Ayyyyy!

I have no idea why or how, but I have managed to keep this trading card since 1976 -- when I was seven years old.

This trading card has survived my messy bedroom in the seventies, my move to Virginia for college in the late 1980s; and my move to North Carolina in the 1990s. I opened a box of my toys yesterday (with Joel) and found it there, all by its lonesome. I own no other Happy Days memorabilia or trading cards. Just this guy.

The Fonz still rules, I guess.

CULT TV FLASHBACK #60: Schoolhouse Rock (1973-1986)

Today, I credit three diverse and valuable sources with my ability to write well.

The first is my study of Latin. I minored in the subject at the University of Richmond and have never regretted it. Vēnī, vīdī, vīcī.

The second source is a deep stable of wonderful and inspiring English professors; stretching from my grade school experience through the university years (particularly critic Bert Cardullo, Joseph Umansky, and the late Joe Roden).

And, last but never least, is...Schoolhouse Rock, the ABC animated musical series (1973-1986) that demonstrated -- in superbly entertaining fashion -- how to accurately utilize conjunctions ("Conjunction Junction"), adverbs ("Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here,") Interjections ("Interjections!") and more. Yep, these "lessons" were all facets of the series' memorable class on "Grammar Rock."

Schoolhouse Rock premiered on the ABC Network in early January of 1973, the brainchild of ad man David McCall, musician Bob Dorough and artist Tom Yohe. Network executive Michael Eisner approved the project for broadcast during ABC's Saturday morning schedule, and accordingly three minutes "bits" were cut (over producer protests!) from the entertainment programming (such as Scooby Doo) to make "elbow room" for these educational and amusing shorts.

The series' mission: "to link math [and other subjects] with contemporary music...[so] kids will breeze through school on a song."

Over roughly a dozen years, Schoolhouse Rock accomplished that task in spades. It offered a deep, amusing, highly-addictive and toe-tapping TV curriculum in a variety of academic subjects.

Celebrating the bicentennial in 1976, Schoolhouse Rock's "America Rock" featured such shorts as "I'm Just a Bill," (following a bill's progress from idea to committee to law or veto...), "Elbow Room" (about the American expansion West after the Louisiana Purchase..."), "Mother Necessity" (about American ingenuity and inventions...), and "The Preamble," which concerned the specific words and meanings of the U.S. Constitution.

In the subject of math, audiences were offered "Multiplication Rock," with shorts called "My Hero, Zero," "Three is a Magic Number" (a personal favorite that I sing to my son, Joel...) and "Figure Eight."

In "Science Rock," youngsters learned about "Electricity, "Electricity" and "Interplanet Janet" (a ditty about the heavenly bodies of our solar system.)

In all, over forty of these three-minute segments aired on American television, and to the joy of fans everywhere, the series is now available on DVD, For Generation X (my generation) specifically, these shorts (particularly the catchy tunes) are nothing less than indelible.

This morning, I introduced Joel (my two-year old) to Interplanet Janet. If you watched Schoolhouse Rock back in the day, which songs (and which lyrics) do you still remember verbatim? Come on, I know these things are ingrained in your brain too...

Darn. That's the end.

Muir on Horror Now

Author Danny Lynn writes about the condition of the horror genre in this article. He interviews a number of prominent North Carolina authors about this subject (including my friend, Scott Nicholson [They Hunger]). Here's a little snippet of what I had to say about the state of the genre in 2008:

“I’d like to see horror today becoming a little sharper; a little nastier, a little smarter, and a little more pointed. Basically, we should be seeing a whole new generation of original films like Last House on the Left or Straw Dogs...but we’re mostly getting remakes of 80s slashers that play on brand names, like Prom Night.”

Check out the entire article here.

Theme Song of the Week # 31: The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962-1965)

3:47 am

The time my 2-year old son woke up this morning. Arrrrgghh!

CULT TV FLASHBACK #59: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008)

All right, so technically, this cult "flashback" involves a TV series still being broadcast on network television.

However, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles did begin airing in early 2008 (ten months ago...) and the entire first season (nine hour-long episodes) is now available on DVD. Given that information, this seems like as good a time as any to highlight this exceptional series on the blog.

