent independent record shop in the country along the way, the bastards.

[Purple Monkey]

Not checked anywhere else today, but Amazon have been cheapest for a while so doubt that's changed, and currently:

Series 1 - £12.93

Series 2 - £12.99

Series 3 - £12.93

Series 4 - £15.99

Series 1-4 boxset - £45.49 (bargain, but only includes 'cut-down' confidentials)

Specials - £16.93

Series 5 - £44.99

That's my good deed for the day done. Back to being a miserable git. HMV can still go do one, bloody lucky they've survived this long, helping to kill off every decent independent record shop in the country along the way, the bastards.

The sooner everything goes digital, and kills off these parasitic retailers, the better.

[LusciousLucy]

The sooner everything goes digital, and kills off these parasitic retailers, the better.

Ah, even more people being made redundant...nice one!

If you hadn't fail to notice, before the invention of the t'internet, the world revolved quite nicely with this thing called face to face customer service in music shops where you went in and bought something with your own hands by picking the product up, perusing whether you wanted to buy and then made your decision and went to the counter where you would be served by a young person, probably in their first job and very grateful and happy for it, not to mention they are working in a music shop (how cool is that? It certainly was THE job to get when I was a teenager!)

It's a very sad thing that people who actually enjoy shopping for music in an environment called A MUSIC SHOP!!! wont get to do this for much longer eh?

Pedant! :angry:

[jump]

Ah, even more people being made redundant...nice one!

If you hadn't fail to notice, before the invention of the t'internet, the world revolved quite nicely with this thing called face to face customer service in music shops where you went in and bought something with your own hands by picking the product up, perusing whether you wanted to buy and then made your decision and went to the counter where you would be served by a young person, probably in their first job and very grateful and happy for it, not to mention they are working in a music shop (how cool is that? It certainly was THE job to get when I was a teenager!)

It's a very sad thing that people who actually enjoy shopping for music in an environment called A MUSIC SHOP!!! wont get to do this for much longer eh?

Pedant! :angry:

I've seen this digital vs cd debate pop up in 4 different thread on this forum in the last week.

My fave music shop Banquet Records (I'm gonna pimp them because they deserved to be) does a lot for the local music scene, they somehow manage to get huge acts like Ash, Vampire Weekend (after they went big), Biffy Clyro etc to play in tiny little local clubs which hold less than 100 people and promote new/upcoming bands, have their own label and if music does go digital but they carry on with their other stuff without a shop it just wouldn't be the same and they deserve to be supported.

[radish]

Ah, even more people being made redundant...nice one!

If you hadn't fail to notice, before the invention of the t'internet, the world revolved quite nicely with this thing called face to face customer service in music shops where you went in and bought something with your own hands by picking the product up, perusing whether you wanted to buy and then made your decision and went to the counter where you would be served by a young person, probably in their first job and very grateful and happy for it, not to mention they are working in a music shop (how cool is that? It certainly was THE job to get when I was a teenager!)

It's a very sad thing that people who actually enjoy shopping for music in an environment called A MUSIC SHOP!!! wont get to do this for much longer eh?

Pedant! :angry:

Can't let this one lie, despite it being bollocks all to do with Dr Who. HMV isn't/wasn't a music shop. Sure, they sell cds/dvds/games/books what have you, but what you talk about, face to face customer service, has become less and less of a priority for HMV and the like in the never-ending search for more (or just some) profit. The real record shops, the independent retailers, have all but gone - what is it, something like one closes every 3 days, only a couple of hundred left out of thousands a few years back? HMV, Virgin, Zavvi, Our Price, all that lot killed off shopping for music in person by turning it away from what it's all about, personal taste and personal service. It all went from lots of small shops to fewer, bigger ones with more in common with the Next next door than a 'proper' record store. Jesus, you can go back to the early 90s (pre-internet!) and it was showing the signs then, I remember going to HMV Bournemouth to try to buy the new release from the Wildhearts, major label, not exactly mainstream but not that obscure, and it was a bloody nightmare. The staff didn't have a clue, they couldn't find it in any of their order lists/catalogues or by calling their distribution bunch, a week later I went to an independent place in Bristol (or might have been Bath) called Replay and they had a number in stock plus limited edition vinyl. I spent ages in there chatting and ended up buying a bunch of other stuff too.

Nothing beats going into a shop to possibly buy something and ending up having a long chat with the shop assistant/manager/fellow customer about something you're passionate about. The High Fidelity image of a record shop might be a bit romantic, but I for one would happily put up with prices a bit higher than online for that kind of experience. Buying music shouldn't just be about being treated like any other consumer in a souless barn, it's more than just a piece of bloody plastic for a lot of people. Sure, I'll always probably buy stuff from Amazon or iTunes or whatever because it means I can get more of what I love (and it's the only way to get some stuff like the Cardiacs back catalogue at the moment), but if I could go to a small (and that's an important factor, big shops kill off the personal side of the experience) record shop on a regular basis to find out about new stuff, get recommendations from the staff who know what kind of thing I like, then that would appeal to me. I wouldn't even set foot in HMV at xmas because I knew it'd be pointless.

