Conversations with Geeks

Just wanted to draw everybody's attention to Geek Philosophy again, this time my conversation with Geek Goddess MaryAnn Johanson. Her blog about Gen X, Geeks and pop culture is a current obsession with me, and I was honored that she selected me for the first in a series of "Conversations with Geeks."

We had a great time gabbing about our deep, dark geek secrets and other goodies on the subject. I highly recommend the blog, not just because I'm featured (as are photos from toy-filled office!!) but because I think MaryAnn is doing great things on Geek Culture. She is fast-becoming the Geek Guru to a Net-savvy generation of admirers who were first attracted to her incisive, whip-smart, so-sharp-it-stings movie reviews at Flick Filosopher and are now enjoying her delightful and funny musings on everything from the Geek/Dork/Nerd Paradigm to Friday Cat-Blogging.

I have the feeling that Conversations with Geeks - like the rest of Geek Philosophy - will soon be must-read material for the Geek Inclined.

The House Where Evil Dwells

No, I'm not writing about the White House and its current occupant.

Instead, I'm talking about a film I screened last night for my current project, which requires that I watch lots and lots of horror movies made during the 1980s. The film I'm talking about is Kevin Connor's The House Where Evil Dwells (1982), which focuses on a nice middle-class American couple (Edward Albert and Straw Dogs' Susan George), who happen to move into a haunted house in Kyoto, Japan. They found the house courtesy of their friend and business associate Alex Curtis (Doug McClure), and now Ted and Laura Fletcher (and their daughter Amy) think all their problems are solved. Only problem is this: Three ghosts "live" there already, and are hellbent on re-creating the love-triangle that resulted in their brutal triple murder/suicide back in 1840.

In essence, this movie has the same plot as a 1980 low-budget effort starring John Saxon entitled Beyond Evil. In both films, blissfully ignorant Americans move to a strange land without understanding the culture and are subsequently haunted by local spirits. It takes local knowledge (in the form of a zen monk in The House Where Evil Dwells and a doctor in Beyond Evil) to help the tormented Americans understand how they have trespassed in things they don't understand. Sometimes that help comes to late, but that's a lot like life, isn't it?

What I enjoyed about The House Where Evil Dwells is that its director, Kevin Connor (Motel Hell, The Land That Time Forgot, At the Earth's Core, Space:1999, From Beyond the Grave) takes no prisoners in his approach to the material. The film opens with a nasty decapitation, features several soft-core quality sex scenes featuring the lovely Ms. George, and then climaxes with lots and lots of blood and a totally unhappy ending. But in between the opening and closing bookend decapitations, Connor includes the best sequence: a scene in which helpless little Amy and her babysitter are mysteriously overrun by skittering crabs as they sleep. These (huge!) crabs crawl all over the sleeping girls, their mattresses and bed sheets, and then chase poor Amy up a tree. The special effects are rudimentary (though good for 1982...) but there's something intense and terribly disturbing about this scene. It absolutely works in a skin-crawling kind of way. I also love the look and texture of Connor's film, which was shot by Jacques Haitkin, the great cinematographer who also lensed Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. This may be exploitation filmmaking, but gosh darn it, it's quality exploitation filmmaking.

The House Where Evil Dwells makes for an interesting B movie, and how long has it been since we've had one of those? I've always admired Motel Hell as a gonzo cult classic, and I had the opportunity to discuss it with Mr. Connor at Main Mission 2000, a Space:1999 convention held in Manhattan a few years back. The House Where Evil Dwells isn't quite as good as Motel Hell, in part because it lacks that's film's sense of campy humor, but I found the film watchable and entertaining, and even kind of tragic.

The core idea of the story (based on a novel by James Hardiman) is that the three ghosts are doomed karmically, to relive their past crimes again and again, but taking new prisoners along the way. Funny how personal vendettas often take just such turns. I also like the idea of strangers in a strange land, in this case Japan. "Demons and ghosts are not confined to your Christian world," warns the helpful monk near the film's climax, and that's a lesson that the film's doomed characters just don't seem to learn.

Anyway,this is a worth a look, especially within the context of director Connor's impressive (but mostly unexplored...) career in horror. Some energetic fan boy somewhere needs to do a retrospective on this guy. His films never fail to be unique, energetic and visually enthralling, even if slightly cheesy.

