On December 3, 1926, a woman, who lived in Sunningdale in Berkshire, England, went missing for eleven days, causing a bit of a panic in the press. Her car was found in Newland's Corner, Surrey in a chalk pit, abandoned. Eleven days later, she was found in Harrogate Hotel, staying under an assumed name. She was in good health, with the exception of having amnesia, and unable to remember anything of the past eleven days. The reason this mystery caught so much attention is that the lady in question was the legendary mystery writer, Agatha Christie.

This true story was the spark for last Friday's episode of Doctor Who. It was one of those time travel stories that, when done right, are really wonderful. Specifically it dealt with a real life historical event and attempted to explain it and fill in the gaps as only the Doctor could. I'm pleased to report that they did a masterful job! Some shows attempt this and frankly, do a very sorry job of it. In this case, a wonderful story is written that not only captures the elements that makes for a fantastic Doctor Who episode, but it also captures the wonders of an Agatha Christie mystery in one amazing package.

The current Doctor, David Tennant, was masterful combining the character of the Doctor with the investigating powers of Miss Marple and Inspector Poirot in one wondrous package. All the elements of a murder mystery were present, but yet kept the fantasy and wonder that only an episode of the Doctor can delivery.

I won't give away the ending as there are possibly those who have recorded the show but have not seen it yet. All I will say it that they explain the amnesia and why very well. I leave it to all of you to witness this story for yourselves.

Now, as if this show wasn't enough to make for a great evening, the mid-season finale of Battlestar Galactica followed as it has each Friday night. As SciFi Channel has promoted during this ten week run, a little more of the hidden parts of the story were revealed, but they wound up with an ending that is going to leave fans talking about it until whenever the final ten episodes of the show run. Again, for those who did not see it, I will try not to give it away.

However, I have to comment that the writers took a page out of the book of the master, Rod Serling and threw at all of us an ending that was, in this writer's opinion, as masterful as his famous ending to the original Planet of the Apes movie. From talking to folks who saw it, no one saw that ending coming. Hats off to the writers for coming up with a cliffhanger that will keep folks in suspense just as the famous “Who Shot JR” story did on Dallas.

I'd like to hear what others thought of both shows. Please email me at drayburn@roddenberry.com and share your thoughts with me.

In Remembrance: I decided not to have an Ain't That Weird section this week so that I could pay tribute to the gentleman that the world lost Friday afternoon. It will be back next week.

Friday afternoon, I was one of the many folks who were watching TV when a teary eyed Tom Brokaw came on the air to announce that they had lost Tim Russert, their long time co-worker and friend. Tributes to him have come in from all over, from folks of every diverse political opinion from the two candidates for President to fellow media figures like Barbara Walters and Rush Limbaugh, not to mention senators, congress members, and President and Mrs. Bush.

As one who watched him whenever I could, I always admired his style. He was there, interviewing all kinds of people from the rich and powerful to the average guy and he treated all of them with the same respect. However, the one thing that stuck in my mind was the zeal with which he reported on politics for his network. He brought to politics the excitement and joy of a fan of a sporting event and it showed clearly that he loved every minute of it. His most famous moment was during Election night 2000 when he took a dry erase board and made it a piece of history, using it to outline what could happen and what needed to happen. My favorite was the moment, which was shown in HBO's recent movie, Recount, where he had written Florida on it three times. With this year's historic primary season, he again showed his zeal for it, and brought us all along for the ride.

In all of this, including the two books he wrote, he shown the one trait that separated him from all the others: he was one of us. He saw himself as an ordinary guy who was blessed with an incredible job where he got to do all of this.

We need more like him.

Think about it.

Photos:  Wikipedia, SciFi

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