THE HORROR CHANNEL'S DR. WHO ADVENTURE: THE ARK IN SPACE

Having just discovered a new freeview channel on UK TV called the Horror Channel [803] and with time to kill on Sunday just gone, I settled down to some serious Sci-Fi over a long breakfast.

First up was an old Tom Baker Dr.Who series called the Ark In Space, which I must say I enjoyed a great deal. It was an omnibus of all the episodes in one. I like Tom's Doctor along with John Pertwee's more than any and I found this story both engaging and nostalgic in equal measure. The acting was good, the music subtle and downplayed and the effects, despite being done on a shoe string, were plausible and inventive. Some of my favourite features were:

Obviously this is bubble wrap sprayed green but I thought Noah's transformation into a Wirrn was very effective!

Even more green bubble wrap was used for the Wirrn pupa, which I assume had a child crawling around in it. Again, simple but productive.

The adult Wirrn reminded me greatly of the alien insects in the 1960's movie Quatermass and the Pit. I love a good insect and the Wirrn are great.

The Ark: on first glance I thought they'd used a SWORD Booster rocket for the central tower!

Not sure what they've used but I bet someone's worked it out!

The cryo-chambers were simple opaque casts of human forms. I don't know how expensive they will have been but I thought they worked well. They reminded me of a similar translucent action doll I had as a kid. It may not even have been jointed. No idea any more what it was.

and finally I spotted various futuristic bits of furniture on the Ark and one looked a lot like this Cartell cart. Can't find a screengrab of it in the show though so I can't be sure. Anyone have one?

What do you think of the Ark In Space readers? Is there any merchandise from the series?

In the meantime I hope the Horror Channel run my fave Doctor Who stories, the Sea Devils and the Curse of Peladon.

REX REASON'S AUTOGRAPH

I do have a few autographs in my collection and most of them are from Sci-Fi and horror films. Here are three of them I got on the bay about ten years ago:

Mara Corday - pin-up and actress star of Fifties Sci-Fi greats like Tarantula

Rex Reason - starred as Dr. Cal Meacham in the seminal This Island Earth

and one final one, which I cannot decipher. Can you?

This random piece of memorabilia came with the autographs too.

PROJECT SWORD MINIATURES FROM JAPAN: THE FLEET SO FAR

My latest Project SWORD plastic miniatures have arrived from Japan: a green Probe Force 2 and a green Scout 2. They have joined the rest of the fleet and these are some snaps. My desk is a bit cluttered at the mo so I've lined them on some polystyrene. Excuse the mess!

All made of hard solid plastic, with my two latest additions I can now say for sure that there two different sized sets of these miniatures as my new green Scout 2 is bigger than my old red one. This confirms what I thought after finding two different sized Scout 1's last year. I thought it was a fluke but now I'm sure of the two different sets. One set is numbered underneath and one not. Anyways, here are some more shots of my fleet as it stands.

At the back is the Morinaga snap-together miniature Zero-X.

The discovery of wheeled Space Gliders, featured on the blog yesterday, suggests that there is a third set as well; hollow and with simple axled wheels.

None of these should be confused with the soft rubber Project SWORD vehicles marketed as UFO by Takeuchi and sold in bags.

Don't you just love the Japanese! Anybody else got any of these miniatures?

NEW IMAGE OF THE LT10

DVD cover of the Green Slime. LT10 top right.

NEW DISCOVERY: GLICO MINI SWORD SPACE GLIDERS WITH WHEELS

I recently saw this lot of Japanese Glico candy toys on Yahoo Japan. At first glance its just a huge mass of plastic but on closer inspection we find some real gems completely new to the blog!

Project SWORD mini Space Gliders with hollow bodies and axled wheels! In both red and blue colours, these are new to Moonbase. We've seen solid mini gliders before but not these. The seller stated that there were no makers mark underneath the gliders but I assume they are indeed Glico.

Nestling amongst the toys were these three mini SWORD Scramble Bugs. Of the solid plastic variety, we see them here in red, blue and yellow colours, of wehich red and yellow are also completely new to Moonbase Central.

There are some Captain Scarlet SPV's in the pictures too. Can you spot them or indeed anything else you recognise?

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO NEW TRAILER

Now that we've all seen the new Thunderbirds are Go trailer what do we think?

Personally I think it looks great. The action figure Tracy boys look fine piloting their respective craft and I 'm looking forward to seeing a full episode.

The animation using models and computers looks excellent, a far cry from the usual CGI fare which, to be honest I've never been that keen on.

And for us older fans there's plenty of nods to the past, most obviously the late Peter Dyneley doing the Thunderbird countdown. But one thing that convinces me that the producers have got that essential understanding of what Thunderbirds was all about is the simple image of a helping hand.

Thunderbirds are definitely Go!

FUELLED AGAIN: A MOONBASE CENTRAL ZERO-X VIDEO

Here's my latest Moonbase Central Production, a short film showing the essential refuelling of a Zero X. The refueller is a Scramble Bug. The fuel is Iron Bru made from girders! Enjoy!

BUBBLEGUM SPACEX: CUSTOM CARDS

Hi,

The recent talk about a Spacex annual got me thinking about how good it would've been if they'd done trading cards (or bubblegum cards as they would've been then). I've mocked up a couple, one in the style of the 60's and one the 90's, hope you like them.

Take care,

Kevin