If I had the opportunity (and I'm sure some from some of the forums on here would argue/abuse that I do have the opportunity, what's stopping me, it's only me that puts these barriers in place, I don't know what I'm talking about, Thatcher did it, blah blah blah) I'd love to open up a MUSIC store. Sod records, cds, dvds, whatever, the physical product would almost be irrelevant, this place would be an experience, a big pit in the middle with instruments for live music/have-a-go sessions/open mic sessions, individual listening booths, carefully selected staff who know their stuff (and I appreciate some HMV staff fit this bill, I also know from talking to some that they're wasted in HMV), a regular schedule of events, associated lifestyle merchandise (clothing, comics etc.), ticket sales, maybe even a bloody cafe. I wonder how much more successful Waterstones with coffee shops are than their counterparts? Maybe even go so far as to have computer stations for people to buy music they've heard in-store online, cut some kind of deal with Amazon and iTunes for them to have a some kind of semi-physical presence in exchange for a small percentage. And supermarket chains releasing music? What not music sellers? Surely a record store would be a better record label than Wal-mart, for not-already-multi-millionaire type artists anyway?

f**k it, it's a difficult ask but there has to be a much better way to sell music than the way HMV have been going about it. They deserve the trouble they're in as an organisation, they've been lucky to weather it all this far. It's shitty for those who will lose their jobs but let's face it no job is safe in retail. Or in any sector for that matter. Thinking of it, Waterstones et al should start thinking carefully, the Kindle is starting to show signs of doing for books what the iPod did for cds.

Anyway, rant over and not a single mention or comparison of what Forbidden Planet have done to the comic retail market...

[jump]

Can't let this one lie, despite it being bollocks all to do with Dr Who. HMV isn't/wasn't a music shop. Sure, they sell cds/dvds/games/books what have you, but what you talk about, face to face customer service, has become less and less of a priority for HMV and the like in the never-ending search for more (or just some) profit. The real record shops, the independent retailers, have all but gone - what is it, something like one closes every 3 days, only a couple of hundred left out of thousands a few years back? HMV, Virgin, Zavvi, Our Price, all that lot killed off shopping for music in person by turning it away from what it's all about, personal taste and personal service. It all went from lots of small shops to fewer, bigger ones with more in common with the Next next door than a 'proper' record store. Jesus, you can go back to the early 90s (pre-internet!) and it was showing the signs then, I remember going to HMV Bournemouth to try to buy the new release from the Wildhearts, major label, not exactly mainstream but not that obscure, and it was a bloody nightmare. The staff didn't have a clue, they couldn't find it in any of their order lists/catalogues or by calling their distribution bunch, a week later I went to an independent place in Bristol (or might have been Bath) called Replay and they had a number in stock plus limited edition vinyl. I spent ages in there chatting and ended up buying a bunch of other stuff too.

Nothing beats going into a shop to possibly buy something and ending up having a long chat with the shop assistant/manager/fellow customer about something you're passionate about. The High Fidelity image of a record shop might be a bit romantic, but I for one would happily put up with prices a bit higher than online for that kind of experience. Buying music shouldn't just be about being treated like any other consumer in a souless barn, it's more than just a piece of bloody plastic for a lot of people. Sure, I'll always probably buy stuff from Amazon or iTunes or whatever because it means I can get more of what I love (and it's the only way to get some stuff like the Cardiacs back catalogue at the moment), but if I could go to a small (and that's an important factor, big shops kill off the personal side of the experience) record shop on a regular basis to find out about new stuff, get recommendations from the staff who know what kind of thing I like, then that would appeal to me. I wouldn't even set foot in HMV at xmas because I knew it'd be pointless.

If I had the opportunity (and I'm sure some from some of the forums on here would argue/abuse that I do have the opportunity, what's stopping me, it's only me that puts these barriers in place, I don't know what I'm talking about, Thatcher did it, blah blah blah) I'd love to open up a MUSIC store. Sod records, cds, dvds, whatever, the physical product would almost be irrelevant, this place would be an experience, a big pit in the middle with instruments for live music/have-a-go sessions/open mic sessions, individual listening booths, carefully selected staff who know their stuff (and I appreciate some HMV staff fit this bill, I also know from talking to some that they're wasted in HMV), a regular schedule of events, associated lifestyle merchandise (clothing, comics etc.), ticket sales, maybe even a bloody cafe. I wonder how much more successful Waterstones with coffee shops are than their counterparts? Maybe even go so far as to have computer stations for people to buy music they've heard in-store online, cut some kind of deal with Amazon and iTunes for them to have a some kind of semi-physical presence in exchange for a small percentage. And supermarket chains releasing music? What not music sellers? Surely a record store would be a better record label than Wal-mart, for not-already-multi-millionaire type artists anyway?

f**k it, it's a difficult ask but there has to be a much better way to sell music than the way HMV have been going about it. They deserve the trouble they're in as an organisation, they've been lucky to weather it all this far. It's shitty for those who will lose their jobs but let's face it no job is safe in retail. Or in any sector for that matter. Thinking of it, Waterstones et al should start thinking carefully, the Kindle is starting to show signs of doing for books what the iPod did for cds.

