Tag: World War II

REVIEW: The Flutist of Arnhem – A Story of Operation Market Garden (2021)

A graphic novel by Antonio Gil

In honor of Memorial Day, I wanted to read something that honored the many troops that delivered the ultimate sacrifice to ensure our way of life was not trampled over all those years ago. It wasn’t too long ago, that I had the opportunity to read both The Tankies and Teddy by Dead Reckoning. I was VERY pleased to see a comics imprint that does historical comics, seeing that I love comics and am very much into all things historical – it was a publisher that was right up my alley. When given the chance to read The Flutist of Arnhem, I jumped at it.

For me, comics like this are an amazing educational tool – I don’t have trouble reading, but sometimes I don’t want to dive headfirst into a dry history book. having these stories adapted and contextualized by some of the hottest comic writers and artists is nothing short of amazing. I can imagine those that aren’t strong readers can benefit a lot by stuff like this, as well as students. That said, for anyone reading my reviews as of late can attest to, I am somewhat bored of superhero comics, so other genres are things I am definitely digging right now.

Before reading this, I looked up some articles on the actual Operation Market Garden itself, I had heard of it prior to reading this, but was fuzzy on details. While classified as a failed operation in history books, since it didn’t create the desired invasion point through northern Germany, it did succeed in liberating a number of Dutch villages occupied by the Nazi forces. The push also stopped a number of V2 rocket launch pads, which likely saved countless lives. While this book is a fictionized account of this operation, you can tell a great deal of research went into making this as close to the real deal as possible.

“In October 1943, all the Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents in Holland are captured by the Germans . . . except one. John Hewson, a.k.a. “Boekman,” is the most dangerous agent to the German occupiers, with vital information about the German army, Boekman escapes the clutches of the S.S. and stays hidden until the start of the largest airborne operation in World War II: Operation Market Garden. When the SOE learn that Boekman is still alive, and that his estranged son, Harry, is on the ground fighting in Market Garden, Harry is tasked with organizing a small commando unit to rescue Boekman and try to escape through the German siege. The Battle of Arnhem unfolds day by day as father and son search for each other amidst the chaos of war and the dogged pursuits of a cruel Gestapo agent.”

First and foremost, Boekman is an awesome character. You can tell he’s a grizzled master spy that has seen and done all sorts of crazy things against the Nazis in order to become one of their top targets. One scene in particular, towards the beginning of the book shows him sneak attacking a German radio station – he takes guys down with a combat knife, then hides in a Nazi uniform to eventually contact his superiors. He is aided by a mysterious man named Frajle that seems to be everywhere at all times. scenes with them remind me of all sorts of spy movies you’ll see in theaters. Boekman is a bit courageous for his own good and gets wounded at one point, making a rescue mission necessary.

We find out his own son, Harry, who has no idea what or who he is trying to extract at first, ends up being one of the very men trying to get him out of the Netherlands and his secret documents into Allied hands. In a way, this ends up being a reverse finding Nemo of sorts where both Father and Son come to terms with their sadness and demons of the past to forge forward in the name of King and Country. Harry is aided by a great cast of squadmates with my personal favorite being Corporal Kolecki, a polish sabotage expert that goes deep undercover in an SS Uniform (since he speaks German) to mess with the German troops from the inside. The way he goes about his mission with a smirk and an almost suicidal abandon is both humorous and nerve-racking.

One of the many cool things about this book is that there are these little interludes within the story breaks that show background information, such as battle maps, information dumps for contest and even historical references. It reminds me a bit of how popular video games like Call of Duty (The historical ones) and Medal of Honor used to give background info in-between missions. This is a very valuable and interesting addition to the book, as a person unfamiliar with the overall history involved wouldn’t have to do additional research to understand what is happening, nor is this info piped into the characters mouths in an unnatural way like some other comics.

