When I grow up, I'll be stable; when i grow up, I'll turn the tables. -- Garbage, When I Grow Up

Tales From /lost+found 65: The Orson Welles adaptation was good

I just sort of happened to have this lying around. It’s the closest thing I have to something actually relevant to Alvin Toffler, who passed away this week.

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Click to embiggen

Future Shock! was the nineteenth episode of the second season of the US series of Doctor Who. It introduced the character of Agent Blackwood, and serves as a teaser for the return of UNIT in season 3. The episode takes its name from 1970 bestseller by Alvin Toffler, and refers to the setting of 1999. It is the first episode of the US series to take place in the “Almost Tomorrow” near-future used for UNIT stories in seasons 3 and 4.

Synopsis

It’s New Year’s Eve, 1999. Before joining the festivities, The Doctor takes Lizzie to Silicon Valley to assuage her fears about the much-feared “Y2K bug”. However, they soon learn that not all “bugs” are confined to the internet…

The Ninth Doctor and Lizzie emerge from the TARDIS on a university campus, in the middle of an argument over the short-sightedness of using two-digit numbers to represent years in computer programs.

It is the eve of the Millennium, and the Doctor has brought Lizzie to one of Earth’s major centers of technological innovation to show her the work that has gone into preventing massive computer disruptions when the new century begins.

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