FantaSci

On Saturday, July 23, 2005, I'll be spending a glorious and exciting day in Chesapeake, Virginia at the annual fantasy and science fiction convention called FantaSci. I'll be presenting one of my favorite seminars there from 12:45 pm to 2:15 pm: SPACE:1970s - SF TV in the Disco Decade!

During this talk, I'll focus especially on the much-maligned, but intensely cinematic and fascinating series Space:1999 (1975-1977), the subject of the first book I ever wrote, way back in 1997, Exploring Space:1999: An Episode Guide and Complete History of the Mid-1970s Science Fiction Television Series (reprint edition: 2005, McFarland, $24.95).

This snippet is from the book's introduction:

"...the first 24 episodes of Space:1999 featured a richly-visualized world where space was a terrifying, confusing and spectacular mystery. Each story explored the unknown and portrayed the Alphan space voyage as a journey into wonder, awe and horror. Unlike the futuristic superheroes of Star Trek, the travelers on Moonbase Alpha were recognizably human and contemporary. They were unprepared both technologically and psychologically for a long voyage into deep space, and as a result their emotions, fears and attitudes often caused more harm than the aliens or space phenomena they encountered.

While Star Trek treated all problems as soluble and offered enjoyable stories laced with light social commentary, Space:1999 episodes were often downright grim. The series was obsessed with mankind's failings and dark questions of existence. As performed by series leads Landau and Bain, the main Alphan characters were tightly-focused and hyper-intense. There was just no time for these men and women to engage in the saucy banter that had won over so many viewers to Star Trek. In many ways, Space:1999 was much more a child of Joseph Stefano's The Outer Limits (1961-62) or Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone (1959-64) than of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek. Replete with effectively dark photography, stylish feature-film techniques, gothic story lines and a Wagnerian musical score Space:1999 presented the dark side of space adventure..."

So if you want to learn more about this amazing and oft-neglected TV series, as well as other 1970s initiatives including UFO, The Fantastic Journey, Logan's Run, The Starlost, Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes and Land of the Lost, and you happen to be in town on Saturday the 23rd, stop by to visit! Also, visit my Retro TV Files for a look at many of these shows.

I'll be joined at FantaSci by a bevy of interesting guests including authors Pamela Kinney, Elizabeth Massie, David Niall Wilson, Patricia Lee Macomber, Stephen Mark Rainey, Elizabeth Blue, Tony Ruggerio, Richard C. White, Joseph Maddrey, Christopher Curry, and Marshall Thomas, as well as animator Elizabeth Pascieczny, modelmaker David Merriman, Dr. Madblood's Craig T. Adams and Debra Burrell, Saving Star Wars director Gary Wood, Tidewater Alliance's Rick Baer and Odessa Steps Magazine's Mark Coale. Some of us will be doing a panel in the afternoon called "Gone but not forgotten," which looks at great sci-fi TV shows and movies of yesteryear.

I'm really looking forward to this con, and plan to have a table where I will be selling some of my horror videotapes, as well as copies of Exploring Space:1999 and other books (Eaten Alive at a Chainsaw Massacre: The Films of Tobe Hooper, The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television, etc.)

Superhero Event in Williamsburg, Virginia

On Thursday, July 21, 2005, I'll be at the Williamsburg Public Library (515 Scotland Street, Williamsburg, Virginia, 23185) at 7:00 pm to present an hour-long talk on the history of superheroes in films and television, the subject of my book, The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television. Before and after the show, I'll be selling copies of that book, as well as others, so if you're in Virginia, stop by to see the show.

Here's a taste of what I'll be discussing (from page 26 of my book):

"Looking at the history of superheroes in broad strokes, it is interesting to note the overall shape of their evolution. Superheroes went from being iconic, ideal-bearing national heroes (the 1940s and 1950s) to clowns (the 1960s). Then they became reflections of a simpler age (1970s), at least until morphing into dark, angst-ridden, revenge hungry vigilantes (the 1980s). Next, they transformed into demon-baiting women (1990s) before becoming ultra-realistic, almost inconspicuous "regular joes" (with the advent of Unbreakable, Smallville, Spider-Man) and other 21st century productions)."

