I know, I haven't posted anything here in a few days. Guess blogging isn't quite that addictive, after all. That's nice to know.

I suspect that a large part of the reason why I haven't written anything here since Saturday is that there hasn't been much of anything good on TV... Well, I did watch a couple of episodes of Buffy on Tuesday, but they were pretty heavy on the character-arc stuff that, being the non-regular viewer that I am, I don't really have the context to comment on.

Fortunately, even when I have no good TV shows, I still have books based on TV shows. Many of which, of course, pretty much suck (there are reasons why I more or less gave up reading Star Trek novels after the first hundred or so (and probably even more reasons why I should have done that a lot earlier)). As far as media tie-ins go, the award for best good stuff-to-drek ratio has go to Doctor Who. Some of those Who novels are downright excellent, and I mean that without even a "for a TV tie-in" qualifier.

I just finished The Face of the Enemy, which while it doesn't qualify for the "excellent" categorization was at least entertaining. This was an unusual book, in that it's a Doctor Who novel that the Doctor's not actually in (well, at least not for more than a couple of pages). Instead, he's off on a little interstellar jaunt, and the guys from UNIT have to deal with the world-threatening crisis on their own (with a little "help" from the Master). Cool idea, but I was just a little bit disappointed, because I'd hoped it would be a chance for the UNIT characters like Benton and Yates to really shine, but they still ended up taking a back seat to the bad guys and the Master and the Brigadier. Pity.

I'm particularly fond of Sgt. Benton, who I regard as the great unsung hero of Doctor Who. The guy never got much recogonition, never got all that much screen time, but he was a great character all the same. Intelligent, level-headed, good-natured, competent... I remember being impressed by the way he grasped the Doctor's explanation of TOMTIT (Transmission Of Matter Through Interstitial Time, for the curious) quite readily (and accurately!) while everyone else was basically standing around going "huh?" And he gets major points from me for his reaction upon seeing the inside of the TARDIS for the first time: "Well," says the Doctor testily, "aren't you going to say 'it's bigger on the inside than on the outside'? Everyone else does." And Benton just swallows and says "Well, it's obvious, innit?" and then proceeds to get on with the business at hand. Adaptable fellow, Benton. And you've got to give him credit for the equanimity with which he generally handles both the Brigadier's stodginess and the Doctor's eccentricity, even while both of them are placing utterly bizarre demands on him.

He would have made a great companion, and I was always sorry he never got to travel in the TARDIS. Then again, maybe he wasn't really companion material, after all. Couldn't see him twisting his ankle and screaming...