Perhaps my only quibble with this book is that some pages are VERY text heavy, this isn’t a bad thing, but results a bit in dialogue overload at certain points. Truthfully, I’m not sure how they author could have done this any better, so its a minor gripe. Otherwise, the art and lettering are all top notch, Gil lays everything out in a style that I haven’t seen a lot in modern comics, as a result this somewhat is structured like a classic comic. In a way its a cool idea whether the author intended it or not.

I normally end up reviewing eBooks, so it was quite the change to get a physical copy in my hands. As such, I’d like to get that in here. Without getting a tape measure out, I surmise that this is A4 size, full color and filled with thick, glossy pages. You can tell that care was made to produce a book that will stand the test of time.

Dead Reckoning hits it out of the park yet again with The Flutist of Arnhem – A Story of Operation Market Garden. I loved the story between the Hewson family, and the immense amount of information that Gil took care to place within the book. After going into this knowing only the vaguest amount of information on this operation, I feel like I learned a lot. I’d like to read more by this author, here’s hoping they publish more by him or I can figure out what publications he has worked in before. I see listings by a Spanish actor doing some internet searches, but I highly doubt that’s the same person!

Note: I received a paperback copy of this book from Dead Reckoning /Naval Institute Press in order to provide an honest review. That said, the copy I received may have not been a final copy. Thank you to all those involved.

If you would like to purchase your own copy of the book, please check HERE or HERE for Kindle

REVIEW: The Commandant of Auschwitz – Rudolf Höss (2021)

A book by Volker Koop

NOTE: I received a free preliminary, and likely unedited copy of this book from Netgalley for the purposes of providing an honest, unbiased review of the material. Thank you to all involved.

At some point this year, assuming Covid doesn’t keep ravaging the country, Kansas City will be hosting an exhibit that will showcase artifacts from Poland’s Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Having visited Dachau some twenty years ago in person, this might be the closest I could get to seeing these items for a long time, if ever. And if its anything like Dachau, I’m sure just seeing the artifacts will be a rough, if not VERY sobering experience. I mention this, because today’s topic is the man that made Auschwitz Concentration Camp so notorious, Rudolf Höss, and this new book about him The Commandant of Auschwitz, by Volker Koop and published by Pen and Sword Books. I basically wanted to educate myself more than what I was on the topic, and figured this book would be a solid look at the man responsible for one of the worst episodes in world history.

Koop does a solid job of not just regurgitating things from the memoirs of Rudolf Höss, and quickly points out that Höss appears to be a habitual liar in pretty much everything he does. Much of the information comes from things such as this material, but using historical records, and conflicting accounts by contemporaries, the portrait of a truly terrible man is painted. Even when everything was lost, and the man faced trial, he claimed to be a normal guy that just did his job and had no idea bad things were happening under his command. Reading some of the atrocities he signed off on, such as throwing children directly into a fire pit while still alive, was infuriating to say the least.

This was a tough read, for obvious reasons, but I enjoyed it and learned a lot about, perhaps, one of the biggest monsters in modern history. One would have hoped that he would have stayed in prison much longer than he did when he literally committed a political murder, but alas Hitler needed the most despicable to do his evil deeds. Very good book, if you are curious, or a WWII history buff, I’d check it out.

REVIEW: IRA Terror on Britain’s Streets 1939–1940 (2021)

A Book by Dick Kirby

Cover

It is little known today that, in January 1939, the IRA launched a bombing campaign, codenamed The S – or Sabotage – Plan on mainland England. With cynical self-justification, they announced that it was not their intention to harm human life but in just over a year, more than 300 explosive devices resulted in 10 deaths, 96 injuries and widespread devastation. London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and many other towns and cities were targeted.

Description

It hasn’t been too long since I read another book by Pen & Sword Books on the so-called “Troubles” that scarred Northern Ireland for nearly a century. That book was more concentrated on the large flare-ups in terrorist tit-for-tat fighting in and around the 1960’s and 1970’s, so I jumped at the chance to read IRA Terror on Britain’s Streets 1939–1940 as it concerned a period that was briefly glossed over in that previous book. Technically not part of “The Troubles” as a whole, you can see the seeds being planted in this period that would later bloom into a full-blown war.

