MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

[Mudd]

The marvelous thing about the first year of War Of The Worlds is: it's funny. After the first couple of episodes the tone of the thing became increasingly tongue-in-cheek.

The episode where the Martians run around town collecting brains is one of my favorites.

You can see it even in early promos, but the real fun here starts at about 2:30:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nsabfpQJ1A[/yt]

Probably the line "the fate of the world is resting in the hands of the phone company" doesn't register as funny as it did nearly thirty years ago.

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, it was going for horror-comedy a lot of the time, but I just didn't think it worked very well. Maybe that just isn't my style of humor. The astonishingly cheap production values didn't help much either.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

They showed "Arena" last night. It was pretty fun to watch.

 

[Greg Cox]

I recorded "Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man," but haven't had a chance to watch it yet. Haven't seen it for years, but I remember liking that one when I was a kid.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

You're not the only one that hates it; JMS hated it too, which is what provoked him into creating Babylon 5.

I don't recall hearing that before. Do you have a source? I do recall reading, back in the original Starlog article touting the upcoming B5 pilot movie, that JMS was pitching B5 for five years before he finally sold it (the number 5 is pretty easy to remember in this context), yet B5's pilot premiered only four years and four months after War of the Worlds: The Series premiered. Now, it's possible that Starlog (or my memory) was in error, but a quick web search for B5 and WOTW mentioned together turns up no results.

I do recall reading someplace that he watched WOTW, thought the the plotting was crap (from Season One), and it was one of the inspirations for him to create Babylon 5. Or maybe I was in error...

Anyway, with regards to WOTW, I agree with your review, and I think that an earlier concept for a WOTW show dating from the 70's (with use of the Leif Ericsson starship from AMT/Round2Round as the main ship the characters would travel the galaxy in) that was to have been developed by Paramount Television was better than what ended up on the screen in the 80's.

For more info: George Pal's War of the Worlds TV Series (Circa 1975)

 

[RJDiogenes]

^^ That definitely would have been better.

The thing I really didn't like about the WOTW TV series was that it fell back on the "alien possession" gimmick. In a WOTW TV show, we should get WOTW aliens.

 

[Christopher]

The thing I really didn't like about the WOTW TV series was that it fell back on the "alien possession" gimmick. In a WOTW TV show, we should get WOTW aliens.

We did, as much as their budget and format would allow. For one thing, it was a very low-budget show, so they couldn't show the aliens all the time. For another thing, it went for a "secret infiltration" angle, and that meant the enemy had to be able to move among us undetected. But in season 1, we did periodically see the aliens in their true form in their caverns -- although the redesigned form that was bigger, meaner, and suitable to be worn by a stunt performer. (I liked to assume that the smaller alien seen in the movie was a related species used as a scout, like a trained monkey or something.)

It wasn't until the much-reviled second season that they abandoned the alien suits altogether and had the aliens disguise themselves permanently in human form.

Still, if it had been up to me, I might've tried to find a different way of incorporating human-appearing villains into the show, like having the aliens recruit or mind-control human agents to do their bidding.

 

[Zaku]

Plus the fact that his X-ray Vision can't possibly have anything to do with x-rays. If it did, any thick, solid material would block them. Also, x-rays only show silhouettes of denser objects embedded within less-dense objects when they expose film after passing through the object from a secondary source. Whatever Superman does is sourced in his eyes and seems to make objects completely invisible from his perspective and his perspective only. So why would lead make any difference?

The truth about Superman "X-Rays"!!

 

[Christopher]

It always bugged me in Superman: The Movie that Superman could tell Lois's underwear was pink. Pink is a color on the visible spectrum; the light couldn't penetrate her clothes, so there'd be nothing for him to see. Looking in x-rays wouldn't tell him anything about colors perceptible by humans.

Although I've considered that maybe he used microscopic vision to peer through the weave of her outer garments. Maybe they were just translucent enough to let a bit of red light through both ways, enough to be detectable by a sufficiently sensitive optical instrument. But then it wouldn't literally be x-ray vision.

Then there were all those times in the radio series where Superman searched for a criminal or kidnap victim by flying all over the city and x-ray-peering into every single dwelling. How many people did he see in the shower or having sex? And the police were perfectly okay with allowing this epic invasion of privacy.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"Flight to the North"



This one fell just short of the "so bad it's good" category.

I wanted to see Chuck Connors...but not like this...! That country bumpkin act was slightly painful.

A plot revolving around...a pie?

Superman being called upon to deliver a pie to Alaska...?

Not desperately needed food or supplies...a pie...one pie.

And wouldn't flying to Alaska be a parole violation?


*******

"The Seven Souvenirs"

"This is the craziest story we've had in years." Perry must not have watched the previous episode.

The plot to this one was just about as bizarre as the previous one, without being as humorously absurd.