Basically, I'll be discussing how each age of the twentieth century (and now the 21st) gets the superheroes it deserves, the ones reflecting the prevailing Zeitgeist. Examples include the 1960s Adam West Batman, Tim Burton's variation on the material in 1989, the 1970s Richard Donner Superman, TV's The Incredible Hulk, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and many more.

Cat Nap Tuesday

Over at my favorite blog, Geek Philosophy, MaryAnn posts Cat-Blogging Fridays, devoted to her (beautiful...) feline friends. Friday cat-blogging is something of a tradition on many blogs, I understand, and I only steal from the best, so... today I'm presenting Cat Nap Tuesday.

That's my beautiful Lila, sound asleep on my A940 All-in-One Dell Printer. She's sawing logs while I sit two feet away, working on movie and TV books (one for McFarland and one for Applause). Enjoy. She's a sweetie, isn't she?

Sapphire and Steel

This strange (and kinda obscure...) TV series (DVD box set from A&E shown left) is my current obsession. Sapphire and Steel is a British-made series that ran on UK TV from 1979-1982, and starred Joanna Lumley and David McCallum as a pair of very unusual paranormal investigators. They are - as their names suggest - elements rather than people, assigned to troublesome cases by some unknown superior force (God, perhaps?) Their missions are strange too, almost always concerning sudden rips in time and space, and other weird phenomena. Although the cases seen during the six serials (34 half-hour shows) occur in London, their purview is wide - from time travel to pocket universes, to strange poltergeists and other manifestations.

Sapphire and Steel - like Mulder and Scully on The X-Files - bring their own skill sets to each unique assignment. Sapphire (Lumley) can simply touch an object and know everything about its composition and history, and even who has handled it before her. She is a formidable telepath who also has the capacity to turn back time twelve hours. You'd be surprised how handy a tool that can be while battling spirits from outside time who are trying to burst into our reality!

Steel is less powerful, it seems, but is possessed of more will and discipline. He is incredibly strong physically, and can reduce his core body temperature to absolute zero. But mostly he is valuable for his razor-sharp mind. Steel is a calculating, emotionless and difficult being, and he will do anything to accomplish his mission -- including sacrifice human beings. This cold-bloodedness often puts him at odds with Sapphire, who is a nurturer and seems to care about the humans who are involved in their cases.

Sapphire and Steel occasionally receive help from other agents/elements, including the tech-head Silver ( David Collings), and even Lead - a hulk of a fella - but for the most part seem to be entirely on their own. They appear at the site of a disturbance already fully briefed (though we as viewers are never privy to these briefings...) and then, acting in tandem, go about solving mysteries and repairing time.

The six episodes in Sapphire and Steel are:

"Escape Through a Crack in Time:" - The reading aloud of an ancient lullaby in an ancient country house causes a rip in the fabric of time, and eerie historical manifestations steal a mother and father away from their children. Sapphire and Steel investigate their disappearance, and realize that to rescue the parents, they must first solve the mystery of the house's construction hundreds of years earlier. This story is like Poltergeist before Poltergeist. Only even creepier...

"The Railway Station" - An army of angry ghosts from all of England's pre-1980 wars gather on an abandoned train platform, ready to serve the will of an encroaching evil, an amorphous black mass that is devouring everything in its path. Sapphire and Steel are assigned to the case, and team up with a ghost hunter named Tully, who may know more than he's letting on. Sapphire is possessed by the darkness and Steel must find a way to negotiate with pure evil to get her back.

"The Creature's Revenge" - A scientific team from the distant future has returned to the year 1980 in a cloaked time-capsule to observe life in a primitive city, London. Unfortunately, their time device is powered by an increasingly self-aware creature who is the end result of generations of humanity's cruelty to animals. Sapphire and Steel investigate, and receive technical assistance from Silver. This serial about animal-rights, and mankind's long crimes against the wild kingdom, also involves a baby suddenly full-grown and som other disturbing images.

"The Man Without a Face" - Sapphire and Steel find themselves in an old antique shop, where a strange being without any facial features is pulling people out of old photographs and bringing them to creepy, sepia-tone life. The entity is thoroughly malevolent, and traps a lodger in the building inside an old photograph and then burns it - killing the unlucky human being. Sapphire and Steel battle their most defined adversary yet in this assignment, and must work hard to avoid being trapped in old photographs themselves.