Anyway, rant over and not a single mention or comparison of what Forbidden Planet have done to the comic retail market...

That happens to me all the time, I go into Banquet Records (I'm just gonna keep pimping them now) and I will grab the cd I want, then talk to them and end up getting a cd they say I will like aswell as the album to the really good tune playing in the background. I remember I got really chuffed once as I talked to the ska expert in the shop and told him about a ska band he didn't know about and then he got into them.

The borders near me went bust and they had a Starbucks, I think the the coffee shops just pay a bit of rent to add to the revenue and isn't an attraction as I never see people reading & drinking coffee in them.

It will be a while till the Kindle/Ipad take over from books, at the moment it looks just a fad. Untill they manage to bring the price down (I am not gonna spend £300 on an Ipad to read a book I can get for £7) and offer a better selection of books it wont take over, you also have to consider that a lot of readers are older and didn't grow with tech so they wouldn't embrace it the same music listeners embraced mp3 players.

Edited January 12, 2011 by jump

[radish]

That happens to me all the time, I go into Banquet Records (I'm just gonna keep pimping them now) and I will grab the cd I want, then talk to them and end up getting a cd they say I will like aswell as the album to the really good tune playing in the background. I remember I got really chuffed once as I talked to the ska expert in the shop and told him about a ska band he didn't know about and then he got into them.

Pimp away, every record store like this deserves as much promotion as possible. What was the band btw?

The borders near me went bust and they had a Starbucks, I think the the coffee shops just pay a bit of rent to add to the revenue and isn't an attraction as I never see people reading & drinking coffee in them.

Borders seemed to be doing ok but then I think they went overboard and tried to expand too quickly. The Waterstones I've been to that have a coffee shop seem busier than those that don't, but I don't know how that translates into sales. I don't drink coffee so it has bugger all effect on me. Maybe it's all a bit Black Books.

It will be a while till the Kindle/Ipad take over from books, at the moment it looks just a fad. Until they manage to bring the price down (I am not gonna spend £300 on an Ipad to read a book I can get for £7) and offer a better selection of books it wont take over, you also have to consider that a lot of readers are older and didn't grow with tech so they wouldn't embrace it the same music listeners embraced mp3 players.

I wasn't sold on the kindle until I saw one. The whole 'it's not an lcd/led glowy eye-hurty screen it's actually electronically excited ink' thing blew me away, it really is just the same as reading a page of a paper book. Except it's potentially a whole bloody library in your hands. iPad sure, too expensive, but around £100 for a kindle I think this may be the year they really get big. It's the storage issue for me, what takes up several acres of shelf space can all fit on one handy device, that's what convinced me to get an iPod. I'm just waiting for the big marketing push, or maybe I've missed it because I don't get exposed to much stuff like that not living somewhere with loads of billboards or public transport, or read newspapers or magazines or watch ITV. And as for older readers, well holding a kindle would be kinder to arthritic hands than a foldy bendy paperback or big weighty hardback. It might take 10 years but I am beginning to think books are dead other than as collectibles. Paper ones anyway.

In a brave attempt to get back to Who, has anybody else seen subtle hints/confirmation that the Cybermen in the recent adventure game thing didn't have the Cybus logo on their chests? Mondasians are coming back, could they be one of the big villains in the next series? Oh, and Torchwood is confirmed as scheduled to air in the gap between Dr Who series this year (although not at the same time, still post-watershed in the week). I think it's something like a 6-parter, Captain Jack is in it naturally,

[Edited to say] something about Gwen Rhys and their sprog gone into hiding, overall story arc is a day comes when nobody dies. Then the next day, nobody dies. Everybody on earth becomes immortal, although anybody who is dying continues to be in that state, they just don't pass over. One man survives his own execution. Gwen is faced with a terrible choice, so presumably Rhys and/or her Sprog are dying so either everyone stays immortal or she helps fix things and they die. It's called Torchwood - Miracle Day, with a world-wide setting, or the UK and the USA at least. Mekhi Pfifer is in it as well. Who I think I recognise the name of.

Edited January 12, 2011 by radish

[jump]

Pimp away, every record store like this deserves as much promotion as possible. What was the band btw?

It was Stand Out Riot, unfortunately they have gone a bit shit after such a promising start. I think Prince Charles once saw them play.

[radish]

More Who stuff I've heard, which I have to share. If you like

the cybermen

then there's an episode or maybe a two-parter in the new series (not sure which half) apparently set

in Egypt that allegedly sees the discovery of a Mondasian Cyberman in a Pyramid or other such Egyptian type construction. Mondasian!

Geek geek geek geek geek geek...

Edited January 12, 2011 by radish

[metallimuse]

Can someone explain the importance of a mondasian cyberman?

[jump]

Can someone explain the importance of a mondasian cyberman?

I am not a 100% but I think the Cyberman from the last few series are from a parallel universe and the Mondasian Cybermen are from old series which come from this universe.