Sunday, July 19, 2015

At Flashbak: Biting the Hand that Feeds It? Sci-Fi TV Goes to the Fan Convention



This week at Flashbak, in honor of Comic-Con, I looked back at sci-fi TV's spotty history depicting science fiction conventions.

Here's a snippet and the url: (http://flashbak.com/biting-hand-feeds-sci-fi-tv-goes-fan-convention-37731/ )




"The 2015 San Diego Comic-Con International is now in our rear-view mirrors. Every year at this huge gathering of fans, the industry puts forward writers, actors, artists and directors teasing their latest productions. Fans see sneak previews and trailers, get their photographs autographed, listen to panel discussions, and buy officially-licensed merchandise by the truck-load.

But how has cult-TV programming actually treated actually sci-fi convention-goers, historically-speaking?

Well, the answer isn’t clear cut.

But first off, there was this.


Get A Life! by dag2007

In this famous skit from Saturday Night Live in the year 1986 (penned by Bob Odenkirk and Judd Apatow, Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, attends a Star Trek convention and treats the nerdy convention-goers, well, rather roughly. 

They’ve turned something he did as “a lark” in the sixties into a colossal waste of time, you see.  Why don’t they just stop living in their parents’ basement, get out, and kiss a girl? 

Why don’t they “get a life?”
Yeah, it’s not very nice.

And it’s not particularly funny, either, since the skit trades on two pretty weak sources of humor: broad stereotypes and mean-spirited insults.
But this six-minute segment doesn’t represent the whole story of sci-fi TV and conventions, either.

Way back in 1979, The New Adventures of Wonder Woman featured an episode set a science fiction convention called “Spaced Out.”

Here, Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter) goes in search of a jewel thief (Rene Auberjonois) who has stolen important crystals used for NASA’s space navigation.  The stolen goods are traced to a sci-fi TV convention (celebrating the old TV series “Space Quest.”)  

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