SpockSoc

I’m making a change from the published schedule this week – you’ll find this tends to happen on a semi-regular basis. This week, we’re showing Misfits, season three.

Misfits follows five early-20s delinquents on community service in Wertham (a fictional borough in London) who are caught outside during a supernatural thunder storm and who acquire special powers. Initially, the show focused on five young adults. Kelly (Lauren Socha) gains the ability to hear the thoughts of others, Curtis (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) can rewind time after experiencing an immense sense of regret, Alisha (Antonia Thomas) sends people into a sexual frenzy when they touch her skin, Simon (Iwan Rheon) can become invisible, and Nathan (Robert Sheehan) is immortal.

At the end of the previous season, however, they all traded in their powers for money, then purchased new powers. We still haven’t seen what those new powers are yet.

5pm in ChemSci M18 as usual.

Lastly, a quick reminder: the Ritz still has tickets available for the Avengers midnight premiere this Wednesday morning, if anyone is interested, but the official SpockSoc outing won’t be until next week.

This week at SpockSoc: Eureka, the second half of season four. As with the Warehouse 13 screening earlier in the session, I don’t quite have enough episodes to make a full screening, so I’ll be filling the remaining time by showing one of Colin Ferguson’s Q&A sessions from last year’s Warehouse In Eureka event run by The Hub Productions.

Eureka takes place in a high tech fictional community of the same name, located in the U.S. state of Oregon and inhabited entirely by brilliant scientists working on new scientific advances. The town is operated by a corporation called Global Dynamics (GD), that is overseen by the United States Department of Defense. The town’s existence and location are closely guarded secrets.

U.S. Marshal Jack Carter stumbles upon Eureka while transporting a fugitive prisoner (his own rebellious teenage daughter Zoe) back to her mother’s home in Los Angeles. When a faulty experiment cripples the sheriff of Eureka, Carter finds himself quickly chosen to fill the vacancy. Despite not being a genius like most members of the town, Jack Carter demonstrates a remarkable ability to connect to others, keen and practical insights, and a dedication to preserving the safety of Eureka.

Same SpockTime, same SpockPlace. Friday 5pm in ChemSci M18.

On a different note, SpockSoc has decided not to organise a trip for the midnight premiere of Avengers. If anyone’s interested, though, the Randwick Ritz is selling tickets for $13 – the premiere is at 12:01am on Anzac Day, so you’ve got the whole day to recover from staying up all night. SpockSoc will be going to a regular screening the week after.

This week’s regular screening – and we’re still on, even though it’s a break – is a collection of miniseries and specials. We’ll decide the exact order (probably by vote or else at random) on the night, but in no particular order:

• Neverland – a new re-imagining and prequel (pre-imagining?) for the story of Peter Pan, starring Rhys Ifans and Charlie Rowe.
• The Borrowers – a new version which aired in England last Christmas, starring Stephen Fry and Christopher Eccleston.
• Three Inches – after getting struck by lightning, Walter Spackman discovers he’s developed an amazing superpower: he can move objects, using only the power of his mind… up to a distance of three inches. Stars Noah Reid and James Marsters.

As usual, we’re on from 5pm Friday in ChemSci M18. It’s going to be another jam-packed screening, so we want to start as close to five as we can manage. Pizza run as normal.

Sanctuary follows the exploits of Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) and her quest to protect various cryptids, legends, and abnormal animals/people with certain extraordinary powers and abilities – what most people would consider monsters. “The Sanctuary” serves as a safe haven for these “Abnormals”. She is aided in her quest by her reluctant protégé Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne); former freelancer Kate Freelander (Agam Darshi); the talkative lycanthrope geek Henry Foss (Ryan Robbins), a computer and security expert; her taciturn, Homo heidelbergensis-like assistant, played by Christopher Heyerdahl (unnamed, but listed as Bigfoot in the show’s credits); and on-again-off-again villain John Druitt (Heyerdahl again), who was once known as Jack the Ripper.

In the previous season, by following clues left by Magnus’ father, our heroes discover Praxis, an advanced underground civilization of humans and Abnormals. After an initial period of mistrust (exacerbated by the antics of Adam Worth (Ian Tracey), an old enemy of Helen’s who inspired Jekyll and Hyde), Helen and her team save the world and reach an entente, with Magnus’ father acting as ambassador. However, the peace does not last long. Worth, who escaped, manipulated unhappy Abnormals in Praxis while experimenting with a dangerously unstable energy source to power a time machine. The end results of his machinations were the destruction of Praxis, several armies of displaced Abnormals marching on the upper world, and his escape to the past to attempt to save his daughter, with Magnus hot on his heels.

5pm Friday in ChemSci M18.