First, a prologue about my own critical prejudices. Honestly, I believed that a Terminator TV series was a rotten idea when I first heard about the concept. So I kept my head stuck firmly in the sand and never watched even a single episode of the first season when Fox aired it. Was. Not. Interested.

My objection to the premise was simple: I felt that translating the expansive and expensive Terminator film trilogy to weekly television would succeed only in making the concepts, characters and universe seem small....trivial...perhaps even cheesy.

How could a reasonably-budgeted TV series afford to create a believable "Judgement Day" (the occasion that Skynet -- a malevolent A.I -- nukes the human race, in Terminator lore)? How could it afford to depict the red-eyed Terminator cyborgs, sans human epidermis, in all their mechanical glory? Who could believably substitute for the iconic Arnold Schwarzenneger as the Terminator human "model"? Similarly, who could replace Linda Hamilton, the actress who had so successfully breathed life into Sarah Connor back in 1984? Furthermore, did we really need a third angsty young actor (following Edward Furlong and Nick Stahl) giving us another iteration of future hero, John Connor?

And really, wasn't a Terminator series just an opportunity to re-imagine the movies, and offer up a slew of contradictions and questions?

I understand now -- having watched the series -- that it was only my original thinking that was small; not the imagination of the series writers. Quite the opposite of what I had initially feared, the first nine episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles expand and develop the world of the Terminator franchise in an admirable, consistent (meaning faithful...) and hugely entertaining fashion. The series' techno-jargon is the jargon of the films (right down to exact quotes of dialogue and terminology), and the program's time-line actually seems to fit like a glove with at least the first two features. What a pleasant surprise...

To its credit, The Sarah Connor Chronicles extrapolates logically and imaginatively on the entire universe set down by James Cameron in the first two Terminator films (right down to mood and theme), and - to my shock and utter delight -- even confidently vets feature-film-quality action sequences.

By the time the series arrives at the final episode of the first season, "What He Beheld," the direction and cinematography is almost lyrical. It's not just a superb adaptation...it's superb television. Specifically, a climactic assault on a Terminator in his motel room (by FBI agents) is lensed in stylistic montage fashion, edited superbly and wittily to Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around."

During this motel assault, the camera inventively takes up a position at the bottom of an adjacent swimming pool. We hear numerous gunshots fired, then one wounded FBI trooper after another lands in the pool with great impact -- above us, spatially -- until the water slowly turns crimson, and is literally crowded with floating, sinking corpses. One corpse comes straight down like a stone...directly into the camera's eye. Throughout this battle, we never even see the Terminator fire a single shot; but the images of the massacre are sharp, impressionistic, and bold.

Honestly, I wanted to stand up and applaud at this formalistic climax, because -- at this moment of valediction -- the Terminator series had found its own unique voice and the confidence to shoot something in entirely unorthodox, even daring fashion (at least in terms of visualization and soundtrack).

But I'm getting so far ahead of myself here. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles occurs after the events of Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) but before Rise of the Machines (2003). It is the year 1999 and Sarah Connor (Lena Headey) and her teenage son, John (Thomas Dekker) are still on the run -- wanted by the FBI -- after having destroyed Cyberdyne Systems and successfully rolled back Judgement Day.

Before long, however, additional murderous cyborgs from the future are hunting John (the future leader of the human resistance against the machine regime). Also sent back -- but to protect Connor, not kill him -- is a re-programmed female terminator, Cameron (Summer Glau). Pursued by a T-888 named Crowmartie (who humorously shows up at John's school as a substitute teacher...), Sarah, John and Cameron utilize time travel technology (constructed in the past by time traveling soldiers) and arriving in Los Angeles in 2007.

It's now just four years before the new date of Judgment Day: April 21, 2011...

The hunted are unaware that their hunter, Crowmartie -- though scattered in pieces -- has also made the journey to 2007 with them. In the first several episodes of the series, the Terminator reconstructs himself, acquires new human skin (in an utterly creepy sequence involving a bathtub filled with human blood...) and resumes his mission to terminate John. In other installments, FBI agent James Ellison -- his name is a nod to Harlan Ellison, who successfully sued for a credit on James Cameron's original Terminator -- continues his quest to bring "terrorist" Sarah Connor to justice, even as Sarah, Cameron and John join forces with Kyle Reese's brother, Derek (Brian Austin Green), a soldier from the future.