The narration of this book is very informative, although it doesn’t strive to be very neutral (if one can be in a situation like this). Being a former Detective that worked directly in Northern Ireland for a period, one can assume that Kirby wouldn’t be too excited to sing the virtues of men that would have wanted him dead. With his unique insight on the situation, and both an acerbic wit and self deprecating humor – this book is very addictive and sometimes humorous despite the dark topic.

I think my biggest takeaways from the book are some of the origins of The Troubles, even dating back into the nineteenth century. I had no idea that The IRA sprang from groups like the Fenian Brotherhood and the fact that it was originally an American organization that repatriated back into Ireland to instigate an uprising was interesting. I also had no idea that some versions of the IRA had ties to Hitler during the Second World War.

Just like with many books from this publisher that I have been reading lately, I quite enjoyed this book, and would highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in true crime books, Ireland, or World War II history. It covers a topic that not many of my American friends, with me being an American myself, would know about.

REVIEW: Freiheit! (2021)

A graphic novel by Andrea Grosso Ciponte

NOTE: I received a free preliminary, and likely unedited copy of this book from Netgalley for the purposes of providing an honest, unbiased review of the material. Thank you to all involved.

There’s a tendency, in World War II scholarship, to almost entirely concentrate on Hitler and the battles of the war, keeping some of the more human aspects of the war in the background. Even the Holocaust is usually spoken about in vague terms if its not explicit something like a diary or journal of one the victims. Something I knew almost nothing about, prior to this book, were internal German resistance groups. I knew they absolutely had to be a thing, but seeing as they did not overthrow Hitler on their own, it’s usually relegated to a footnote in many books. The White Rose was one such group, and this graphic novel tells their tragic story.

With an entire nation blindly following an evil leader, where did a handful of students find the courage to resist? The university students who formed the White Rose, an undercover resistance movement in Nazi Germany, knew that doing so could cost them their lives. But some things are worth dying for. The White Rose printed and distributed leaflets to expose Nazi atrocities and wake up their fellow citizens. The Gestapo caught and executed them. Sophie Scholl was twenty-one; her brother Hans, twenty-four; Christoph Probst, twenty-three; Alexander Schmorell and Willi Graf, twenty-five. But the White Rose was not silenced. Their heroism continues to inspire new generations of resisters. Now, for the first time, this story that has been celebrated in print and film can be experienced as a graphic novel. Italian artist Andrea Grosso Ciponte’s haunting imagery will resonate with today’s students and activists. The challenges they face may vary, but the need for young people to stand up against evil, whatever the cost, will remain.

Description

The story in Freiheit! is told largely from the point of view of Sophie Scholl, who has become disillusioned with the government of Germany due to their strong-arm policies and mistreatment of Jews. Prior to the events of the book, her brothers were arrested by the Gestapo, setting in motion their membership into an underground resistance movement of intellectuals that produced subversive pamphlets calling the Nazi leadership into question. One nice touch, is that translations of these documents are included in the book.

The art style and overall composition by Andrea Grosso Ciponte was very moving and vibrant despite the book’s muted color palette. Each panel, even the most subdued, is treated like a scene in a film – interesting transitions, camera angles, and blocking are all well-done. It gives this book a VERY cinematic feel.

I enjoyed this a lot, and plan to look at some other books by the same publisher pretty soon. The book has served it’s purpose of making me interested in The White Rose, and I may also look into a book about the Scholl siblings at some point. Having historical documents in the back of the book was a great touch, and immediately elevates this to the status of being a teaching tool. I once took a class in college about The Holocaust, and I honestly really wish this was out at that time. This would have been a great story to share with my class. Solid book, definitely recommended.

REVIEW: Tankies (2021)

A graphic novel by Garth Ennis, Carlos Ezquerra, Hector Ezquerra, Tony Avina and Simon Bowland.

NOTE: I received a free preliminary, and likely unedited copy of this book from Netgalley for the purposes of providing an honest, unbiased review of the material. Thank you to all involved.

