MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

[Christopher]

Land of the Giants: "Land of the Lost": This is not to be confused with the Saturday morning TV series of that name from 5 years later. Although seeing the cast sent to a land of dinosaurs would've had to be better than this rubbish.

This is the most extreme example yet of the writers apparently running out of things to do with the main premise and throwing in random sci-fi ideas out of nowhere. It's also the most incoherent example yet. So Nehemiah Persoff's Titus is the emperor of an undiscovered continent across an impassable ocean, one that the giant civilization we know has somehow never discovered despite having 20th-century tech, because it's on the other side of an impassable Sea of Storms. What, they couldn't go in the other direction around the planet? Titus's civilization is advanced enough to have gravity control, apparently, and the ability to monitor and control a small balloon from halfway around the planet, but he's never heard of firecrackers, thimbles, or eyeglasses and he measures time with an hourglass. And even though his sensors are able to detect the Little People transcontinentally, he's somehow failed to notice that they're surrounded by millions of beings his size. It's totally incoherent and generally a waste of time.

There's some fun banter between Dan and Fitzhugh, though they ruined Dan's great wordless reaction to Fitzhugh's "source of hot air" line by repeating the same joke minutes later. And there's generally far too much mucking about with balloons. Plus it's implausible that all it takes is one rebel to overthrow this guy who's been absolute dictator of his land for who knows how long.

Also, they're now at least 500 miles inland, based on that map they saw? So much for that first-season "Shell Game" episode set on the waterfront.

 

[JD]

TIH: Deep Shock
Another quitter episode, but still decent.
The set up with Banner's visions and watch everything lead up to it was pretty good.
Tucker was a pretty good friend of the week.
McGee's inclusion was kind of pointless, unless something significant happened in a couple minutes I missed.
The couple minutes I missed were mainly Hulk busting in on Tucker in the control room. What did he do to him?

 

[publiusr]

He picked him up--then thought better of it and put him down. He did a number on the automation.

I feel like doing that myself.

The Sherrif's department actually hired out private security as the old camera system--and manual dials, toggle and joysticks were ripped out so everything went to bloody desktops.

 

[JD]

Thanks.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I learned about it the next morning when I grabbed the Boston Globe from the front porch. There's a moment I'll never forget.

I heard about not long after it happened that night.

It should be on the Human Race's 10 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Really? I always thought it was rather naïve (even as a hope/suggestion), and playing up his "peace" and "respect" routine, which he did not practice in private.

Looking past the tragedy and the irony almost forty years later, his final works were very different and domestic. Kind of sweet in retrospect, and it makes you wonder where he would have gone had he lived. In fact, I often wonder what he would make of the ensuing generations and what they did to his dreams.

If he lived, his commercial output might have suffered in the new music scene that emerged; his solo work never as creatively versatile as McCartney or even Harrison, Lennon could have moved toward the so-called adult contemporary sub-genre where the demand to rise to the top was not as great as the standard pop charts.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

MeTV has announced their "Summer of Me" schedule, and it turns out the original Battlestar Galactica isn't the only sci-fi series they're adding to the lineup, ALF and the original The Outer Limits are also being added. The new lineup starts on May 29th.
BSG is replacing The Incredible Hulk following The Wild, Wild West, which is a surprise since TIH was one of the newer shows on the lineup. I honest that that of all the shows on the lineup it was the on they were least likely to replace. Will they have even finished one run through of by the 29th?

The poor man's Star Wars (with TOS sprinkles) replacing TIH. In business, that would be considered a bad trade.

They'll also be replacing Land of The Giants and The Time Tunnel with two episodes of The Outer Limits. ALF will be airing weeknights at 9:30PM/8:30 Central.

While The Outer Limits is one of the undeniable TV classics (not just of the fantasy genre), it seems strange to run back-to-back episodes. That will run through its 49 episodes in no time at all. So, LOTG & TT are removed, but the other Irwin Allen series remain? If so, that makes no sense at all from a quality standpoint. Allen was one of the few TV producer who improved with each new series (well, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space were equally smothered by largely infantile episodes).

Absolutely we should continue doing the reviews...and weekly is fine for me. Guess there's nothing to keep us from doing them on Friday night now.

Agreed. There's no reason to stop now that the series over its midway point.

That's just damned weird that they dropped TIH without getting through the entire series once, while Wonder Woman plays on an endless loop.