"Dr. McDee Must Die." - A London-based business celebrates its 50th anniversary with a costume party harking back to the 1930s. Unfortunately, murder is on the mind of one of the guests. Soon time itself reverts to the 1930s, and Sapphire and Steel - disguised as party goers - must either prevent or accommodate a terrible crime. Depending on which they do, the human race may or may not survive the night.

"The Trap" - Sapphire and Steel join Silver in a strange pocket universe , a roadside gas station and diner. Nothing is as it seems there, and neither are any of the customers. In fact, some may be assassins with a plan to kill Sapphire and Steel. This is the last serial and it has one humdinger of a climax...

Why am I obsessed with Sapphire and Steel? For one thing, the stories are brilliantly written and filmed, and they work totally without benefit of anything resembling modern special effects. On the contrary, the intensely frightening and suspenseful mood is all generated by characterization, sudden sound-effects, low-key music, and most of all, exquisite camerawork. It's been a long time since I've seen any production that uses its camera angles and movements to so boldly and efficiently. Some people have complained the show is boring because each serial is set in one locale, but I find the opposite to be true. The series is riveting. You hang on every word of dialogue as you try to sort out the mystery.

Plus, the characterizations are classic. Lumley and McCallum are charismatic, enigmatic and charming in these unique and unusual roles, and one of the joys in the series is seeing how Sapphire and Steel relate to one another as partners. Are they lovers? They certainly flirt from time to time. And then there's the matter of the kiss in one story. These are great investigators to follow, and Sapphire and Steel, according to AE (quite truthfully) feels like the genuine "spiritual precursor" to The X-Files.

One of the most appealing aspects of Sapphire and Steel is that the creator (P.J. Hammond) endowed the show with an almost fairy-tale like, gothic horror feel. The first program, "Escape Through a Crack in Time," feels like a dark version of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe or some such fantasy. It is so good it does bear comparison with literature, and it will capture your attention quickly. The last story is a nail-biting adventure with oodles of suspense. It features the heart-wrenching final assignment of these paranormal detectives, but leaves viewers wanting more.

You can purchase the Sapphire & Steel DVD box set at Amazon or A&E Store for not much more than fifty dollars. For those of us who miss The X-Files, discovering this program is like pure bliss. Again - be prepared for the fact that there are no special effects to speak of, but then simply immerse yourself in these bizarre stories and wonderful characters. You'll be glad you did.

Is 13 a Lucky Number? Two Assaults in Two Eras

I just got around to viewing the 2005 re-make of John Carpenter's 1976 classic, Assault on Precinct 13. My wife and I did a "Precinct 13" night and watched the re-make first, then the original, just to see how they would stack up when put side to side.

Sad to say that the new film, starring Laurence Fishburne and Ethan Hawke, can't hold a candle to the 1970s exploitation hit. The new film looks like a 1990s-style action-flick, sorta Die Hard in an Abandoned Police Station, and it plays out as an utterly routine example of the genre. Nothing really wrong there, per se. Some moments are rather exciting, and the action is convincing. But this movie has no real heart or life of its own, it just sits there on the screen. Ho hum.

It's illuminating to point out the differences between the two films. In the stunning, explosive original, all the events that played out were random. All of that verisimilitude has been wiped away in the remake, and replaced with Hollywood screenwriting machinery so old it creaks.

To recap the original: a gang of interracial thugs(?) in Los Angeles steal a cache of automatic weapons from the cops and go hunting on the streets. They happen upon an ice cream vendor, who they attack. At the same time, they brutally murder a little girl who just wanted a vanilla twist. Enraged, her father steals the vendor's pistol, kills a gang member, and flees to an abandoned police station on the night it is closing. It just so happens that this very night is Lt. Bishop's (Austin Stoker's) first night on the job, and worse - a group of cutthroat criminals are incarcerated in his jails because one of them has fallen ill. Realizing that the vanilla twist girl's dad is inside, the interracial gang (Street Thunder) lays siege to the precinct...all night. The cops and the criminals join forces to hold off the bad guys, but never even know who they are fighting, much less why.

