Review of Tom Baker`s Ultimate Sci-Fi Quiz

Introduction

Oh bugger, it`s Christmas! You may be wondering where my Christmas spirit is, but the ever-increasing commercialisation doesn`t help me with my seasonal cheer. That`s doubly true when the beginning of November marks the start of the hard sell. Popping into a DVD emporium recently, I was presented with a whole rack of these interactive quizzes. Every year it is the same thing. It`s post-prandial entertainment these days to stick a disc in and torture each other with trivia. What happened to the traditional family row after the Queen`s speech?

I haven`t met an interactive quiz yet that I haven`t wanted to grind into pulp after brief acquaintance. It`s always the same, "Welcome to," grind whirr clunk, "Token Celebrity Endorsement`s," grind whirr clunk, "Trivia Quiz. Select from the following options," grind whirr clunk. 40 minutes later after figuring out the rules and setting up the game, "Question 1," grind whirr clunk, "Who was President of the United States when Jimmy Greaves last had hair?" grind whirr clunk, "Choose from the following options" grind whirr clunk, "You are wrong, start," grind whirr clunk "again."

The DVD player is ill suited to the interactive pub quiz format, it`s about as responsive as the old Fastext quizzes, if more colourful, yet they continue to churn out these discs in ever increasing numbers.

But two things about this disc made me cross my fingers and hope for the best. Firstly, it`s a sci-fi quiz. I love sci-fi. Where I would be lost in a music quiz, and hopelessly out of my depth with sports, this is a field where I can express my geek credentials with pride. Second, Tom Baker presents it. Yes, the stentorian tones of the fourth Doctor will grill you as to the depths of your sci-fi knowledge. Tom Baker`s voice should be universal. Police interrogations, the speaking clock, station announcements, bedtime stories, Stephen Hawking`s speech synthesiser would all benefit. If you could phone up God, Tom Baker`s voice would be on the answering machine.

The game. One or two players can take part. You`re Captain of a spaceship that has been lost in a wormhole and stranded 20000 light years from earth. The only way to get back is to answer sci-fi trivia questions, as delivered by an emergency transmission from Earth aided by your ship`s computer. A correct answer will advance you 1000 light years. Select from the following categories, Literature, Robots, Aliens & Monsters, Crazy Science, Planets & Worlds, Earth In Peril, Amazing Craft, The Early Years, The 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, New Millennium, and General Sci-fi. You`ll get 5 questions from each category, 10 seconds to answer, and try to avoid those pesky wormholes. You have 30 chances to get home.

Play head to head, and you`ll be able to use those wormholes to your advantage, swapping positions with your opponent.

Video

A perfectly adequate 1.78:1 anamorphic presentation doesn`t do this disc a disservice. The spaceship interior is presented ala CGI, and there are some nice wormhole effects and space vistas to set things off. Tom Baker appears via a holographic transmission, as do the film clips and images, and it all looks very professionally done. It would have been nice if the different players got different spaceships, but that`s a small irk.

Audio

Good old vanilla stereo, and everything is clear and audible. It`s almost worth it to hear Tom Baker say `large breasts`. I think it was a question about Seven of Nine.

Features

A Star Wars type credit scroll, and a guided tour of the spaceship blueprints, all nice and pointless.

Conclusion

I think that`s a world record for me. It was two whole hours before I even considered whether you could use a DVD in clay pigeon shooting. The Ultimate Sci-fi Quiz is almost an enjoyable piece of entertainment, and it really only falls down in one respect. In every other aspect it succeeds, most notably the access times. Rather than a `grind whirr clunk` between each question and answer, it`s more of just a whirr instead.

Also considerable is just how much of Tom Baker is on this DVD. He shares the question-master duties with the generic computer voice, and he introduces the quiz as well as all the categories. There is some wit and charm in the script, so playing the game is quite a personable experience.

Licensing is also a major problem with these quizzes, and getting the rights to film clips, sounds and images can make or break a DVD quiz. I once had the dismal experience of reviewing a music quiz without any music in, and I wasn`t sanguine about this DVD`s collection of film clips either. Quite rightly too, as the big franchises like Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings and Terminator don`t make it onto this DVD in the form of moving images. That said, it`s surprising how much sci-fi there is out there, and there are a decent collection of clips on this disc. The further back in time you go, the more there is, and since some of the earliest material is now public domain, you don`t have to worry about licenses for Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. There are also select clips of genuine landmark sci-fi movies, as if they cherry picked the memorable films for inclusion on this disc. There`s footage of 2001, Serenity, Jurassic Park III, and Pitch Black among others. Where film footage isn`t available, still images are there in abundance, and this disc certainly fulfils the visual aspects of the quiz well. Television is also well represented here, and naturally on a disc presented by Tom Baker, there`s plenty of Doctor Who. Incidentally, there are some gruesome clips of John Carpenter`s The Thing, so you may not want to play this game with little Timmy.

So, a fair collection of multimedia, relatively fast access times, and great presentation, what could go wrong? Repetition, repetition, repetition. You`re only allowed to select a category once per game, so I didn`t notice anything the first time around, but in the second game I was surprised to see questions repeated. It`s a common failing of these interactive DVDs, but on this disc it`s worse than usual. The second time I selected a category, one of the five questions was repeated. The next time, it was repeated yet again, along with another one. Basically, the second time you play the game, around 10 percent of the questions will be familiar. It doesn`t bode well for the disc`s longevity. There`s also a minor issue with the spelling on this disc. It doesn`t happen too often, but when there is a mistake it can be jarring. I`m sure there was never a Doctor McKoy on the Enterprise.

Interactive DVD quizzes are a nice idea in principle, but the execution is invariably lacking. This particular disc makes good use of its host, Tom Baker, and because of that the initial fascination with the disc lasts longer than most. It`s still an interactive quiz though, and it will be gathering dust come Boxing Day.