I’ve been a fan of Garth Ennis for a while, and while I definitely enjoy his classics such as Preacher or The Boys, I have grown very fond of his lesser-known military-themed books ever since I did a promotion a while back and inquired a whole slew of Battlefields books. When I saw that this volume was available, I jumped at the chance to check it out. I think the one thing I appreciate the most about these books is that, while definitely casting The Allies as heroes in most books, he doesn’t pull punches. Bad things happen in war, and its important to show that – for far too long we’ve been fed a steady stream of overly-patriotic Captain America vs Hitler stories, completely undermining the fact that war is horror-incarnate. Ennis excels at showing the human side of war, and the toll it takes.

After D-Day the largely untried Allied armies meet their seasoned German counterparts on the killing grounds ofBocage country. As Panzers and SS units turn the French hedgerows into a slaughterhouse, a lone British tank crew struggles to rejoin their squadron. Their only hope lies in their commander, Corporal Stiles—but does even this wily old trooper stand a chance against the infamous Tiger? Newly promoted but just as angry, Sergeant Stiles enters the battle for Germany in command of a Sherman Firefly—capable of taking out any tank thus far encountered. Unfortunately, the enemy have a new tank of their own, the mighty “King Tiger,” with twice the firepower of the original. As Stiles and his men join the Allied advance into the Nazi homeland, they find worse horrors than Tigers lurking in the German twilight.

Book description

This volume is comprised of nine comics, grouped into three separate story-arcs in the life of Sergeant Stiles, a tough as nails tank commander from Newcastle that has seen it all in the world of mechanized combat and is one of the few who has lived to tell the tale. Usually lamenting on the poor state of British tank engineering in the face of ever increasing mechanical brutality from Germany, Stiles is well respected despite his Geordie accent being a focal point of mocking. One little tidbit I enjoyed was that we learn Stiles is Pagan when they were forced to shell a German church, makes me like him even more.

The third section takes place during the Korean War, which I am glad to see. My Grandfather served in that war, and I always think it gets largely ignored by just about everyone, so seeing it here was awesome. It was crazy to see the shift in battlefield tactics. German tank commanders in parts one and two almost seem aristocratic and machine-like vs the relentless hordes of Chinese soldiers they come across in Korea. Men climbing on the tanks, trying to drop bombs in the engines, doing suicidal attacks. Sheer insanity I can imagine.

Carlos Ezquerra (1947–2018) was the artist for this series, and I have seen him do the pencils for much of Ennis’s war books – he’s great at the technical side of historical aircrafts, tanks, guns etc, as well as depicting humans and the actions of war. When I saw that the book was dedicated to him, I was sad as he was always a n artist I looked forward to seeing in this genre. Best known as one of the original creators of Judge Dredd, Ezquerra will be VERY missed.

This was a great book, and any fan of war comics, history, or honestly anyone into comics at all should check out. Stiles is a great character, and I’d love to see him pop up again, although I’d imagine this will be all as it ends in a decent spot. I loved the afterward, which is a lengthy essay detailing where some of the ideas for the book came from, you can tell Ennis is interested in teaching history here, and as a history buff, I loved it.

Doctor Who: Colditz (2001)

Colditz_(Doctor_Who)

Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), David Tennant (Feldwebel Kurtz), Toby Longworth (Hauptmann Julius Schäfer), Nicholas Young (Flying Officer Bill Gower), Peter Rae (Timothy Wilkins), Tracey Childs (Klein).

Colditz takes place during World War II, and as one can probably easily piece together from the title, it has to do with the infamous prison camp Colditz Castle. While Americans are not as familiar with this legendary facility, The UK has had decades of documentaries, Television shows, and even board games based on the many escape attempts of it’s prisoners. The camp was basically set up to house officers and other high ranking people who tried to escape from other camps, so it was almost seen as the Alcatraz of it’s time. Over here, we have tons of versions of the Steve McQueen movie The Great Escape which is based on an escape from a polish POW camp, so you get the idea.

