brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (06/20/85)
Now this is an interesting problem. Several shows have come out with reasonable acting, drama, comedy, effects, production and REALLY STUPID SCRIPTS. What I would like to know is how to communicate to producers like Glen Larson et al how to fix their series so they become classics instead of turkeys. Here are some ideas V: This is one of the easiest to fix. When I watched the original 2 part mini-series, I thought, "Wow, this is great!" Then suddenly, in the second episode, they turned out to be lizards in human suits coming to eat us and steal our water. To me, the series would have been greatly improved if they had been humans (cousins of us, as in Chariots of the Gods) come here to take us as slaves. There's only one commodity a highly advanced race would travel light-years to take by force, and that's slaves. It certainly isn't water. Also lose the girl "Elizabeth." Galactica: Harder to fix, but vaguely reminiscint of the Saberhagen Berserker stories. Remember, at the start the Cylons were robots built by a living race who turned on their masters and then went out to subjugate and destroy life. A good premise as any Berserker fan will know. In these stories, man is the only race agressive enough to defeat the unliving enemy. So in Galactica, you could have had a defeated society tricked by the cylons on a trek through the galaxy for the only other known advanced civilization - a future Earth. They would probably know where Earth is, but it might be a dozen years away at superlight velocity, so there has been no commerce and little communication. Change the fleet into something more reasonable, include some full sized colonizing ships that escaped the war, and you could get a much better setting. Space 1999: Hardest of all to fix, because you just can't by a flying moon, except perhaps with spindizzies, and they wouldn't be that out of control. The fact remains that if you are going to have an interstellar adventure show, you have just got to have FTL drives. Starlost: The premise was fine, the execution was terrible on this one. There have been lots of good "lost ark in space" novels, so they have no excuses. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
les@inuxm.UUCP (Leslie Bomar) (06/27/85)
> > Space 1999: > Hardest of all to fix, because you just can't by a flying moon, > except perhaps with spindizzies, and they wouldn't be that out of > control. The fact remains that if you are going to have an > interstellar adventure show, you have just got to have FTL drives. > > Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 I have a tendancy to disagree with this particular comment in that I read a very good book a while back, that involved a species of higher technological capabilities that were running from an explosion in the galactic core and, thier fleet was primarily made up of their own planets. They also took the earth with them( I don't want to give too many details in case you haven't read the book). Also if your are familiar with "known space" check back and see why and how the puppeteers left our galaxy. Your other comments were very well done. Write e-mail if you want the title to the book mentioned above as I will have to look it up. References to "known space" can be given but those too I will have to look up. Les Bomar !inhp4!inuxc!inuxm!les *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
thornton@kcl-cs.UUCP (ZNAC468) (06/28/85)
In article <294@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: > >V: This is one of the easiest to fix. When I watched the original >2 part mini-series, I thought, "Wow, this is great!" Then suddenly, >in the second episode, they turned out to be lizards in human suits >coming to eat us and steal our water. > This may be the easiest to fix but basicly V is boring. An alien race out to conquer the Earth has been kicked around for years. It is proof of how difficult it is to produce an original tv sci-fi program nowadays. Even Galactica was interesting at times (no ,I have not lost my senses) and 1999 was rarely boring. What on Earth (or Moon) is a 'spindizzie'? And now for something completely different..BLAKE'S SEVEN. I have been told that this hasn't been shown in the U.S. yet but the networks should come to their senses soon. It was great, some episodes were straight S.T. rip offs but otherwise the show was superb. The plots were ingenious with lots of twists but you would have to see it to understand. The last series (as usual) wasn't as good. I think this deserves some discussion ,at least over here. Andy T. ( AND SHE GOT IT..YOUR SYMPATHY..) AVON from SAND. >except perhaps with spindizzies, and they wouldn't be that out of >
bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (06/28/85)
I still say you can't have good *interstellar* adventure without FTL. Sure you can fly planets and ark ships on long missions, but that's really just one society, and there is not interstellar commerce or meeting. I won't go so far as to say it's all impossible, but about the only way you could pull it off would be with ships that use artificial gravity to pull 1000 gs, and have no concern about the rest of society since it all vanishes behind them. Better to use FTL. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software, Waterloo, Ont. (519) 884-7473