Syndicated SFF TV Series From The Late 1980s through Early 2000s
- Thread starter JD
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Actually B5 revolutionized SFTV because its effects were cheap, at least compared to what they'd cost using conventional techniques. The Video Toaster CG animation and digital editing system was developed to be affordable for hobbyist use, but it transformed genre TV by vastly reducing the cost of elaborate VFX sequences. Before, SF shows could rarely succeed on TV because the FX made them too expensive in comparison to the niche ratings they usually got; when they did succeed, they were usually premises that were light on effects, like, say, Knight Rider or Quantum Leap. But B5 changed the game, not only making genre TV more affordable, but allowing it to incorporate much more spectacular visuals. As a result, SF and fantasy TV proliferated like never before. B5's effects cannot be called typical for its era, because they literally started a whole new era.
And B5 was clearly a much lower-budgeted show than the Trek franchise in other ways, like its station sets, most of which were inexpensively assembled from reused wall flats.
I was a little surprised that other people remember Jack of All Trades. I definitely remember watching that when I was a kid.
Two more that were produced in Canada and syndicated in the U.S.
Total Recall 2070 (some ideas from the Philip K. Dick’s short stories but no relation to the film) which ran for one season but wrapped everything up.
biggest memory of this show was being up a watching down under in Sept 11th, 2011….. (14.5hr time difference).
Another was Star Hunter which ran two seasons but didn’t what it through till the end.
both were alliance Atlantis (who also did Earth: Final Conflict).
Total Recall 2070 (some ideas from the Philip K. Dick’s short stories but no relation to the film) which ran for one season but wrapped everything up.
biggest memory of this show was being up a watching down under in Sept 11th, 2011….. (14.5hr time difference).
Another was Star Hunter which ran two seasons but didn’t what it through till the end.
both were alliance Atlantis (who also did Earth: Final Conflict).
I watched that, Cleopatra 2525, and Xena.
I've heard reference to the Video Toaster, but I didn't realize it was that big of a deal.
I've noticed that ShoutFactory's streaming site has the "ReduX" version of that, which recut the second season closer to the producers' intent, or something like that. I never got into the show originally, but I've been meaning to check it out, since I've heard good things.
Hmm, after reading about the StarHunter Redux I'm curious to check it out, it was rescanned to 16:9, new CGI added, filmed new inserts with origiinal actors and so on. I remember it being kind of a middling show, vaguely Firefly-ish but with a smaller cast, seems to me you had a "Mal", "Zoe" and "Kaylee" type. It was made in that period where the international versions would sometimes shoehorn in some awkward nudity. I think Forever Knight did that as well and the cast themselves basically shut it down from what I remember. Early episodes of Sir Arthur Conan's Doyle's The Lost World and Highlander also did that and of course there's the infamous first episode of SG-1.
For SG-1, it wasn't an international version, it was the original Showtime version. Pay-cable shows liked to take advantage of the freedom to be more adult than commercial TV. SG-1's sister show The Outer Limits included nudity and sexual themes frequently.
I had no idea that was done with syndicated shows in that era, though I'd read that the first episode of Starhunter has some brief nudity in it. I think of it something that was done in earlier years, e.g. with Gene Roddenberry's '70s supernatural-horror pilot movie Spectre. A number of episodes of The Man from UNCLE in the '60s had new scenes shot to add more sexual innuendo, semi-nudity, and violence for overseas release.
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