SpockSoc

Week 10: Primeval & Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire

This week at SpockSoc we’re showing two things. Firstly, we’re showing the last three episodes of the third season of Primeval, because that was how far we’d gotten at our last screening of it last year. Unfortunately the future of Primeval is a little uncertain, so I thought I might as well just get the remaining episodes out of the way. In Primeval, a team of scientists must protect modern-day London from strange portals in time which bring forth creatures from the distant past – and the far future. It’s made by the same guys who did Walking with Dinosaurs.

The second is a comedy fantasy series called Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire. It’s a short show – six half-hour episodes, and American… which means very American humour, which may admittedly be not to everyone’s taste. It still looks pretty good at first glance, so come along and try it out.

As usual for double-show screenings, we’ll decide on the night which we’ll show first. 5pm in Rex Vowels – pizza run at 7ish.

Week 9: Paradox

This week at SpockSoc: Paradox. Detective Inspector Rebecca Flint must prevent a major accident from occurring. Her only clues are photos that somehow arrive from eighteen hours in the future, after the accident has already happened. It’s another British series – five hour-long episodes, so we’ll be able to see the whole thing in the one screening. Starting at 5pm in Rex Vowels – pizza run at 7-ish like usual.

In other news, due to availability and things airing on TV, we’ve made some changes to our screenings in weeks 10, 11 and 13. Week 10 is now Primeval and Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire. Week 11 is Mystery Screening Univrse, the second third of the first season. Week 13 is yet to be decided. I’ll give more details in the e-mails of the week, but keep your diaries free if those series interest you.

Last but not least: if I were to have a marathon screening on the Saturday following week thirteen, who’d be interested in coming? Would it make for a good break before stuvac starts, or will people be too worried about exams already? Fill in Poll to the right to let me know your opinion. I want to hear it, honest. =)

Movie: Iron Man 2

SpockSoc will be going to see Iron Man 2 this week at the Randwick Ritz – the movie starts at 7pm on Wednesday. Ordinarily for a popular movie I’d arrange tickets ahead of time, but Iron Man’s opening caught me by surprise. We’ll meet up inside the lobby in front of the doors to cinema one, starting from 6:30pm – I won’t wait after the movie starts, so be there on time. =)

As part of the fancy SpockSoc membership perks, I’ll reimburse $2 to anyone who presents their membership card – for those who might not recognise me, I’ll have the orange vinyl SpockSoc banner on me. If people are interested, we’ll go out to dinner as a group afterwards. I can’t manage before, because I’ve got class until 6.

Week 8: Sanctuary

Hope you’re enjoying the Anzac Day long weekend. This week at SpockSoc we’re showing Sanctuary, the first half of season two. The series stars Amanda Tapping (Sam Carter in Stargate) as Doctor Helen Magnus, a woman who became immortal as a result of experiments with vampire blood. Now, she runs a sanctuary for all sorts of creatures who need her help – werewolves, lizard men, creepy worm-paratise things from Chernobyl. Et cetera.

I’ll attempt a brief recap of the events of season one before we start, so come along even if you weren’t at our screenings last year – it’s a great series. Starting at 5pm in Rex Vowels.

On a side note, for those who were at our Misfits screening last week but left immediately, the next season is being either filmed or broadcast (not sure which) in England in May so with any luck we’ll be showing it early next session. Watch this space.

Week 7: Misfits

Here we go, second half of the session.

This week at SpockSoc, we’re showing Misfits. It’s a British series about a bunch of people who discover they have superpowers. Kinda like Heroes, only instead of gaining their powers by looking at the sun during a solar eclipse, they get struck by lightning. And instead of being a random bunch of people from all over the planet, they’re juvenile delinquents. Also, it’s British. =)

Anyway, as per British series, the first season is short, only six episodes, so we’ll be able to fit the whole thing into the screening. Come along. =) Screening starts at 5pm in Rex Vowels theatre.

On a side note, if you missed Doctor Who on Sunday, or want to watch Doctor Who Confidential, the making-of special, remember you can catch both on ABC’s iView

Week 6: Better off Ted

I hope you enjoyed your mid-session break. This week’s screening is Better off Ted. It’s an extremely funny office-humour-type series with some sort of sci-fi elements.

Ted Crisp loves his job. He works for the team at Veridian Dynamics, where nothing is too far-fetched, or out of the ordinary. An average day for Ted could easily involve creating a suicidal turkey, for instance. The only problem is, Ted is ethical and the company is not.

It stars Jay Harrington and Portia de Rossi. We showed the first episode at a screening last year, and it was quite well-received by those there. We’re starting at 5pm in Rex Vowels like usual – pizza run at 7-ish. If you’re not sure whether you’ll like it, just come for at least the first episode – they’re only half an hour. =)

On a different note, the Lord of the Rings marathon went well on Saturday, but considering the number of interested people I spoke to at O-Week, the turnout was much smaller than I expected. Was mid-session break a bad time? Was there not enough advance warning. If I were to run it again, would you be interested and when would be a good time? Please email me using the contact form.