Throughout the first season, the resistance cell (John, Sarah, Cameron and Derek) struggles to avert the development of genocidal SkyNet, a device which here is depicted in its early, adolescent iterations; both as "The Turk," a primitive A.I. device programmed to win at chess; and later as ARTIE, a Los Angeles municipal traffic monitoring program.

This brief summary of the premise can't possibly do the series justice. The summary probably makes the show sound like an uninventive repeat of the Terminator films. In fact, that's far from the truth. For instance, in the series, canny developer Josh Friedman has adopted the notion of sending soldiers to the past (our present) and wildly expanded on it. Here, post-Judgement Day, John Connor sends back teams (or "cells") of soldiers, not just individuals; and he also sends them back to various time periods for specific missions. For instance, in the premiere episode, we learn that Connor deployed a team to the 1960s to begin construction of a time travel device that would be needed by Sarah in 1999. The mission of those men was not a familiar one (to protect John Connor from terminators); but rather to gather the necessary equipment and construct a machine. This is exactly what I meant by opening up the franchise premise: here the past and the co-exist live side-by-side in a more complete, thoughtful way than in the feature films; with teams of fighters (and Terminators too...) operating beneath the radar.

One thoroughly impressive episode, "Vick's Chip," reveals (often from a first-person P.O.V. perspective) how a terminator named Vick infiltrated human society and even married a human woman (an A.I. developer) to complete his task of insuring Sky Net's birth. Again, this is a somewhat different, but not contradictory, tack than the movies adopted. There, the terminators had that single purpose: kill John Connor. Here, the machines have a larger, more devastating agenda...ensuring their own survival at the cost of the human race.

But the reason that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles succeeds more often than it fails is that the characters are treated respectfully and honestly. First off, they speak in an intelligent vocabulary (and in a lexicon) entirely consistent with the feature films.

Secondly, none of the characters are unrepentant drama queens given to bouts of dramatic diarrhea (think: Grey's Anatomy). Thomas Dekker -- playing John Connor -- does a highly credible job of playing an average teenage boy thrust into an absolutely impossible and difficult situation, but nonetheless attempting to retain some aspects of normality. So often on television, teenage boys are depicted poorly (either as geniuses or as juvenile delinquents) and consequently derided by fans for their trespasses (think Wesley Crusher or Adric), yet there is nothing annoying, brooding, trite, hackneyed or cheesy about John. He's just a smart kid trying to survive. He's emotional when the moment warrants it; tough when he can be; forever human with all the foibles that come with that descriptor.

The addition of Cameron (Glau) to the franchise also permits Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles to wade into the underlying thematic material of the films. Cameron -- and her failure to understand humanity -- makes the series worth watching as something more than an "action" series. In particular, it is through Cameron's character that viewers can ask the question first asked by Gene Roddenberry's Mr. Spock a long time ago (and later by Mr. Data): what does it mean to be a human being?

Or, oppositely: What does it mean to be a machine? Terminator 2 delved deeply into this territory, but this series absolutely excels in its dedication to comparing human beings and robots, or artificial intelligence. What I found so remarkable about this is that it forges the contrast in an entirely unsentimental, intellectual fashion. In one episode, for instance, Cameron befriends a ballet dancer in hopes of getting close to the dancer's brother, a slippery fellow who may know where "The Turk" is. Cameron does so by feigning an interest in ballet; which is described by the dancer as "the hidden language of the soul."

When Cameron gets the information she requires following this mission of infiltration, she immediately pivots and leaves her ballet instructor behind. Worse, Cameron leaves the dancer and her brother to be immediately killed by Armenian goons. Cameron does not look back, and she voices no remorse. She does not comment, even, that she has left a mentor to die. The point is that Cameron is a machine...nothing more and nothing less...and so she can't relate to humans in terms of loyalty or friendship. And yet, later in the episode -- unobserved by anyone but a spying Derek -- Cameron mysteriously indulges in a moment of ballet, in that "hidden language of the soul."