The bad guys in this are Nazis, and if there was any “Tardis team” that has a good chance of being able to deal with Nazis, it’s definitely Ace and the seventh Doctor. We have seen their influence in Curse of Fenric, The Silver Nemesis, and one could argue that The villains of The Fearmonger were essentially some type of right-wing Neo-Nazi types. Because of this, I actually chuckled when Ace mentioned “not Nazis again, I hate Nazis!”. I’m not a huge fan of science fiction having Nazi bad-guys because it usually ends up being the lazy Star Trek “Space Nazis!” trope, but thankfully this isn’t the case here. These are regular Nazis in their correct time line.

I’m a big fan of historical episodes that do not involve some sort contrived alien involvement, and this one is almost entirely of that sort. In fact, The Doctor himself is the only real alien involvement we see here which is refreshing. The plot of this episode centers around The Nazis confiscating a CD Walkman from Ace and creating a paradox in which they reverse engineer it and win World War II. This plot is more-or-less in the background, but it’s the way they a new anti-hero character named Klein is introduced. You see, Klein’s from this alternate time line in which the Nazi powers have taken over the rest of the world. As far as she’s concerned, her world is the better one; as a child of German parents growing up in England, she welcomed the Nazi victory. I know from looking at Wikis that Klein’s story is fleshed out more, and can’t wait to fill the gaps in.

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Perhaps the most notable thing about this story is that the main villain of the story, Kurtz, is played by none other than a young David Tennant in his first Doctor Who related piece of entertainment. Kurtz is an awful piece of work, the sort of character that one really hopes will come to an early death. He plots behind the backs of his superiors, tries to hold information for his own gains, and even tries to take advantage of inmates in unspeakable ways. Kurtz is definitely a Hollywood Nazi archetype, as is another character in Schafer – the sympathetic Nazi. While these character tropes aren’t bad they reek of being historically inaccurate to some degree.

My only downside to this audio seemed to be the sound mixing, which shocked me because Gary Russell directed episodes are usually very well done. There were many scenes within the interior of Colditz Castle that had weird foley work such as footsteps that sounded as if everyone was wearing concrete shoes on metal floors. I have a digital file for this audio, so perhaps I got a bad download? I’m not sure, but it sounded off in places. Perhaps somebody with the CD could chime in on the comments page. This didn’t take me out the play by any means, but there were times where it got distracting or drowned out a bit of dialog.

All-in-all this was a great story, and considering people think that I’m too harsh on 80’s Doctor Who, this is the second McCoy/Aldred story in a row that I’ve really enjoyed. I do wish that the audio mix would have been a bit better, but it’s still a hearty recommendation to every Doctor Who fan. Upon listening to this, I also have a strange feeling that I should watch Chicken Run for some reason.

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The Tripods (1984) – The English Channel: July 2089 AD

tripods-title-card(aka season 1, episode 3)

Large naval vessels require manpower, and in many cases such manpower is hard to come by. In a world over-run by large marauding Tripods, sailors must be in short supply as traveling around could be seen as too much freedom. Two runaway boys are the perfect target for naval impressment, and guess who I’m talking about – That’s right, it’s Will and Henry! When we last left the boys, they were under the impression that they had been kidnapped onto a ship on its way to Africa rather than their planned destination of Europe. It turns out they weren’t on the wrong ship after all, but Captain Curtis is not the saint that Ozymandias spoke of. He takes their money and offers little help other than safe passage, a fact that both Will and Henry resent. Good thing he can deal with the Tripods’ henchman, as we get to see them a whole bunch this time around.

Episode three marks the first real appearance of the show’s resident Nazi-like dirt bags – The Blackguards. Blackguards are humans that keep an eye on other humans, reporting anything suspicious to their three legged overlords. Clad in black robes and utterly silly headwear, the Blackguards are almost cartoonish in their villainous ways. Just think of all those scenes in all the World War II movies you can think of where a pale-faced German guard asks someone to see their “papers”, that my friends is the Blackguards. That isn’t to say that they are comical or ineffective, they are creepy as hell and the sheer sight of one makes you cringe whilst watching the show. It seems that anytime anything is going well, at least one Blackguard is waiting to ruin it.