Mid-Session: LotR Marathon

On Saturday, by popular demand, we’ll be having a Lord of the Rings marathon. It’s going to be in Quad G026, which is pretty much midway on the route between Rex Vowels and Quad G032. I’ll hang the banner outside – if you go to Quad G032 and look to the right, you should be able to see it. It’s the bright orange one that says “SpockSoc”. Anyway, we’re starting at 9am on Saturday – the movies are long, so even though we’ve booked the room out for fourteen hours, it’s going to be squishy once meals are factored in, so I’d like to start close to 9am.

As usual for marathons, I’ve specifically booked a room with movable furniture, so we can shove everything out of the way and lie on the floor or whatever. So bring a cushion, beanbag, mattress, couch, armchair… portable ball pit? Anything you want to lie, sit or otherwise make yourself comfortable on. We’ll sort out meals on the day – we’re pondering having one person get takeaway Chinese or similar for everyone, to streamline the process a bit.

Apologies for those who can’t make it – we took things into consideration, and decided that it was either this weekend, or we’d have to leave it until much later in the session, or even early next session. It’s something of a can’t-please-everyone situation.

Mid-Session: Legend of the Seeker

Hope you enjoyed your Easter long weekend and will enjoy (or are enjoying?) your mid-session break. As I said last week, and will expand upon now, SpockSoc has not one but two screenings this week.

This Friday, we’ll be showing the last eight episodes of the first season of Legend of the Seeker, a series based on the Sword of Truth books by Terry Goodkind. It’s a special extended screening, since we have eight episodes to get through – we’ll be starting at 4pm in Rex Vowels. That’s four o’clock Friday, Rex Vowels theatre. Even with the extra hour, it’s gonna be a bit squishy fitting things in, so we’ll be starting not long after 4 – apologies for those who can’t make it then, but you’ll only miss one episode if you come at 5. Pizza run at 7-ish like normal. I will attempt a recap of the first two-thirds of the season, if new members want to come along.

Week 5: Dollhouse

As most of you are (most likely) aware, this weekend is the Easter weekend, and next week is the mid-session break. Some of you might be thinking we’ll be taking a break during the break – no way! In fact, we’ve got more screening time than normal. =D

This Friday (Good Friday) we’ll be showing Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. We’ll most likely be starting with the (originally) unaired final episode of season one, and continuing with season two, as that’s where we left off at our previous Dollhouse screening last year. We’ll be in Rex Vowels starting from 5pm, pizza run at 7-ish. I’ll be away this weekend, so the screening will be run by Vice President James.

I’ll send another e-mail about next week’s stuff next week, but just in case you’re away and don’t read it (or I’m away and forget to send it =D ) I’ll give a brief summary now. During the break, we’ll be having an extra special extended screening on the Friday, showing Legend of the Seeker, based on The Sword of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind – we’ll be starting at 4pm in Rex Vowels.

Secondly, it’s our second marathon for this session! On Saturday the 10th, we’ll be showing the extended editions of all three Lord of the Rings movies. Woo! It’s in Quad G026 starting from 9am. I’ll give more details in my next e-mail, but keep your diaries free if you’re interested. =)

Week 4: Alice & Day of the Triffids

This Friday at SpockSoc we’re showing two miniseries – the specific order we’ll show them in will be decided on the night, either by popular demand or coin toss, whichever works better. =D Firstly, the latest British remake of Day of the Triffids, based on the book of the same name by John Wyndham. It was made by the BBC last year, written by ER and Law & Order writer Patrick Harbinson, and stars Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson and Eddie Izzard.

Secondly, Alice – the 2009 re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland made by the US SciFi Channel (and I ain’t calling them SyFy, cause that’s a silly name). It’s similar in genre to Tin Man, which we showed last year – Alice is to Alice in Wonderland as Tin Man is to Wizard of Oz. It has quite an all-star cast – lead by Caterina Scorsone as Alice, it also features Harry Dean Stanton, Tim Curry, Matt Frewer, Colm Meaney, Andrew-Lee Potts, Alessandro Juliani and Teryl Rothery.

SpockSoc is also changing rooms – for the rest of the weekly screenings this session we’ll be in the Rex Vowels theatre. It’s plenty big enough to hold the whole club, and it’s got tiered seating, so no more looking at the back of other peoples’ heads. There’ll be a map up on the website at some point before Friday, but Rex Vowels is on the back of the Electrical Engineering building (grid reference G17).

If you’re unsure where that is, the easiest way to find it would be to start from Quad G032 (our previous room) – head out the glass doors and turn right, then turn left immediately after passing the yellow plastic bags of building materials (which have been there for ages and will hopefully still be there on Friday) to pass between the Quad and ElecEng buildings. Rex Vowels lobby is straight ahead – I’ll have the banner up, so just walk forward until you see it. Just to be sure, I’ll stick a sign on the door to G032, and maybe some arrows on the ground to point the way.

We’re still starting at 5pm Friday as usual, with a pizza run at 7-ish. Feel free to bring friend. Yearly membership is $5, or a one-screening membership is $2.