See, things aren't so simple, are they? What's this all about? Why would a machine engage in dance? How can a machine unemotionally leave a human being to be killed one minute, then indulge in an entirely human act (dance) in another? These are the questions that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles raises. Fortunately, it tends not to offer easy answers or sentimentalize the characters. Cameron is beautiful and inquisitive, but she's not "cute." She's not heading off to the holodeck to play Sherlock Holmes any time soon, if you know what I mean (unless it helps her complete a mission).

I am also impressed with the series' careful handling of the James Ellison character (Richard T. Long). Let's face it, Ellison the FBI agent is that old, durable TV cliche: the hapless pursuer. You know the type: Barry Morse on The Fugitive; Richard Lynch on The Phoenix; Jack Colvin on The Incredible Hulk; Michael Cavanaugh on Starman, Lance LeGault on Werewolf.

These are the dedicated law enforcement officials (or journalists) who relentlessly dog the heroes of these classic series...but never, ever catch them. Oh, they get close to catching the protagonists every damn week...and then -- for some reason -- don't get them. Of course, this fact makes the pursuer look incompetent or...hapless since it happens again and again; hence my name for the archetype.

But Ellison resists classification as a hapless pursuer because his investigation actually develops logically over the course of the episodes; and he doesn't remain a single-minded pursuer, never open to new information. No, what separates Ellison from other hapless pursuers (and Terminators, for that matter), is that new evidence changes him as a person. His beliefs change; his allegiances change. By the end of the series, Ellison is not the same single-minded pursuer of Sarah Connor that he was at the start of the series. That's...refreshing.

Of all the characters on the program, I actually found Sarah Connor (Headey) the most difficult to warm up to. Perhaps this is because Sarah Connor is - authentically - not really a very warm person. In some sense, Sarah is more like the enemy she fights than she might care to admit. She is ruthlessly single-minded: dedicated to changing the future and altering her son's dark destiny. These qualities don't make for a warm and fuzzy character; but I can't claim it should be any other way. Of all the performances, I found Headey's sort of the cheesiest and most two-dimensional to begin with; but the actress grows dramatically in the role over the course of the first season. I accept her now as Sarah Connor, which, I believe, is a huge accomplishment. I no longer think Linda Hamilton = Sarah Connor, and that's a high compliment.

Frankly, I wasn't expecting to like this series much. I was very pleasantly surprised. Unlike some seasons of Lost, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles isn't mysterious merely for the sake of tricking the audience or keeping it off-balance. Unlike the badly-drifting re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, the infiltrating machines here act in a consistent fashion with a consistent plan. Furthermore, this series isn't just an elaborate game of Clue, reduced to guessing game about who's a machine and who's human. And, finally, unlike Fringe, this series' formula isn't so aggressively and rigidly repetitive that you want to kill yourself by the half-hour mark.

I didn't think it could be done, but Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is a movie-to-tv adaptation absolutely worth watching. This is a good show, folks. If you had the same reservations that I did -- and that I noted at the outset of this review -- you may want to check them at the door and give the series a try. This is one we don't want to lose.

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981)

"Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear... The Lone Ranger rides again!"

Oh, if only that were so...When I was a little boy living in New Jersey, a local TV station (WPIX, I think...) ran an afternoon block of heroic programming. First The Adventures of Superman (1952-1958), then Batman (1966-1969) and then, finally...The Lone Ranger (1949-1957). 

This went on every weekday for a long time...and boy...I was in kiddie heaven. I remember some days begging my Mother to take me home from Brookdale Park so I could get home in time to see these TV programs!

Anyway, Clayton Moore portrayed the heroic Lone Ranger in the 1950s series (along with John Hart, for two years), and I admired the Lone Ranger as a child (and now, as a man) because of his moral creed. He didn't drink or smoke. Not only did he speak beautifully (never indulging in slang or jargon), but he believed that "all men are created equal and that everyone has within himself the power to make this a better world." Most importantly, the Lone Ranger never shot to kill.

Despite my love for the 1950s Lone Ranger TV series (and I even owned a complete set of Gabriel's 1973 10-inch Lone Ranger figures...), I would have certainly welcomed, by 1981, a modern take on the classic material; just as I had welcomed with open arms the updated Superman: The Movie (1978). 

But with The Legend of The Lone Ranger (1981), a notorious box office bomb, something went wrong.