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This episode also marks the first appearance of a new main character named Jean-Paul or “Bean Pole” as he is nicknamed almost immediately. Bean Pole is a tall, skinny French boy that sees himself as somewhat of a genius. When we first see him, he is wearing a pair of crude eyeglasses that he has fashioned himself. It seems he has avoided “capping” for more than a year by simply pretending to be deathly ill each time he is supposed to have the deed done. He knows that once he is capped, he will no longer invent things, or be creative. He is tasked with guarding Will and Henry in their Blackguard cells, but secretly plots to help them (and himself) escape. The three do their best re-enactment of the climax of The Shawshank Redemption and venture into the unknown.

I enjoyed this episode because the “adventuring party” is finally fleshed out with Bean Pole. My one quibble is that his English “accent” is too perfect considering he is supposed to be a Frenchman. I guess one can chalk it up to the same logic that made Sean Connery a Spanish man, Kevin Costner Robin Hood, and Patrick Stewart a Frenchman from space. Sometimes the best actor isn’t whatever nationality he is supposed to be. Returning to my tired Lord of the Rings analogy from last time, we have characters in the same vein as Sam and Frodo finally meeting their Gandalf. If only Bean Pole was secretly some sort of wizard, those Tripods wouldn’t stand a chance!

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Obligatory purchase links:

The Tripods: Series 1 & 2 [Regions 2 & 4]

The White Mountains

The City of Gold and Lead

The Pool of Fire

When the Tripods Came

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Timeslip: The Time of the Ice Box (1970)

“What is a Time Bubble? You can’t see it, of course, but it might help you visualize it to think of a balloon… Supposing some little patch of information – some little patch of history – gets slowed down, and instead of flashing backwards and forwards it floats, gently, as if in a bubble… Supposing you could get into that bubble – that bubble of history – and travel with it. Then you could move forwards and backwards in time at will…”

— One of the many introductions before the episodes

Note: Man, it sure has been a while since I talked about Timeslip! In fact I think I did the review for The Wrong end of Time way back in 2011! This was of course when I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with this blog and the quality was pretty poor to be honest. I think I “summed” up the first six episodes of the show in four paragraphs without really saying anything! The original method to my madness involved being as vague as possible so as to not reveal spoilers, and to give things ratings from one to five. The problem with this was that my reviews were not that engaging on an entertainment basis and multiple reviews from the same show started to have similar content and ratings. Also, let’s face it, if somebody is reading a Doctor Who review the day after it airs, they are most likely fans of the show and have already watched it. Back on topic, now! Since I didn’t write a whole lot then, I have expanded this review/synopsis to cover a brief bit of the first Timeslip serial as well just to cover the bases, but will concentrate on the second serial.

timeslip-1970-time-of-the-ice-box-liz-and-simon-rescued

As I noted in my earlier review, I had never heard of Timeslip prior to a chance encounter I had with it on Netflix. I used to rent DVDs on there as this was back in the “glory days” before they attempted to mess up their own company. You guys remember that mess? Netflix’s stock crashed because the CEO decided the best course of action was splitting it in two (thankfully shareholders stopped that one!) and doubling the prices. And since I’m off topic, it’s time to reign it back in. I recall scanning through one of their immensely over-specialized genre sections and found Timeslip amongst other cult UK television that I was unfamiliar with. I randomly rented the first serial and was intrigued by the hard science approach to a children’s science fiction show. Most shows like this are basically adventure shows with a dash of science fiction pinched in, but Timeslip is the exact opposite.

