One of the special features on the 50th-anniversary LOST IN SPACE Blu-ray set is a 2015 table read of the proposed series finale Bill Mumy himself co-wrote in 1980, with Bill Mumy, Mark Goddard, Marta Kirsten, and Angela Cartwright reading their own classic parts, Guy Williams Jr. standing in for his father, and Angela’s sister […]
One of my favourite schticks as a writer is the psychological counselling of my science-fictional characters. I built the entire novel FOREIGNER around it (with the alien counterpart of Galileo being psychoanalyzed by the alien counterpart of Freud), and it is also the framing device in my Hugo Award-nominated HUMANS (where a Neanderthal shrink, Jurard […]
I tuned into the season 9 premiere of The Big Bang Theory because my friend Sherry Peters tipped me off that my buddy Jim Meskimen was guest-starring (he played the officiant), but, man, was I disappointed. I haven’t watched TBBT for a few years, and except for one science joke at the end (which was […]
My great friend Michael Lennick, who passed away November 7, 2014, was a special-effects supervisor for the 1988 War of the Worlds television series — a direct sequel to the George Pal film. For the series, this Martian War Machine was built, exactly copying the move version. This original screen-used fiberglass miniature — 45 inches […]
Today, Warner Archive released the complete 1972-73 NBC TV series Search on DVD (manufactured on demand) for US$49.95 (23 hour-long episodes on six discs). I loved this series (and loved its pilot movie, Probe, even more). In honour of today’s release, some reminiscences of watching the show in first run. Lockwood, do you copy? Today, […]
“Get your pitch to zero!” “Pitch is out. I can’t hold altitude.” “Correction, alpha hold is off. Trim selectors — emergency!” “Flight Com! I can’t hold it! She’s breaking up, she’s break –“ One of the reasons I’m thrilled to have my novel FlashForward adapted for television on ABC is that one of my favorite shows […]
Ray Barrett spoke one of the most famous lines in all of science fiction, at least for British and Canadian SF fans of my generation, in the opening credits of each episode of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s Stingray: “Anything can happen in the next half-hour.” Rest in peace, Commander Shore. SF Scope has an obituary. […]
Readers of my fiction occasionally think they can tease out details about my private life from what I write. One such surmise I hear periodically is that I must have a thing for red-headed women (they cite Lenore from Rollback and Tess from End of an Era). I neither confirm nor deny this, but instead […]
OMG. So, with one of the Chapters gift cards I got for Christmas, I bought Quark — the complete series — on DVD. This science-fiction sitcom from 1978 was created by Buck Henry and starred Richard Benjamin. I fondly remembered it, but … Wow, is it ever crappy. Obvious, dumb jokes; intrusive laugh track; terrible […]
I attend a lot of science-fiction conventions, of course. At some, you find actors from past SF TV shows selling autographed photos of themselves. In my whole life, I have bought precisely one such: on Sunday, November 25, 2007, at LosCon 34 in Los Angeles I met Bob May, the actor who was inside the […]