In other news, SpockSoc’s first movie outing is coming up this week. We’ll be going as a group to see The Hunger Games at the Randwick Ritz, the 6:30pm session on Wednesday. For those who haven’t been there before, the cinema is at 45 St. Pauls Street Randwick, not too far from Uni. We’ll meet up in the lobby beforehand – say, around six o’clock or so – and go in together, then m
nearby for dinner afterwards. Those who are Arc members and show their sticker can get tickets for $8 (or so I’ve been told – haven’t actually tried it myself) and as an added bonus, any SpockSoc members who show me their membership card and ticket stub can get $2 reimbursed. One of the perks of membership. =)

This week at SpockSoc: Haven, the second half of season two.

When FBI Special Agent Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) arrives in the small town of Haven, Maine, on a routine case, she soon finds herself increasingly involved in the return of The Troubles, a plague of supernatural afflictions that occurred in the town at least once before. With an openness to the possibility of the paranormal, she also finds a more personal link in Haven that may lead her to the mother she has never known.

Parker begins to realise that her arrival in Haven may have been planned and that her name and even her memories may not be her own. As the series progresses, she learns more about the mystery of both Haven and her true identity. She and her partner Nathan Wuornos find themselves frequently facing problems caused by both the effects of the Troubles, as well as town folk who take more drastic measures against the Troubled.

Screening is same Spock time, same Spock place – 5pm Friday in ChemSci M18. Also, our new t-shirts have arrived, yay! We haven’t quite nailed down a price for them yet, but you’ll be able to buy them starting this Friday. Come along and you can see me modelling one of them. Woo!

This week at SpockSoc: Warehouse 13, the second half of season three. It’s easy to get into, so don’t worry if you haven’t seen the first half. Since the episodes I have won’t quite fill the night, as an extra bonus, I’ll be showing one of Eddie McClintock’s Q&A sessions from last year’s Warehouse In Eureka event run by The Hub Productions.

The series follows United States Secret Service Agents Myka Bering (Joanne Kelly) and Peter Lattimer (Eddie McClintock) when they are assigned to the government’s secret Warehouse 13 for supernatural “artifacts”. The artifacts are items owned by mythological or historical figures, which have picked up characteristics from their owners. For example, Marylin Monroe’s hairbrush, which turns the user’s hair platinum blonde, or Pavlov’s bell, which attracts any dog in the area but causes the user to salivate uncontrollably for twenty-four hours. Think of it as X-Files meets the government warehouse in Indiana Jones. =)

We’re on from 5pm Friday in ChemSci M18, as always. Pizza run at 7-ish, with pizzas $5 per half.

Hope to see you there,
-Joel
el presidente

This week at SpockSoc, Lost Girl season two.

Bo is a succubus who grew up in an adoptive human family, unaware of her non-human nature and of the Fae world. Her succubus powers only become apparent to her when she accidentally killed her first love by draining him of his life energy, an act which forced her to flee her home. In the pilot episode, Bo saves a human girl named Kenzi; the two quickly become friends and Kenzi decides they should team up to create a Fae/Human detective agency. Confronted by the Fae elders with having to choose a side (“Light” or “Dark”), Bo declares herself neutral, deciding to side with humans.

Apologies for those who haven’t seen the first season yet – we showed it at SpockSoc last year – but I’ll include a brief recap before we start, so you ought to be able to get into it. Screening is in ChemSci M18, starting from 5pm on Friday. Pizza run at 7pm or so – pizzas cost $5 per half.

Welcome new members! Welcome back old members! It’s time to start a shiny new year at SpockSoc! This e-mail’s gonna be kinda lengthy, but I’ll try to keep it down for future ones. Honest. =)

To kick off the year, our first screening for this session is Once Upon A Time. The story is set in the fictional small town of Storybrooke, Maine. The town is populated by characters from fairy tales, who have been exiled to the real world due to a curse cast by the Evil Queen as part of a revenge plot against Snow White and Prince Charming. Because of the curse, most of the inhabitants of Storybrooke have no memory of their true identities and have been stuck timelessly in Storybrooke for years. It’s got Robert Carlyle. Woo!

Our screenings for this session will be in the Chemical Sciences building, theatre M18. The ChemSci building is at grid reference F10 on any campus map – it’s the tall stripy building halfway up the Main Runway from Anzac Parade, with the clock on the western side. M18 is just outside the main entrance, which is on the south side of the building, the side that faces away from the Runway.

Screenings start at 5pm on Fridays, and we’ll show as many episodes as we can fit into the night until we need to leave at 11pm – usually it’s about seven episodes. At about 7pm or so, we’ll start taking orders for pizza for dinner. Pizza costs $5 per half, and you get a can of drink thrown in for free. We’ll also take orders for other things like pasta or garlic bread – prices to be arranged based on the current market rate.

In other news, SpockSoc also has a Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/5002703134/
As a welcome-back present, we have five free double passes for The Raid to give out. Check out the group page for details.

Lastly, if you ever want off the mailing list, or if I’ve accidentally misspelt an address and gotten someone else by coincidence, the unsubscribe information appears at the bottom of every e-mail.

Hope to see you at the screening!

-Joel
el presidente