The previous serial, The Wrong end of Time, told the story of two kids – a boy named Simon Randall and a girl named Liz Skinner.  Simon is traveling with Liz’s parents to keep his mind of off his mother’s recent death. Simon and Liz end up wandering too close to an old decommissioned war-time naval base and get sucked into some sort of time rift. Without warning, they are knee deep in Nazis that want a prototype laser weapon that is housed within the base. It seems that this base was briefly commandeered by Nazi soldiers in 1943. The kids meet up with a younger version of Liz’s father (who worked at the base in 1943) and helped him subvert what could have been a turning point in the war for the wrong side. They beat the Nazis with help from Liz’s psychic mom in the present time and try to go home by going back into the portal. Problem is, instead of returning to St Oswald in their time of 1970, they find themselves in an icy wilderness.

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This Icy wasteland is none other than Antarctica in the way off future time of 1990 (LOL). After succumbing to the cold, our young time travelers are rescued by employees of the International Institute for Biological Research, dubbed the “Ice Box”. The head honcho of “The Ice Box” is a man named Morgan C. Devereaux, you can immediately tell that something is not quite right with him as he trusts the computer systems far too much despite numerous errors, and generally acts erratic. He oversees tests on a longevity drug called HA57, something that purports to be a cure for aging and possibly death. The series continues its use of the idea that the kids see past and future versions of people they know in the present in these episodes as well. If you recall, the kids worked alongside a younger version of Liz’s father during World War II, and this time we see them working with a 1990 version of Liz’s mother and even Liz herself! Beth (Liz in the future) has somehow become a heartless, nearly emotionless husk of her former self much to Liz’s horror. From here on, the serial seems to be another look at how people misuse technology, this time dealing with the way that folks trust machines assuming them to be infallible.

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My only real quibble (but a big one) with this particular group of episodes is that Liz and Simon have the ability to jump into the future or the present at will using the portal; in fact they do this almost immediately when Liz throws a hysterical fit realizing her mother is there. The first serial saw the kids trapped at Nazi gunpoint, and unable to escape, thus putting them in peril; here any sense of danger is squashed. To me this would be like the show Quantum Leap allowing Sam the ability to return home after each mission, it would kill any drama and make the show bland – and that’s what we got here. This is compounded with the way Charles Traynor becomes some sort of spymaster, talking the kids into leaping back into the portal to find out why Devereaux is there. He wants to know because Traynor knew Devereaux, and he supposedly died in 1969! For how traumatic the time traveling seemed, the kids seem far too excited to leap back into the dangerous situation in Antarctica. I preferred how Traynor and Liz’s parents could oversee the whole thing via telepathic link (as silly as that sounds) than this whole hub world motif.

While the first serial looked pretty decent with the historical World War II setting, and the ability to use existing sets and such, The Time of the Ice Box falls into the same trap a lot of 1970’s science fiction does – it looks cheap and dated by today’s standards. When we first see someone scoop Liz up to take her to safety, the man in question is donning a costume that doesn’t really suggest “really warm coat for Antarctica” it suggests “Ziggy Stardust in a motorcycle helmet”. I try not to pick on stuff like this, but had they just jumped the time frame up to a more distant time, this episode could have been a bit less silly. Interior shots are actually pretty nice, but exterior shots of Antarctica are obviously on a set full of cheesy fake ice blocks and wobbly set pieces that make Doctor Who blush. Thankfully, most of this serial is in black and white due to the color versions being lost like many TV programs of the time. I feel that this sort of ”masks” the garishness of the future clothes to the point where they aren’t so bad. One episode, in fact the only one left in the entire show, is in color and it sadly makes everything wrong with the effects stand out more.

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The cast is fairly decent considering that most of the people involved are relatively unknown. Simon is played by Spencer Banks and Liz is portrayed by Cheryl Burfield, neither of which did a whole lot outside of the 1970’s sadly. One of the more prominent actors involved is John Barron (Morgan C. Devereaux), who is most famous for TheFall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, where he played the titular character’s overbearing boss C.J. One of the better casting choices was Mary Preston as “Beth”. Even though the actress that played Liz was over eighteen at the time of filming (the character is fifteen though), one could conceivably see “Beth” being the same person as Liz twenty years later. She really nailed all the mannerisms and such, just with a darker nature.