There's something wonderfully realistic about this approach. Action leads into action, and people don't always know motivations or reasons for brutal acts. That's fate, baby, and the original film reflects this fact, especially in the horrible, straight-faced murder of that vanilla twist tyke. Pretty cold-blooded, hardcore stuff. But that's why we love it, right?

Now here comes the razzle-dazle, big-budget remake in the age of packaged movies. In the new version of Assault on Precinct 13, a criminal boss, played by Laurence Fishburne holds up at an abandoned station run by Ethan Hawke in Detroit, on the night of a terrible snow storm. He knows too much about corrupt cops, so the cops lay siege to the precinct, even though some of their own are inside. In this version of the story, we know exactly why the villains are attacking (must...prevent...Fishburne's...testimony...), we get an unncessary back-story about Fishburne's character, and there's plenty of psychological trauma to substitute for characterization. Hawke's character, you see, was once in a situation where he was responsible for a team of cops -- and they all died when an undercover op went bad. He took the job at this abandoned station so he will never have to confront responsiblity again. Care to hazard a guess as to whether he's up to the task of leading men into battle?

I won't even get started on the obsessive-compulsive psychologist. I bet that idea looked great for a one-line character description in a story outline

But basically, the new Assault on Precinct 13 - while being an efficient actioner - takes all the surprises and twist-and-turns out of Carpenter's original story (which was an homage to the John Wayne/Howard Hawks classic, Rio Bravo). In the new show, every character goes through a carefully prescribed and predictable arc; every character has his big moment; every motivation is known, understood and boring.

As a result, the original is still the version with all the piss and vinegar. It's bold, reckless, daring, occasionally cheesy, and downright original. Carpenter has already re-made the picture in a Los Angeles Church (Prince of Darkness) and on Mars (in the underrated Ghost of Mars), so it's really hard to see why another remake - without Carpenter at the helm - was even necessary.

So here I am again, saying the old is better than the new. I pray that Hollywood will soon broach a re-make that I can fawn all over and rave about. Just to prove I'm not an embittered old guy...

Fantasmo Cult Cinema Explosion!

On Friday, July 1st, I'll be the special guest speaker at the Chesapeake Central Library's Fantasmo Cult Cinema Explosion!, a monthly double-feature of cinematic weirdness and obscurities. July's topic (and Episode 4 in the Fantasmo series): cult auteur Tobe Hooper!

The library will be unspooling two classics from this director of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Funhouse (1981) and Invaders from Mars (1986). I'll be doing a meet-and-greet (and selling some books) before the screening, at 7:00 pm and then doing an hour-long author talk starting at 7:30. My comments will cover the career and history of Tobe Hooper, and especially some details on these two classics from his career.

In my book, Eaten Alive at a Chainsaw Massacre: The Films of Tobe Hooper (McFarland, 2003), I call The Funhouse "an accomplished film that captures the raw edge of early Hooper...as well as the new, more disciplined Hooper (exemplified by the pristine Salem's Lot.)"

And Invaders from Mars, I wrote, "accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, to recount a crazy adventure from the viewpoint of a slightly off-kilter, smart aleck, media-exposed kid. Hooper's camerawork is laudable, his pacing is good, and his tongue planted firmly in cheek. At times, when the picture involves the shadowy and unfriendly faces of whispering adults plotting secret matters, Invaders from Mars evokes the isolation and discontentment of childhood in a very tangible way."

So if you're in the neighborhood of the Chesapeake Central Library on Friday, July 1, 2005, stop by to catch this cult double-feature. You'll go home with shivers, I promise...

Making Lemonade: Or I Feel the Need, the Need for Speed...on the new Battlestar Galactica

God I really, really want to like this new show, the "re-imagined" Battlestar Galactica, developed by Ron Moore and currently airing in reruns on The Sci Fi Channel (before a second season starts soon).


I keep telling myself I shouldn't be an Old Fogey (even though I'm only 35) about this. I should not keep stating that the old show was better, more fun, more successful in terms of its characterizations, effects and production design. After all, the new show is winning critical accolades right and left. It's not just the second coming of Battlestar Galactica. It's the Second Coming for Science Fiction on TV, we're supposed to believe.