,,,and Wonder Woman's loop was already happening before anyone could believably tie the forthcoming movie as an influence. Like other 70s garbage such as CHIPs, there's a programming belief that so-called "kitschy" series have some hold in popular culture, when to be brutally honest, Wonder Woman lost its appeal after the WW2 first season, with the rest being not much better than the horrifying Legends of the Superheroes TV specials. Like Lost in Space, it wore out its welcome decades ago. Keeping it on the schedule simply means its an hour to avoid.

I wonder if maybe they're moving the Hulk to H&I...it would be perfect for the Saturday morning/afternoon Comic Book Heroes lineup. I'll have to check later.

Better that than yet more loops of Tarzan, Hercules, The Greatest American Hero, etc. Even the Reeves Superman needs a long vacation.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

We're talking about McGee, who knows that David Banner was linked with the creature, knows that Banner's body was never found, and knows John Doe's physical description by heart, and could therefore put 2 + 2 + 2 together and realize that David Banner was John Doe.

He's a realist who accepts not only his own eyewitness experience of Banner never escaping the lab, but the police report of the same incident--in fact, no one ever said Banner's grave was empty--the officer from "Broken Image" merely said Banner was "burned to death"--a confirmation. It is more plausible to think John Doe was Banner & Marks' lab experiment gone wrong than McGee essentially becoming the superhero version of those who claim to see Elvis every time they see an obese man with thick sideburns driving around Memphis. Put it this way, if nearly everyone in the Superman mythos can just handwave away the incredible resemblance between Clark Kent and Superman as being coincidental (in some cases), for nearly a century--and fans just buy it, I argue its easier to accept that a man who witnessed the "death" of another can conclude that such a fantastic creature could be a random lab rat who just happens to share a physical description with millions of 40-ish white American males of average build, with (in the few times McGee ever picked up on it) one of earth's most common names.

which is that after teasing that it looked like the Hulk was uncharacteristically going to kill Tucker, once the moment happened, the story didn't give us a reason for the Hulk's uncharacteristic behavior. The only reason for the Hulk's behavior was to give David a frightening vision.

It not uncharacteristic. The Hulk has exhibited more than his average anger toward people before--such as Paul Carr's character from "Equinox," or Michael Sutton from "The Snare" for a couple of examples. The fact Banner was so disturbed that the Hulk might harm Tucker speaks to his constant fear (and good series continuity) that the Hulk will shatter Marks' theory that the creature won't kill because Banner will not. A running theme also explored (appropriately enough) in "The Psychic".

If this is your standard for "condition-related," then I'm not so hot about including it as part of the cure category. "Something weird or traumatic happens to Banner" could be its own category.

Without the unique nature of his condition, he would not develop psychic abilities after electrocution, so....

 

[The Old Mixer]

Better that than yet more loops of Tarzan

Hey, don't you pick on my new pal Tarzan!

The Hulk has exhibited more than his average anger toward people before--such as Paul Carr's character from "Equinox,"

The guy he tossed on a canopy bed...?

 

[RJDiogenes]

Really? I always thought it was rather naïve (even as a hope/suggestion), and playing up his "peace" and "respect" routine, which he did not practice in private.

It's not naive, it's idealistic. I don't think it was intended as a model for government and it doesn't matter if he personally was able to live up to the ideal or not (and it doesn't matter if I would have written slightly different lyrics-- everybody's a bit different). It's like "This Land Is Your Land." It means that the country (and the world) is for all the people, not that you can walk into my house and sleep on the couch without knocking.

If he lived, his commercial output might have suffered in the new music scene that emerged; his solo work never as creatively versatile as McCartney or even Harrison, Lennon could have moved toward the so-called adult contemporary sub-genre where the demand to rise to the top was not as great as the standard pop charts.

His final works were more personal than political, so, if he had continued in that vein, I have a feeling that the critics would not have been as kind to the living man as they were to his memory.

 

[Skipper]

the officer from "Broken Image" merely said Banner was "burned to death"--a confirmation.

And this is a valid explanation only in tv land. it takes about one to three hours to cremate a human body at a temperature of 870–980 °C (1,600–1,800 °F). Even after the cremation process, the bones are run through a hammermill to reduce them to small fragments.

 

[Skipper]

The poor man's Star Wars (with TOS sprinkles) replacing TIH. In business, that would be considered a bad trade.

I remember when they announced Galactica's remake. Ronald D. Moore. received threats and intimidations from fans of the classic series because it was an "irreplaceable masterpiece".

Edit: Wrong Moore...

 

[Christopher]

I remember when they announced Galactica's remake. Michael Moore received threats and intimidations from fans of the classic series because it was an "irreplaceable masterpiece".

I think you mean Ronald D. Moore.