I watched The Legend of the Lone Ranger again last week, for the first time in years, and was shocked anew at just how bad this film is. In fact, I was unpleasantly reminded of Tarzan: The Ape Man another 1981 film which failed to do justice to an iconic hero. At least Tarzan: The Ape Man has Bo Derek starring (and disrobing...) in it, and boasts a high-degree of camp value. The Legend of the Lone Ranger is just plodding.

Actually, The Legend of the Lone Ranger fails on three distinct fronts. But before I get to each particular failure, a brief re-cap is in order: The Legend of the Lone Ranger tells the story of the "man behind the mask" (as per the ballad of the Lone Ranger, performed by Merle Haggard).

In the Old West (Texas, 1854), young John Reid sees his parents brutally murdered by bandits and is taken in by friendly Indians to live as one of the natives. Reid's "blood brother" is Tonto, and at this early age, Reid decides irrevocably to follow "the trail of justice." Soon, however, he is removed from his Indian life by his older brother, Dan, a ranger who sends John back East to become an attorney.

Several years later, a grown John (Klinton Spilsbury) returns to the wild west hoping to make it a terrain where justice prevails, but in local "Del Rio," (a town in trouble, Merle Haggard tells us...) he finds that much of the territory is already in thrall to the power-hungry, psychotic Butch Cavendish (Christopher Lloyd), a warlord who seeks to kidnap President Ulysses S. Grant (Jason Robards). 

Before long, John, his brother Dan and a team of rangers are led into a Cavendish trap by a traitor in the ranger ranks and -- after a brutal gun fight -- left for dead.

Only John survives the massacre. He is nursed back to health by a now-adult Tonto (who happened by the crime scene at just the right moment...) and soon launches his quest for justice. But first, John must "dig a grave for John Reid" and become The Lone Ranger; a masked man who rides a white steed named Silver, and who uses silver bullets in combat.

The Legend of the Lone Ranger's first and most egregious failing is that it doesn't seem to know its audience (which, if you ask me, would include generations of "grown up" boys and girls who loved the TV show). By this, I mean that Legend of the Lone Ranger is the ugliest, gauziest, dustiest-looking western since Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate (1980).

It's not just that the movie is unpleasant to watch...it's actually unpleasant to look at. You can hardly make out faces, the film is so gritty and soiled-looking. I would argue that this is precisely the wrong visual for any Lone Ranger production. We should be inspired by the beauty of the West, by those gorgeous wide open skies and natural landscapes; just as the Lone Ranger is himself inspired by the promise of America. I mean, I know dark things happen in the Lone Ranger's origin, but no one in their right mind would live in a Wild West that looked like this, forever inside its own whirling Dust Bowl.

Secondly, this is a film that, in the first few minutes, depicts innocent Mrs. Reid (John's mother) dragged behind a horse by bandits, and then shot and killed at point-blank range. Later, the film doesn't cut away when two bandits are executed by Cavendish, and we see the bloody impact wounds blossom on their chests. I'm no prude, but the Lone Ranger in the past was a franchise that didn't exploit graphic violence. The Lone Ranger himself never killed his enemies; and furthermore lived by a code of justice that he applied to all: criminals and honest citizens alike. It's a mistake, I submit, given the history of the franchise, to revel in bloody demises like those depicted here. It seems antithetical to what the Lone Ranger is all about.

I'd also state that The Legend of the Lone Ranger doesn't know its audience because it makes several basic mistakes in franchise information and background. For instance, this film transforms heroic John Reid into a rookie attorney (!) not an experienced ranger, when he is involved in the massacre. It also establishes that he is a terrible shot, one whose skill is miraculously improved only when Tonto gives him silver bullets. In most incarnations of the Lone Ranger, Reid is a talented marksman and ranger before the events that change his life. Frankly, that origin makes more sense. Silver bullets aren't magic in and of themselves (though I guess they can kill werewolves...). I just don't see how silver bullets make a person's aim more true, even if, according to Tonto, "silver is pure."