Well. Okay. I guess. I can almost swallow that Kool Aid. But then again, I am old enough to remember when people said that about...er... Manimal...


I wrote a book all about the underpinnings of the original Battlestar Galactica in 1997, which was published by McFarland in 1998, entitled An Analytical Guide to TV's Battlestar Galactica. You can buy it at Amazon.com. I argued there -- hopefully persuasively -- that the original Battlestar Galactica had its flaws, but that despite them, it was a unique and interesting series. And for a number of reasons, I claimed this was indeed so. The great expense of the original 1978 series (more than a million dollars per episode...) assured imaginative costumes, impressive sets, and the best and most convincing special effects yet developed for American television (Space:1999 was British...). On top of production values, enormously appealing actors like Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch made the show more than the Star Wars rip-off the MSM wanted to make it out to be, and as the show developed over the weeks, it actually boasted something akin to a story arc. Finally, I also felt the original Battlestar Galactica had an interesting hawkish philosophy that differentiated it from Star Trek, and an interesting use of Christian and Greek/Roman mythology.


On the latter front, for instance, Battlestar Galactica made more than a token attempt to remind us that the lead characters were all from another planet, another solar system. The characters had names like Athena, Apollo, Lucifer, and Adama, and in the first episode, the survivors of the Twelve Colonies crossed a red-hued mine field that was the equivalent to the Red Sea. The characters said "yahren" instead of year. When they cursed, it was "frak" or "felgercarb." When they smoked a cigar it was a "fumarello." When they counted down time units, it was "centons" and "microns." Dogs were "daggits," and dollars were "cubits." It might have been ham-handed or silly at times, but this attempt at a legitimate Colonial language/lexicon granted the Battlestar Galactica world a veneer at least of otherworldly reality. We actually believed that these were "brothers of man," out in space; people like us, but not actually from Earth. We could suspend disbelief.


And for me, that's the thing that's almost wholly absent in the ripped-from-the-headlines, September 11th-style re-imagination. I was shocked to hear Starbuck quote the Tom Cruise movie Top Gun (1986) in one episode, noting a pilot cadet's "need for speed." I was disappointed to hear thoroughly earthbound references to "stogies" (instead of fumarellos) and "lemonade." I was disappointed that all the characters wear contemporary-style ties, business suits, and glasses, and that on occasion, are wont to exclaim "Jesus" rather than say "Oh Gods" (as they often do in later episodes). Whoa!


The feeling that these people are from another world (another friggin' galaxy maybe!) - and not models starring in Pier One commercials - is totally lost in this new Galactica. And for that reason, I keep wanting to scream at the screen --- you ain't from Earth! You haven't seen Top Gun! Come on, Ron Moore, you can do better than that! I saw Carnivale - it rocked!! And the work you did on DS9 and Next Gen -- friggin' brilliant stuff, dude!


And then I start get bitter, you see. And here's why: This new and (improved?) Battlestar Galactica was never designed to be faithful to the original. Never. Oh, the execs and the story editors say so, but they just aren't being honest, perhaps even with themselves. What is quite obvious from the TV episodes is that the writers want this show to be about us. Here. On Earth. In 2005. Dealing with Abu Ghraib. Dealing with Faith-Based Politics. Okay, that's cool - actually daring even - but it's not, repeat NOT true to the history and character of Battlestar Galactica. If truth be told, it's a helluva lot closer to Space: Above and Beyond(1995) than it is Battlestar Galactica. These new creators are simply using the title Battlestar Galactica as quick franchise identification. The name is a marketing tool, nothing more.


Consider all the changes to the franchise core. The Cylons are no longer robotic machines (okay, occasionally they are...) but rather Terminator-like human "sleepers" (like Al Qaeda! Get it?) "Apollo" is no longer a character's name, but a call-sign like Tom Cruise's "Maverick" (shit, what's this unhealthy obsession with Top Gun anyway?) Starbuck is no longer a man, but a woman. Boomer is no longer a black man, but an Asian woman, and Colonel Tigh is no longer a loyal, upstanding lieutenant to Adama, but a Dick Cheney-lookalike with a drinking problem and a whore for a wife. The Colonies look like Earth, down to hairstyles and costumes, not alien worlds. And that's just for starters! Considering these changes, I think Moore would have been better off to remake Space:Above and Beyond.