And it depended on Superman irradiating something with his X-ray vision...definitely involving active bombardment in this version.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Heh. I love Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. That one must be before I found it on GoComics.

 

[JD]

I missed the beginning of the first episode on today, but what I saw of it was pretty good I thought.
The second one, with the horse, wasn't anything that spectacular.
I don't remember which one it was in, but I did get a kick out of the scene with Lois and Jimmy trying to figure out how Clark disappeared so quickly, after he took off as Superman.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

It always bugged me in Superman: The Movie that Superman could tell Lois's underwear was pink. Pink is a color on the visible spectrum; the light couldn't penetrate her clothes, so there'd be nothing for him to see. Looking in x-rays wouldn't tell him anything about colors perceptible by humans.

I'm certain you understood that the scene was played only to develop the semi-sexual interplay with Superman & Lois....so the pink underwear line served its purpose.

Then there were all those times in the radio series where Superman searched for a criminal or kidnap victim by flying all over the city and x-ray-peering into every single dwelling. How many people did he see in the shower or having sex? And the police were perfectly okay with allowing this epic invasion of privacy.

What could they do about it? The police had no control over what Superman's actions. What were they going to do--wag a scolding finger at him, with the alien holding his head down in shame?

 

[Christopher]

I'm a couple of days behind...

"Flight to the North"



This one fell just short of the "so bad it's good" category.

Yeah, it was kind of lame, and I could've done without the "dumb backwoods hick" stereotype. But I liked the reactions of the husband who thought he'd gone crazy and was just playing along.

And really, this does kind of feel like a Silver Age DC type of story. I can imagine Sylvester J. Superman teaming up with Batman Jones.

"The Seven Souvenirs"

"This is the craziest story we've had in years." Perry must not have watched the previous episode.

The plot to this one was just about as bizarre as the previous one, without being as humorously absurd.

It's amusing that Superman scoffed at Jimmy's "there must be something hidden in one of the knives" theory, given that they did exactly that plot with statues in the first season.

It was actually kind of a clever plot, albeit quite an overcomplicated way to set up Superman. Also, it's surprising that there are suddenly other businesses in the same building as the Planet offices. Up to now, the building has always been treated as belonging entirely to the newspaper.

And I love the way everyone was casually holding these knives by the blades and stroking the edges. Bending them wouldn't make them blunt!

 

[The Old Mixer]

I let myself fall behind waiting for you to catch up. Just watched yesterday's episodes.

*******

"King for a Day"

Jimmy's actually impersonating a prince...but nice to see what General Burkhalter was up to after the war.

This one is sort of like "Flight to the North" in being an idiot premise episode. Jimmy is outspoken in trying to tell everyone that he's not the prince, but the bad guys never consider the possibility that he might not be.

*******

"Joey"

I had a hard time focusing on this one...had to rewind several times to catch what I'd missed when my attention wandered to something else. But I caught a few things.

Lois comments on Clark's cowardice...a trait that he doesn't actually tend to exhibit on the show.

If the farmer had a phone, why didn't they call ahead in the first place before going to get the girl? You'd think they'd want to give some warning, especially as they were on such a tight schedule.

And...another thug knocks himself out. Somebody should keep a counter.

*******

And "Joey" brings us to Season 4 and early 1956...and the Devil just keeps corrupting fine, upstanding American youth with his filthy music:

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7pjP_XkK4U[/yt]

What next, I ask? Some greasy-haired Southern boy gyrating his hips...?

 

[JD]

It's still weird to me watching a superhero show were we get stories about people fixing raffles and jelly bean counting contests. It's just so mundane compared to the kinds of stories we get in modern superhero shows.

 

[The Old Mixer]

SHHH! Don't spoil the jelly bean-counting episode for me!

 

[Christopher]

It's still weird to me watching a superhero show were we get stories about people fixing raffles and jelly bean counting contests. It's just so mundane compared to the kinds of stories we get in modern superhero shows.

As I may have mentioned earlier in the thread, I've seen a theory that the reason Superman dealt with so many trivial crises in the Silver Age was because he'd already dealt with all the hardcore crime. In fact, that kind of works for the show, because we spent the past two seasons seeing Superman bringing gangsters and killers to justice, and now he's just dealing with the leftovers. It's a testament to his success at cleaning up Metropolis.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Yet the odd crooks keep popping up...and so many of them bear an uncanny resemblance to a crook that Superman has already put away.

Luthor is out there, and he's cloning the same three or four petty hoods!

 

[RJDiogenes]

It's still weird to me watching a superhero show were we get stories about people fixing raffles and jelly bean counting contests. It's just so mundane compared to the kinds of stories we get in modern superhero shows.

That's exactly why most superhero adaptations in TV and movies tend not to interest me.