The Legend of the Lone Ranger's second, and perhaps most catastrophic failing is that it is dull beyond  conventional forms of measurement. This is an action movie that moves at a snail's pace. It takes thirty-eight long minutes just to get to the ranger massacre in the gully. It takes to forty-eight minutes to introduce Silver. Key scenes are notably and irrevocably dull. For instance, the moment when Reid tames Silver is extended relentlessly by slow motion photography (think of Tarzan's wrestling match with a boa in Tarzan the Ape Man), and becomes almost laughable in its duration. I'm a long-time admirer of composer John Barry, but his lugubrious, ponderous score only contributes to the sense that this movie is a dead weight around your shoulders...never ending, ugly, and with nothing of significance occurring. 

"Thrilling days of yesteryear?" You won't find them here...

The film's final flaw is simple: basic incompetence. Through the entire film, Klinton Salisbury's voice is badly dubbed by James Keach, and you can tell. Worse, in key moments, (particularly the horse whispering moment), it is obvious that Silver is played by at least two very different horses. You know a movie is in trouble when you have the time to notice that the lead horse is being stunt-doubled...

The only time this movie comes to life is when that inspiring William Tell Overture is dragged out of mothballs and the pulse quickens.

What a disappointment. The children of 1981 deserved better.

The Science Fiction Research Association reviews A Critical History of Dr. Who on Television

The SFRA Review, Number 285 (Summer 2008) prints a thoughtful and lengthy review of my book, A Critical History of Dr. Who (1999) on pages 14 and 15 this month.

The Science Fiction Research Association, according to Wikipedia, "was founded in 1970 and is the oldest, non-profit professional organization committed to encouraging, facilitating, and rewarding the study of science fiction, fantasy literature, film, and other media. The organization’s international membership includes academically affiliated scholars, librarians, and archivists, as well as authors, editors, publishers, and readers."

Here's a snipppet of what writer Karen Hellekson noted in her analytical review of my Doctor Who text:

"In addition to screening the episodes and talking about things like cinematography, story structure and special effects, Muir discusses behind-the-scenes players and the politics of the show. Muir links many stories to other TV shows and films, revealing an impressive breadth of knowledge that contextualizes the show and draws useful connections."

The review also notes that:

"Newbies and dedicated fans alike will enjoy the "Recommended Viewing" list, which is articulated as a three-step process: "First Watch" (a particular Doctor Who episode), "Then Watch" (a film, a particular episode of a TV show) that you might "Look For" (common themes, situations, treatments.)

Muir's listing of "The 20 Best Episodes of Doctor Who" may be taken to task by some fans - I noted with disapproval the omission of 1970's "Inferno" - but Muir's intent is to show the program's "quintessential characteristics" in episodes that are available, and a glance at the 20 best reveals not a bad one in the bunch."

I must say that as the author of this book, I also deeply appreciate that reviewer Karen Hellekson notes that the book has not been updated in this 2007 reprint edition. I was not given the opportunity to update the text, alas. Oddly, some notable and respected film magazines failed to acknowledge this simple fact in their critiques, and actually reviewed the book on the basis of 2008 knowledge; essentially faulting me for failing to note the new series and other 2000-2008 franchise developments.

By contrast, Hellekson writes:

"I find this book useful as it is: an informational tour, taken in 1999, with a witty, well-read guide, with entertaining pictures. It's a great beginning place for an overview on classic Doctor Who."

Hellekson concludes the review with the thought that A Critical History of Dr. Who on Television is a "must-have" episode guide for fans.

A Critical History of Dr. Who on Television is available at McFarland here. Or order A Critical History of Dr. Who on Television at Amazon.

CULT TV BLOGGING: Quark Round-up!

First, I want to apologize for the scarcity of posts this week. I have been felled by a bad cold (and my wife Kathryn has it worse.) We haven't been doing much besides taking care of little Joel (who turns two tomorrow!) and trying to get some sleep.

But, in the last week or so, I have - at least - managed to catch-up on watching Quark episodes! That's not only because I enjoy the 1977 sci-fi/comedy series very much, but because at 25-minutes an episode, it's about the only production I can stay awake through before the medicine kicks in...

In fact, the medicine is kicking in right now. So beware of any strange typos or turns-of-phrase. I mean, I might end this post by calling you "my fellow prisoners" or something equally odd.

Okay, we last left Captain Adam Quark (Richard Benjamin) and his strange crew in "May the Source Be With You," a Star Wars parody featuring Henry (Killer Kane) Silva as the Gorgon leader. Remember the crew? Ficus: emotionless Vegeton and Mr. Spock parody; Gene/Jean: the transmute (possessed of male and female chromosomes); The Bettys (gorgeous but argumentative clones); and Andy the cowardly (and cussing robot).

