Posts Tagged ‘science fiction’
Wish List 2: Spellbinder
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009I thought I would review another series that is not yet on DVD, at least not in the US: Spellbinder. I am sure that not many of you have heard of this series. I believe I saw it on the Disney Channel in the 90s. I watched quite a bit of childrens programming back then, including Ocean Girl, Space Cases, and the Secret World of Alex Mack. But my favorite was Spellbinder.
Spellbinder was a tale of alternate worlds. It starts in our world, where teenager Paul Reynolds is playing a prank and accidently stumbles through a gateway to a parallel world. This world has an agricultural society that is ruled by ‘Spellbinders’. Spellbinders are people who use powersuits to manipulate electricity. Paul is befriended by Riana in the Spellbinder world and together with his friends in our world, they work on a way to get Paul back.
I really enjoyed this series, but unfortunately, I did not tape it when it was on. This series was only shown once in the US to my knowledge, so I have never had the opportunity to see it all the way through, since I missed several episodes while it was being shown. There was a second series, Spellbinder 2: Land of the Dragon Lord, but it was not as well written and it had little to do with the first series so I soon lost interest in it.
If you would like to get more info about this series, check out these pages on Amazon, iMDb and Wikipedia.
Wish List
Sunday, November 29th, 2009Do you have a wish list of old TV series or movies that are not available on DVD that you wish were? I know I do. I though I might post about them from time to time. So here is the first post and the series that I thought I would highlight is Star Cops.
I know some of my friends from the San Francisco Bay area have seen this series, but most other Americans will be unfamiliar with it, which is just a shame. This series was made in the late 1980s by BBC, and it was a very well done and intriguing show. Unfortunately, it only ran for one series of about 9 episodes. The premise of the show is that it is set in the near future where there are many national space stations orbiting the earth and a multinational moon base. And one of the things people have brought with them as they have moved into space is crime. So there is a multinational police force set up to handle this. In the first episode, a reluctant detective is sent up to as a possible candidate for the commander of the Starcops and is very disturbed when a spacewalk turns deadly apparently because of suit malfunction. Turns out there have been several suit malfunctions over the years, and the question is, is this normal, have the suits been sabotaged, or has the Russian company who makes them deliberately overlooked suit safety for some reason. The opening scene will give you the answer, but it will take a determined detective to come up with the truth.
I loved this series, for several reasons. This series was made during the Cold War and it has that era’s tensions between countries. No nationality was portrayed in a rosy light – each one had its own faults. And although the setting was futurist, the crimes were what could come with the advancement of men in science and space. Even though this series was made in the 80s, it still has a futuristic feel to it.
I made a recording of this show on VHS when it played on the local PBS station and I have since transferred it to DVD. In fact this is one of the few recordings that I bothered to transfer to DVD. If you want your own copy, you are going to have a hard time finding it. This series was apparently put out on DVD in the UK, but there was never a region one encoding made. So most of us in the US are out of luck. But even those in the UK will have a hard time finding it since it is, to my knowledge, no longer being sold. I would love it if they put this series out on DVD here so that I could replace my poor quality recording, but I am still glad that I have my recording so I can revisit this show every once in a while.
If you want to look into this series more, check it out at Amazon, on Wikipedia, and at this BBC site.
One more note, although I would love this series no matter what the theme song was, this is one of those shows that I find myself rewinding just to listen to the haunting theme song. It was written by Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues and I wish I had a recording of it. I think I have just inspired myself. I am going to go to YouTube and search for it. It has to be out there.
Changing Channels
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009Spoiler alert! If you haven’t seen the Changing Channels episode of Supernatural, you might not want to read this post.
As many of you know, Supernatural is my favorite show that is currently on TV. And last week’s episode was a prime example of why I love this show. In this episode, Sam and Dean once again encounter the Trickster. Sam and Dean are in some town investigating a mysterious death. They soon realize that they are dealing with the Trickster. Sam and Dean’s reactions are different: Dean wants to kill the Trickster; Sam wants to talk to him and try to get his help. They soon get caught in TV land and end up learning that he’s the archangel Gabriel, not a trickster. That was an interesting twist. I did not see that coming. Did you? And Gabriel wants the end of the world to come so that the fighting between his brothers will end. Turns out that there is another reason why Sam and Dean are Lucifer and Michael’s vessels: Lucifer and Michael are brothers, too.
