Republibot 2.0 has already reviewed this episode (Read it here: http://www.republibot.com/content/reviews-doctor-who-waters-mars ), and I have little to add to that, so I’m not going to bother with a synopsis or a formal review. I did just now manage to watch it on Youtube (Link below the jump), however, and as we’ve got no other real content today, I thought I’d offer my own observations.

Back in June I reviewed George Pal’s first Science Fiction film, “Destination Moon” (Here:
http://www.republibot.com/content/classic-sf-movie-review-%E2%80%9Cdesti... ) a movie with some fairly profound pacing problems and spotty acting, but a heart as big as all outdoors. Ridley Scott once said that he wanted to be “The John Ford of Science Fiction Cinema,” though really Pal had already filled that role. Pal’s career went onward and upward from “moon,” cranking out a new eye-popping Science Fiction film every year, each one more successful than the rest. I had hoped to review all of his movies in the order they were released so we could sort of chart his progression as a film maker, but I guess that isn’t gonna’ happen, so let’s just jump right to the bitter end of his surprising run of successful films with “Conquest of Space.”

NASA and ESA - the European Space Agency - have chalked out a tentative deal for a joint mission to Mars. Don’t get too excited - there’s no people going, just another damned R/C car with a webcam on it - but at least they’re doing something.

Kind of.

Man, you really have to hand it to Walt Disney: The man went beyond just typical mid-century American enthusiasm about the future, he was clearly obsessive about it. This came to fruition in the tense days following the launch of Sputnik (October 1957), in which America - caught flatfooted - struggled to figure out how to make sense of what this new "Space Age" meant.

A short disney film showing 1950s concepts for trips to the red planet under the jump. You've got to hand it to Walt. I can't imagine a more dedicated futurian, he acutally used his considerable industrial and media resources to plug this kind of stuff and make it really exciting and interesting and understandable for ma and pa kettle.

Best. Alternate. History. Novel. Ever.

Seriously: Best. Alternate. History. Novel. Ever. Period. End Sentence.

I love alternate history novels. I like a window in to worlds where established history traveled down a different road from our own. I love visions of the myriad different ways the modern world could have turned out. I adore the questions of identity arise when you see how people could have turned out differently had they lived through altered circumstances.

I’d been holding off of the “John Carter of Mars” series for pretty much my entire life since it always seemed kind of dumb and beneath me. It sounded like “Conan the Barbarian” set in space, and that’s just not my bag (Though to be fair, the “Gor” series is more like Conan the Barbarian in space). Just the same when I finally got around to reading the first book I have to say the purple prose and breathless excitement of it won me over.