Episode # 3: "The Old and the Beautiful:" Another clever parody of Star Trek, this episode involves Quark suddenly and inexplicably aging after his exposure to a strange virus. Yes, it's "The Deadly Years" (or if you're a TNG fan, "Unnatural Selection") all over again. What remains so rewarding about Quark, however, is that it doesn't merely skim the surface of Star Trek parody; it goes deep. For instance, Quark here struggles to retain command of his ship as he becomes senile...in much the same way that Kirk did in "The Deadly Years." He even must engage with a Zorgan battleship (as Old Kirk had to deal with the Romulans when Commodore Stocker took a detour through the Neutral Zone).

At the same time it parodies "The Deadly Years," Quark pokes fun at another classic third season Trek called "Elaan of Troyius." There, as you might recall, Captain Kirk ended up romancing a hot alien princess after succumbing to her "irresistible" tears. In the end, Kirk escaped the heretofore inescapable trap of a Dohlman's Tears because he boasted a greater love: his love for the starship Enterprise. In "The Old and the Beautiful," Quark is assigned to romance an alien princess too, one who is so uh, frisky, in bed that the very act of love-making could kill a healthy, strapping 22- year old man. Let alone a 72 year old man.

In the end, Quark - ergh - comes through, and takes one for the team. And by doing so, sees his youth and vitality restored.

Episode 4: "The Good, The Bad and The Ficus": In this parody of "The Enemy Within" and "Mirror, Mirror" (two of the all time great Star Treks), Quark and his crew are duplicated by an accidental journey through a black hole. The only problem: their duplicates are thoroughly and relentlessly evil. In fact, the Evil Quark launches a campaign of terror throughout the known worlds by sneaking up on Confederation spaceships and blowing them to smithereens when they open their garbage hatches. Back on Perma One, a jingoistic military man is convinced Quark has gone rogue, and plots to kill him. The final battle -- in shades of "Arena" -- involves Quark staging a duel with his evil "self" on a planet surface.

Episode # 5: "Goodbye, Polumbus": Another parody of yet another great Trek, this time season one's "Shore Leave." Here, Quark and his crew are assigned to investigate a planet (Polumbus) that no one has ever returned from. It's a world where all your dreams and fantasies miraculously come true. Ficus romances a hot mathematician (and they flirt through algebraic equations...), Gene/Jean conjures up his childhood comic-book superhero idol, and Quark imagines a lost love from his Academy days (just like Kirk conjured up Ruth.) The episode's title is a riff on the classic 1969 Richard Benjamin film, Goodbye, Columbus.

Episodes 6 & 7: "All the Emperor's Quasi-Norms" (Part I and Part II): All right, this episode had Kathryn and me in stitches. Maybe it was the cold medicine kicking in, or maybe it's just really that funny. This two-part episode of Quark is a dedicated parody of Flash Gordon as Zorgon the Malevolent (think: Ming the Merciless) captures Quark's ship and forces Quark on a quest to recover the mysterious "It" (a stone from the distant planet called "Poo-Poo.") On the asteroid Rhombar, Quark joins up with "The Baron of the Forest People" (think Prince Barin) to recover the stone and defeat Zorgon.

Meanwhile, Zorgon's daughter, the Empress Libido (Joan Van Ark) has fallen in love with the unemotional Ficus. In a scene that comes right out of Star Trek's "The Cloud Minders," Ficus explains how, precisely, an emotionless Vegeton mates. In this case the act is called "pollination" and involves two Vegetons on their backs making silly noises...while waiting for a bee to drop by.

There's a jab here at Star Wars' trash compactor scene too, but the funniest moment involves Quark's false sense of security after he has obtained "It," which turns out to be nothing but a useless rock. Quark keeps putting himself in extreme danger because he believes he's protected by "It", and in fact it's all just blind happenstance that he survives. Unfortunately for Quark, Ficus points out that the rock is useless just as Quark is entering hand-to-hand combat with Zorgon's champion, the evil Cycloid.