It amazes me how modern Galactica fans have convinced themselves that the original show had a huge fanbase or was some great classic. Sure, its premiere had huge ratings, but they quickly plummeted thereafter once it became clear that it just wasn't a very good show, and it would've died after one season if ABC hadn't wanted to amortize the cost of the sets and FX footage by recycling them into Galactica 1980, which was even worse and an even smaller blip on the TV landscape. After that, it was seen as just one more of the many failed '70s SF shows littering the landscape, until Richard Hatch started agitating unsuccessfully for a revival and gave what fans there were something to rally around.

 

[Skipper]

I think you mean Ronald D. Moore.

You are, obviously, right.

ETA: Well, there was the aborted sequel project by Singer and De Santo, too.

 

[Christopher]

ETA: Well, there was the aborted sequel project by Singer and De Santo, too.

That was after Hatch began his efforts, IIRC. I don't recall when Hatch made the demo film for his revival, but he'd been trying to build support for a revival for years before then. So I see that as the start of the process that maybe led to the Singer project and eventually the Moore revival.

In any case, the point is that modern fans' idea that the show had this huge, organized Trekkie-like fanbase from 1978 onward, or that it was a ratings blockbuster throughout its run, is just revisionist history. It was an expensive flop that eventually became a subject of nostalgic interest, probably because a generation of viewers grew up seeing the syndicated TV movies that repackaged many of its episodes.

And just to be clear, I'm not saying that to attack the show. I rewatched it a while back and reviewed it on my blog, and though it was cheesy as hell and frequently rather dumb, it had its moments that rose above that, and it was more fun overall than the grim, self-important Moore version. Heck, I was a regular viewer of it when it first aired. But that's how I know that the claims many modern fans make about its original success and popularity are greatly exaggerated.

 

[Skipper]

I (vaguely) remember that the fans (both of them I suppose) were a little pissed at the Singer's project because it wasn't the Hatch's one, but a least it was still a sequel. Then they hailed the "Moore's reimagining" like the coming of the Anti Christ. The absurd situation was even parodied in the CSI episode "A Space Oddity", where Moore shouts "YOU SUCK!" at a television author that wanted a dark and gritty reboot of a Star Trek-like scifi show

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And let's don't forget about the Starbuck: Lost in Castration article by Dirk Benedict....

 

[JD]

I remember when they announced Galactica's remake. Ronald D. Moore. received threats and intimidations from fans of the classic series because it was an "irreplaceable masterpiece".

Edit: Wrong Moore...

I think you mean Ronald D. Moore.

It amazes me how modern Galactica fans have convinced themselves that the original show had a huge fanbase or was some great classic. Sure, its premiere had huge ratings, but they quickly plummeted thereafter once it became clear that it just wasn't a very good show, and it would've died after one season if ABC hadn't wanted to amortize the cost of the sets and FX footage by recycling them into Galactica 1980, which was even worse and an even smaller blip on the TV landscape. After that, it was seen as just one more of the many failed '70s SF shows littering the landscape, until Richard Hatch started agitating unsuccessfully for a revival and gave what fans there were something to rally around.

As much as it probably pisses off the original fans, I doubt anybody would even remember, or care about it, at this point if it weren't for the RDM series.

 

[Christopher]

As much as it probably pisses off the original fans, I doubt anybody would even remember, or care about it, at this point if it weren't for the RDM series.

I think there'd be some nostalgia for it regardless, as there is for a lot of vintage shows. Heck, I'm surprised how many people today seem to think well of Knight Rider, which was pure mindless schlock.

 

[JD]

I've been watching Knight Rider for the first time off and on on Cozi lately and it's pretty fun. It's definitely not a deep show by any means, but K.I.T.T. is pretty cool, and there are some fun moments.

 

[Christopher]

Sure, KITT was great, but the rest was pure '80s cheese. It was a decent way to kill an hour with your brain turned off, but what bewilders me is how people keep trying to revive and reboot it over and over and over again while far better shows get overlooked.

Although, come to think of it, the frequent revivals of Knight Rider may have less to do with actual fan interest and more to do with car companies looking for a show they can use to promote their products. The shows that get made are the ones that get investors, and a show concept built around a high-end sportscar is never going to lack for corporate backing.

 

[JD]

Sure, KITT was great, but the rest was pure '80s cheese.

Yeah, I actually do agree with you there, I just find this kind of stuff fun in a goofy cheesy way.
As for the reboots, the advertising thing does seem pretty likely, and there's also the fact that people like cars and the fun gadgets they put into KITT.