But here's the thing: besides you and me (and the other anorak sci-fi TV fans out there) how many people actually remember Space: Above and Beyond? It isn't really a usable title, you see? But Battlestar Galactica?! Gosh, it aired almost thirty years ago, and people still remember it today, even though it was on ABC for just one season (24 episodes; 17 stories). Sixty-five million people tuned into the original's premiere back in 1978. So, Battlestar Galactica has a magic ingredient: an exploitable name.


And that's just what the makers of this new show needed. They've exploited the name, a few of the key concepts, and then gone and done something completely about face. Is it good? Hell yeah, I do think the new show is good. But again...


It...is...not...Battlestar Galactica...

But frankly, I'm in a minority of one making this argument. Many original Battlestar Galactica fans thoroughly despise me because I dared (in my book) to speak my mind about the flakiness and bad storytelling of the original (and those dreadful space westerns with saloons, swinging doors, cowboy boots and horses...) So, given that my thoughts aren't always welcome in the Original Show camp, by all means, I should be comfortable with the new show, with its FTL jumps and deep story complexities, but I'm not. I'm on my own. I'm a man alone. The old fans don't like me, and I don't really think the new show comes from a place of honesty or faithfulness to the original.


On the new show, I do like the new Baltar. I like the civilian president too. Ive enjoyed Richard Hatch's two guest appearances. I appreciate how the program visually apes 24-style techniques with hand-held camerawork and shaky cams and the like. I think the stories are decent, and even at times quite compelling, especially as a reflection of the times we live in.


Yet the cynicism of this enterprise (or this battlestar...) depresses me through and through. Why so much sex and nudity every week? I like sex in drama, but it's so overused here as to be a joke. The skin-flashing and face-chewing in each installment is entertaining, but all too calculated. Star Trek did this with Seven of Nine, and now Battlestar Galactica is doing it with Number Six. Isn't it about time we outgrew this cliched presentation of women in science fiction television? Does Starbuck have to bed every guy (including Baltar and Zac) she meets? And do we have to see it? Is this really good storytelling, or has Battlestar Galactica merely succumbed to the trend in a lot of sci-fi TV and adopted soap opera-style storytelling? I wonder...


And lastly, to get one last thing off my chest. The hype. The bloody, frakking hype.


There's so much hype about how "popular" this new Battlestar Galactica supposedly is. Don't you believe it, buddy. The original drew 65 million viewers during its premiere. The ratings slipped, but the series was still drawing 20 and 30 million viewers regularly , even in repeats. A new episode of Sci-Fi's Battlestar Galactica if it's lucky, draws four or five million viewers, a fraction of the original series' pull.


So congratulations to the new team. They've taken a blockbuster property and successfully transformed it into a niche one. Is it successful on the Sci Fi Channel? Sure. Absolutely. But so was John Edwards show about Crossing Over for a while. So was Shanen Doherty's Scare Tactics. So were reruns of Strange World. But Galactica is not what it could have been, had it stayed true to its lineage and heritage.


Yet, I'm still watching. And I'm still hoping. There's a lot of good work in this new show, and interesting, developing storylines. But they better stop quoting Top Gun, these so-called aliens from the planet Caprica. Maybe they are receiving transmissions from the is-it-real-or-not planet Earth, but only ones somehow related to Scientologists...

Goodbye to Old Friends and Alien Fighters

I just heard yesterday that Ed Bishop and Michael Billington, stars of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's 1969-1970 sci-fi series U.F.O. had died. And on top of that bad news, Lane Smith -- familiar to TV viewers for his role as Perry White on Lois & Clark: the New Adventures of Superman and Nathan Bates in V: The Series - - has passed away as well.

These are all terrible losses to the long-lived sci-fi TV genre and the acting industry as a whole, and I offer my deepest condolences to all their families. We'll miss these performers.

Throughout his distinguished career, Ed Bishop appeared in films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Diamonds are Forever (1970) and Saturn 3 (1980), and performed a number of guest voices on the Star Trek animated series that aired in the early 1970s, but to me he will forever remain U.F.O.'s determined and grim Commander Ed Straker, head of S.H.A.D.O.

