Spurious Awards Of The Week

Doctor Who, Star Wars (lots of Star Wars), Torchwood some really scary Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and a whole load more

THE FIRST EVER GOLDEN SPURIOUS AWARD OF THE WEEK

A special award for Services To Spuriosity goes to the Torchwood finale. Insert your own reasons here…

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CROSSOVER CONUNDRUM OF THE WEEK

Y’know, something has been bugging us ever since the Bionic Woman made a crossover appearance from Warehouse 13 into Alphas a few weeks back, and this week’s Warehouse 13 highlighted the problem. It’s not just the fact that the two shows have such an entirely different tone that makes it feel unlikely they exist in a shared universe; the two concepts make contradictory bedfellows. If this shared universe has Alphas – in other words people with superpowers (and, as many have speculated, Jinksy and Pete Latimer could both be Alphas) – how come whenever the Warehouse 13 team encounter someone with strange abilities, they immediately assume an artefact must be involved? They were so convinced this week that radiation girl must have an artefact they spent half the episode looking for it, when you’d think one or other would just go, “You know what – maybe she does have superpowers?” Okay, she didn’t, but you get the point.

And while we’re on the subject of Warehouse 13 , anyone else think that using the binoculars that belonged to the pilot of Enola Gay as the artefact of the week was a bit, well… tasteless? Bet they wouldn’t use the cell phone of a passenger on one of the planes that ploughed into the Twin Towers in the same context.
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WIMPIEST ROBOT OF THE WEEK

Defeated by some paper. Rubbish. And anyway, shouldn’t it be canvas, not paper? Not that canvas would be much deadlier. Oh, hang on, apparently Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa on wood. Now, that might have scrambled a few circuits. But we shouldn’t be surprised it was a fake – it was probably one of the six Mona Lisa copies that were painted over the canvases with “This Is A Fake” written on them in felt tip by Tom Baker’s Doctor in “City Of Death”. Then again, it was paper not wood. Hell, they probably bought it in the National Art Gallery shop and hoped nobody would notice.
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WORST BODY PIERCING OF THE WEEK

Stick to the day job, Stefan…
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ADDAMS FAMILY REUNION OF THE WEEK

Or maybe best in-joke of the week? In True Blood , Arlene and Terry dress up for Halloween. “We’re zombies,” says Arlene. “Zombies are the new vampires, didn’t you know that?”
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HARDCORE MAKOVER OF THE WEEK

Those Teenage Turtles got all grown up, thanks to artist Dave Rapoza. Click on the image to go to his site, where there are bigger versions, more characters and the chance to buy this lot as posters.
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FELINE ACCESSORY OF THE WEEK

A couple of weeks back we featured an Enterprise scratching post, but this truly is the height of luxury for time travelling moggies with claws of Axos. Discovered over at Icanhascheezburger.com .

MORE SPURIOUS AWARDS ON THE NEXT PAGE

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ALTERNATIVE ENDING OF THE WEEK

The latest from the guys at How It Should Have Ended. It is great an’ all, but anyone think these clips would be better if they were about half the length?
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CRITIC OF THE WEEK

Y’know, as much as we love Nolan’s Bat-films, we can’t help thinking this guy has a point…
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ZOMBIE THEOLOGY OF THE WEEK
It’s official! If you’re a practising Jewish zombie, you’re gonna starve. Jewish blogger Matthue Roth decided to investigate whether brains are kosher. “In order for any animal to be kosher, it has to have cloven hooves and chew its cud. So basically, if you’re a kosher zombie, you are screwed,” was his conclusion. We’re kinda thinking if you’re a zombie you’re pretty much screwed anyway. It’s not like you have a soul that needs saving.
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PSEUDO MEDIEVAL FEAST OF THE WEEK

Game Of Thrones cupcakes, from Regali Kitchen . Yum.
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CAR IN NEED OF A FILM OF THE WEEK

With the recent news that Ridley Scott is developing a new Blade Runner film, it looks like Citroen are making a bid for some product placement already. Sadly this futuristic set of wheels is not real. The Citroën Taranis Concept is a futuristic two-seater off-road racer with an outboard double-jointed wheel set-up and in-wheels electric motors designed Peter Norris, who, you may not be surprised to learn, is “currently planning to expand his portfolio to the film/television industry.” The name Taranis is taken from the Celtic God of Thunder or wheel-god, often depicted with a thunderbolt in one hand and a wheel in the other.
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MISMATCHED PAIRING OF THE WEEK

It’s long been known that’s there’s a strange correlation between Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wizard Of Oz . Play the former while watching the latter and the music oddly seems to fit. Now somebody’s attempted a similar trick with the Floyd tracks “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse” and the Michael Jackson/Diana Ross film The Wiz . The Spurious panel recognises it as an outrageously spurious enterprise, but we’re not convinced it actually works…

MORE SPURIOUS AWARDS ON THE NEXT PAGE

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DEIMAGINING OF THE WEEK

What Avatar may have looked like back in 8-bit days. Oddly, the story loses none of its potency…
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HOLIDAY SNAPS OF THE WEEK

Loads more Wish You Were Heres over at The Surfing Trooper .
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I WANT ONE OF THOSE OF THE WEEK

Awesome. Just… awesome.
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THE ANTI-LUCAS OF THE WEEK

They may be mates, but Spielberg doesn’t seem to be of the same opinion as Lucas when it comes to tinkering with your old work. “That’s a little hot topic, isn’t it?” said Spielberg at a 30th anniversary screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark in Los Angeles this week. “Speaking for myself, you know, I tried this once and I lived to regret it. Not because of fan outrage, but simply because I was disappointed in myself. I was overly sensitive to some of the criticism E.T. got from parent groups when it was first released in ’82 having to do with Elliott saying ‘Penis Breath’ or the guns ... and then there were certain brilliant but rough-around-the-edges close ups of E.T. that I always felt, if technology ever evolves to the point where I can do some facial enhancement for E.T. I’d like to… then I realised that what I had done was I had robbed the people who loved E.T. of their memories of E.T. And I regretted that.” Please, please, please Mr Spielberg, sit down and have a long, hard chat with Mr Lucas…
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PUBLICITY STUNT OF THE WEEK

You know, in the past the Spurious panel has often awarded “Publicity Stunt Of The Week” in an ironic fashion, usually honouring naff ideas and rubbish concepts for their comedy value. But this? This is Spurious and Genius in glorious conjunction. To publicise the release of The Complete Star Wars Saga on Blu-ray, the BT Tower in London was turned into a giant lightsaber. Well, okay, actually it just shot a laser into the air, but somehow the illusion was spot on and now forever more the landmark will look like a lightsaber hub. Well, forever until the BBC turn it into a giant sonic screwdriver for Doctor Who ’s 50th.
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INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK


Click here for source and access to larger version . .

RUBBISH TABLE MANNERS OF THE WEEK

For the first time in your life you may feel sorry for a hot dog.

Dave Golder
Freelance Writer

Dave is a TV and film journalist who specializes in the science fiction and fantasy genres. He's written books about film posters and post-apocalypses, alongside writing for SFX Magazine for many years.