All and all, a very interesting episode. But the fun part of this episode was all the different shows that the Trickster put Sam and Dean into, and watching Sam and Dean figure out what they had to do to get out of TV land. I’m trying to remember all of the ’shows’ the Trickster put Sam and Dean in:
- the Supernatural sitcom including cheesy theme song and opening credits.
- Dr Sexy MD
- the Japanese game show ‘Nutcracker’
- CSI knock off
- Knight Rider knock off
I think that was all of them, but my favorite spoof was Sam’s herpes medicine commercial. I was howling.
Did you watch the show? What did you think?
Catching up
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009I have been catching up on my TV viewing in the past few days (I love my DVR), so I thought I would write a little bit about the two shows that I was catching up on. Neither Heroes nor Eastwick are my favorite shows, but I enjoy them enough to watch them. However, I sometimes let them slip like I did last week. Luckily for me, I was able to catch up.
Heroes to me is a very uneven show. They will jump around from storyline to storyline so much that it is hard to follow. And sometimes some characters will drop out and it will be awhile before I even realise it. As was the case with Mohinder. All of the sudden I got a glimpse of him (I can’t remember which episode it was in) and I realised that I hadn’t seen him in awhile. They just gave us a glimpse of him, however, so I am hoping they will follow up on it soon. I thought that Matt’s solution to his split personality was a logical one, but from the previews, it doesn’t look like we have seen the last of Sylar. I will keep watching this show, but it will never be a must see for me until they stop meandering.
Do you ever have the ‘where have I seen that actor before’ moment? This week I finally figured out where I saw Heroes’ invisible girl before: Veronica Mars season 2. (I also spotted the kid who played Ryan, the mind reader, from Smallville in an episode of Law and Order: SVU this week) It always drives me crazy until I figure it out. The one that really drove me crazy was when the Mac vs PC commercials came out – where one guy plays a Mac and one guy plays the PC. I knew I had seen the guy who played the Mac, but I couldn’t remember where until I realise that he was the uber-geek kid in the movie Galaxy Quest.
As for Eastwick, it is doing a better job of holding my interest. The storyline is easier to follow and I am really liking the characters. I was sorry to see that they killed off Matt Dallas. I have had a soft spot for him since Kyle XY. Of, well. I kind of figured he would be going away to clear the way for Daryl. And the kidnapping was something that I didn’t see coming. I like that.
Anyhow, even though they are not my favorite shows, I am still interested enough to keep watching.
Stargate Universe
Saturday, November 7th, 2009I have been watching Stargate Universe, and I have to say, I’m liking it. I have not been a big Stargate fan in the past, but I am really liking the story so far. Which is odd. Stargate Universe is a similar set up to Star Trek: Voyager, but I am liking SU a whole lot more than I ever liked ST:V.
Why do I like this show so much? I’m not sure. Probably because of the writing and the characters. The story lines so far have been fairly interesting and they are building off one another. It’s not a convoluted story line, but instead follows some simple problems that might be faced by people who suddenly find themselves in a strange and sometimes hostile environment.
I have also thought most of the main characters have been well created and acted so far, even the ones that are hard to like (Dr Rush and Col. Telford come to mind). Of all the characters so far, I have really come to love Eli. His whole story line reminds me of The Last Starfighter, a movie that I always enjoyed. One thing that I notice is that they seemed to have split the “genius” character into two people. In Stargate Atlantis, the resident genius was Rodney McKay. In Stargate SG-1, it was Samantha Carter. In this show, they have two geniuses: Dr Rush and Eli. It’s like they split Rodney in two: Dr Rush is the arrogant side and Eli is the loveable side.
They haven’t done much to flesh out the secondary characters yet, but I assume they will do a little of that in time. I will be watching to see what they do.