Episode # 8: "Vanessa 38-24-36:" In this comedic version of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and also the Star Trek episode "The Ultimate Computer," Quark and his crew are rendered obsolete by a new supercomputer called Vanessa. When Vanessa endangers Quark on a space walk and nearly causes a space collision, Quark realizes it's time to pull the plug. Small problem: there's no plug.

This episode -- and the series itself -- ends with Vanessa finally defeated,floating through outer space singing "Born Free." It's not exactly the HAL 9000 singing Daisy; but you get the point.

So: my honest assessment of Quark? The humor is somewhat dated. (But hey, I'm somewhat dated.) The series is simultaneously corny and addictive as hell. The laugh track is distracting at first, and some of the jokes are so hokey, you sort of cringe. But then -- if you give yourself over (and if you have a working knowledge of the source material being parodied...) -- the series becomes strangely and unexpectedly involving. By the end of the last episode, I was cracking up at every stupid joke the robot Andy made. I don't usually like lowbrow humor, but there's a moment in "The Good, The Bad and The Ficus" wherein Andy the Robot telephones his evil counterpart and they have nasty words. Andy ends up passing gas during the conversation. The rest of the crew joins Andy at the telescreen, and Andy -- moving away -- warns them they may not want to stand there. God help me, that moment cracked me up.

Andy the Flatulent Robot -- Bender couldn't have done it better. Richard Benjamin is also great on this show, playing a man of Kirk's optimism but with none of Kirk's intelligence, agility or heroism. And Richard Kelton is an absolute revelation as Ficus, my favorite character. He is Mr. Spock, of course, made a million times more loquacious and annoying. And where Spock did in fact possess emotion (and occasionally surrender to sentiment), Ficus is absolutely brutal with his disinterest and lack of human understanding.

So yeah, it was a kick to see Quark again (after thirty years!) I just wish there were more episodes to enjoy. In particular, the last three episodes of Quark were really great. To use more Trek terminology, Quark truly seemed to be finding its "space legs" when it got canceled.

Okay, now I must sleep.

Theme Song of the Week #30: Millennium (1996-1999)

Theofantastique interviews Muir

Theofantastique, a terrific site that serves as a "meeting place for myth, imagination and mystery in pop culture," has just posted an interview with me regarding two of my books, Horror Films of the 1980s and Eaten Alive At a Chainsaw Massacre: The Films of Tobe Hooper.

Here's an excerpt:

TheoFantastique: With the exception of Halloween, I have not been a fan of teenage slasher films. But in this book you devote a chapter to “A History of the Dead Teenager Decade” which was very helpful. In this chapter you reference the dissatisfaction of film critics like Roger Ebert with such films who look back for a more innocent cinematic age in the portrayal of the teen. How did horror films in the 1980s help teens and others grapple with the spectre of global annihilation and disease, like AIDS?

John Muir: Another critic I admire tremendously, Janet Maslin, also derided the slasher movie formula and said that slashers made the world (and specifically audiences…) mean. I strongly disagree. I think the world was already mean and ugly (thanks to Three Mile Island, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations of Mart Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy, the Manson Murders, the Vietnam War, Watergate, etc.). Slasher movies arrived at a time when teens were rightly wondering how many tomorrows they could count on, especially with Reagan’s finger poised on the red button.

So I’m not surprised or in any way judgemental that the entertainment of choice for a generation (the slasher film) concerned what I term in the book a “crucible of survival” in which only the clever, the moral, the resolute and the resourceful manage to survive an apocalyptic world that seems stacked against them. Slasher movies don’t take make audiences meaner (as Maslin suggested); they simply take the real world as it exists and demonstrate to teens that they can survive it; especially with the right skill set. Slasher films are a test; a gauntlet. Much like life itself.

Honestly, I believe that - when well-done - slasher films are cathartic and harmless. At least here, death boasts consequence and meaning. By contrast, look at something like Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), which says, basically, it’s okay to put an arrow in the head of someone else if he’s a communist; for “nationalist” reasons. I believe that message is far more harmful than anything contained in any Halloween or Friday the 13th film.

And let’s remember too: it wasn’t just horror films grappling with this kind of apocalypse mentality in the 1980s; it was punk music and punk fashion too. The aesthetic of the peace generation was replaced in the 1980s by the punk ethos.

Check out the rest of the interview here.