I enjoyed Timeslip: The Time of the Ice Box, but found it less compelling than the first part. There were some plot issues, and it definitely felt padded out just a tad, but one has to concede that this was a kid’s show.  I try not to be too hard on stuff like that if it wasn’t meant for an adult market. I used to work for a gaming website a few years back and was always confused when people reviewed children’s games as if they were designed to compete with the latest Call of Duty game! Despite the garishness, it was nice to see one color episode in the bunch; and while I joked earlier that I was happy these were not in color, it’s actually a shame that they are lost. I wonder where the portal will take Liz and Simon next time? Let’s hope I write about it sooner than two years from now!

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If you would like to purchase Timeslip, check this out:

Timeslip: The Complete Series

Space Nazis – The Trope That Needs to Die

A few days ago I decided to watch a purposely bad B-Grade Nazi exploitation film called Iron Sky. In the movie, modern astronauts go to the moon to mine hydrogen 3, only to find a fully built factory of the same purpose already there. The astronauts soon discover that they weren’t supposed to find this facility, and are taken down by a group of jack-booted and gas mask wearing S.S. troops. It seems that a handful of fully operational Nazi soldiers fled to the moon during the death throes World War II, and set up shop where nobody would find them.

Iron Sky is a fun movie based on the fact that it is so over the top, in bad taste, and well….bad that it has that same vibe one gets from something like Snakes on a Plane. It also stands as a parody of all the SERIOUS works of science fiction and alternate history that revolve around the discovery of a fully formed group of Nazi remnants in full operational capacity (and ready for blood) in a cartoonish fashion. This really got me thinking – should Nazis really be the “be all and end all” bad guys from here on out? Or are they just lazy writing in all fiction – simply designed to shock and bring back a sense of patriotism that hasn’t been there for seventy years? What about “space Nazis”? That’s even worse…

The PlayStation game series, Killzone, does a great job of disguising the space Nazi trope.
The PlayStation game series, Killzone, does a great job of disguising the space Nazi trope.

I can handle a hypothetical situation where a crew of sci-fi guys travel to a planet and a totalitarian regime is in place that may or may not be similar to the Nazis. They can have flags, even red flags, skull based insignia, and even labor camps for that added shock value. The Daleks in Doctor Who might as well be space Nazis, but they are nicely changed in many ways as to be more inconspicuous in that regard. But when you have honest to god, born in Berlin, but somehow ended up in space, Nazis I want to kill people. The worst offender is Star Trek, a show that has dabbled in the Space Nazi theme so many times that every series seems to have a contractual clause to include at least one episode based on it. Here is the plot from a classic episode:

“When the Enterprise approaches the inner planet Ekos to investigate the cessation of communication with researcher John Gill, it is attacked with a rocket carrying a nuclear weapon. This is puzzling as well as dangerous, since neither the outer planet Zeon nor the inner planet Ekos is technologically advanced enough to possess rockets or nuclear warheads. The Enterprise retreats to maximum orbital distance and Kirk and Spock beam down (after having position-broadcasting transponders surgically implanted in case of mishaps).

Kirk and Spock discover that a Nazi movement has swept the planet, complete with genocide of the “Zeon pigs” residing on Ekos. They view a public newscast in which the Iron Cross second class is presented to Daras, hero of the Fatherland. Kirk and Spock are also shocked to learn that Gill appears to be the leader of the planet’s Nazi movement.”

star-trek-pattern-of-force-space-nazi
The originator of offense

I could just chalk it up to goofy 1960’s TV, and the fact that WWII had just ended less than twenty years prior, but this still goes on today. It was fresh When Edgar Rice Burroughs created the concept of Space Nazis way back in 1938, but it’s 2013. Don’t we have any modern socio-political issues that can be satirized in this way? Are we so worried as a society that we might offend someone that we can’t have space North Korea, Space Al Qaeda, or Space class warfare?

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Victory of the Daleks was creepy because the Daleks are basically space Nazis by virtue of action and ideology, no need for swastika flags and goosestepping!

If you have any ideas for what can take the place of space Nazis, please sound off!

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