Erin’s notes on Four to Doomsday, Kinda, and scarf colors.

In Four to Doomsday, the gang lands on a spaceship belonging to some highly-evolved aliens. The aliens have visited Earth several times and taken humans from various cultures and time periods. Now they are headed back to Earth with a deadly poison that could kill everyone.

This serial started off sort of slow for me. I didn’t really get into it until about halfway through. Mostly I was trying to figure out what the floating camera robot things reminded me of. Toclafane, maybe? Star Wars droids? If you know what I might be thinking of, please leave a comment. In a Google search I found this little guy, who is currently floating around the International Space Station taking pictures.

As the Doctor and companions were exploring the machinery on the ship, Nyssa mentioned a gravitational wave interferometer. This piqued my interest because I thought of that as a fairly recent technology – the first detection of gravitational waves happened in 2015. It turns out that early prototypes of these detectors were made in the 70s. If nothing else, this project is educating me on science history!

At one point, someone mentions faster than light travel. This is a common theme in science fiction, especially the idea that if you travel faster than light, you can go back in time. I waited eagerly to see how the writers would deal with this. However, at the end of the episode the Doctor mentions offhandedly that it’s simply not possible. I’m actually much more satisfied with that explanation than I would be with some timey-wimey nonsense. (Apparently I’m fine with time travel unless it involves going faster than the speed of light!)

The highlight of Four to Doomsday for me was the Doctor “swimming” through space to get to the TARDIS. The Doctor claims he can withstand the vacuum of space for up to 6 minutes, which I thought was a neat tidbit about Time Lord physiology.

Next up: Kinda. I was hopelessly confused for at least an episode and a half of this serial. I ended up liking it quite a bit once I knew what was going on, but at the beginning I just felt like I was missing something. I looked up some reviews and there are tons of allusions and references that I guess I’m too uncultured to get. I won’t spoil the serial because I think you really need to see it to get the full experience.  At some point I want to rewatch this, after I’ve read up on all the references I didn’t get the first time.

Budget special effects are a feature here, especially this giant snake.

The scarf is coming along nicely. The yarn I’m using is Knit Picks Brava Worsted in Wine for the red color and Paprika for orange. I wanted to make it easy and get all the yarn from the same brand, so I went with Currant for the purple color. My scarf resource, http://www.doctorwhoscarf.com/s18.html, says there’s low contrast between Wine and Currant which turned out to be an understatement. I pride myself on my discerning eye for colors and I could barely tell these apart. The site says the top choice for purple is Red Heart Soft in Grape so I made an emergency run to Michaels to pick up some yarn. That color has a much better contrast. On its own, Wine looks purplish, but paired with Grape it’s definitely a red color.

I’m wavering on the orange color right now. I think it’s too bright and should be a little more faded/subdued. However, this changes with the lighting. In standard indoor yellowish lighting it looks fine. In sunlight the orange is too intense. (Another problem is the way my phone picks up colors, but that’s what I get for using an iPhone that’s now 4 models behind.) Overall, for cheap acrylic yarn these are pretty good options.

Rows completed: 102/1272 = 8.02%

Next time, I’ll share some calculations and my thoughts on The Visitation and Black Orchid.