In his sleek nehru jackets and white punk haircut, Bishop cut a severe yet attractive figure. Unlike many heroes in science fiction television in those days (or in the 1980s, for that matter), Straker was a three-dimensional character, a man obsessed with a secret war against organ-plundering extra-terrestrials.

We witnessed the end of Straker's marriage in the episode "Confetti Check A-OK," saw him agonizingly choose duty over family in "A Question of Priorities" and detected his personal loneliness in "The Responsibility Seat." We saw shades of guilt in "The Long Sleep," his claustrophobia in "Sub Smash," and even Straker's physical resourcefulness in episodes such as "Timelash."

Bishop always played Straker with a sense of compassion, but without histrionics or other bells and whistles, and in the process gave the genre one of its finest, most underrated performances. Straker was a no-nonsense warrior, a man dedicated to his war against the aliens, but Bishop's humanity and the fine storytelling gave the Straker character an edge, an underside that was sad and just a bit pitiable. Bishop will be missed...and remembered.

As will Billington, who played test-pilot turned S.H.A.D.O. operative Paul Foster. Billington joined the series after it had begun its run, in the third, episode "Exposed," but very quickly became one of U.F.O.'s most valuable assets. This rugged actor brought overt physicality, sexual appeal, charisma and emotionality to the sometimes-slow-paced, intellectual series, and in the process became its undeniable action hero. Billington was often considered for the role of James Bond by the Broccoli's, and even appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me (as Barbara Bach's doomed Russian lover in the opening ski sequence...), but again, it is for U.F.O. that the genre will remember him best.

In a career stretching back to 1970, Lane Smith made an impression in both films (Red Dawn, My Cousin Vinny, The Mighty Ducks) and TV. He was the kind of actor who knew how to steal a scene, and how to demonstrate a character's layers without seeming showy. On the surface, he was folksy and down-home, but one always detected underneath that happy exterior a sharp intelligence and cunning sense of strategy.

In both of his genre roles, Smith put these talents to good use. As Nathan Bates, head of "Science Frontiers," on V, Smith played the ultimate power broker - a man who, because of his resources -- had both the Resistance and the Visitors by the balls. He used this power (a stockpile of the poisonous Red Dust) to make Los Angeles an open city, and also to ensure himself - always - a seat at the table during mediation. A ruthless corporate power junkie, Nathan Bates was an original. Lane Smith left the series after the first several episodes...and the series never recovered from his absence.

As Perry White, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Planet on the romantic Lois & Clark, Smith combined the country-boy wisdom of a good mentor with the hard-nosed authority of an old-fashioned newsroom runner. He could kiss ass or chew it, depending on the situation, and in many senses, his honest, humorous performance was one of the high-points of this Superman re-vamp.

All three of these talents made a mark in the entertainment I cherished as both a child and a young man, and it's sad to realize that we can look forward to no further performances from Ed Bishop, Michael Billington or Lane Smith. But their body of work exists, and will be cherished for years to come.

UFO, V: The Series and the first season of Lois & Clark are all available on DVD right now, and I urge you to rent 'em or buy 'em, just to see how the pros fought aliens.

I'm Baaaaack!

Well, after an absence of several weeks, I'm blogging again (sounds like a song...) The hills are alive with the sound of...blog?

Anyway, I've finished renovating my family room (in my historic house, a Dutch Colonial built in 1912), and I've just sent off to the publisher (Applause) my latest film study manuscript, for Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair. And I've completed the proofs and photo captions on Singing a New Tune: The Re-Birth of the Modern Film Musical from Evita to De-Lovely and Beyond (due now in late August/early September.) So it's been a busy time, but generally, I like being busy. As a writer, it's good to be busy...

But, there have been some other things I wanted to catch up. I've penned a new editorial over at MediaWhack at the Mutant Pulpit on the subject of - of all things - that great old game system, the Atari 2600.

And because I've received a few letters over at my web site on the topic, I've updated my home office/collectibles museum photographs. You can find the pages here: one, two, three, four and five, or just follow the first link. Be patient though. These photos are (mostly) in color, and highly detailed, so they take a little while to load.

On top of this, I still need to post here my review of Revenge of the Sith, but right now I'm trying to finish crafting an original screenplay for the annual Final Draft script contest, which closes on June 15th.

So watch this space...