John Kenneth Muir's Blog, page 902

Television and Cinema Verities #18

"Each time I sat and watched Generations I found myself increasingly dismayed at the overall impact of the character.  I found him too placid, too passive, too introspective (almost to the point of being depressing in places.)  I also learned a lot about how we shifted the Next Generation series from the television screen to the big screen.  We did it partly successfully."




- Patrick Stewart discusses Captain Picard in Generations , (1994), in Dreamwatch #31, 1997: "A Star for all seasons," by John Mosby, page 14.  The film will be reviewed this Friday, right here.

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Village of the Motorpigs" (February 23, 1985)

The
fifth episode of Otherworld is called “Village of the Motorpigs” and it strives
for a real Mad Max/The Road Warrior -type production design and vibe.  Underneath that sort of scruffy desert look,
the episode is actually an anti-drug narrative, one that reinforces the human
being's need for purpose, and the value, of course, of family.  That last bit is a recurring theme in the
program.  No matter how bad things get,
the Sterlings can always depend on one another.






In
“Village of the Motorpigs” the Sterlings have chartered an old ,broken-down bus
(driven by an old, broken-down driver…) to cross the Forbidden Zone.  




The bus stops at a Zone Trooper check-point,
and the Sterlings attempt to hide in a smuggler’s compartment in the back of
the bus, but are captured.  




Before the
family can be taken to Kroll (Jonathan Banks), a motorcycle gang led by a guru
called --  I kid you not -- “Chalktrauma” (Marjoe Gortner) rescues them, and
takes them to his biker commune in nearby caves.




As
the Sterlings soon find out, this isn’t much of a rescue at all.




Chalktrauma
doesn’t permit family units to remain together, believing that such traditional
social units only divide loyalties.  Furthermore,
Chalktrauma maintains control of his society by keeping all his people “stoned”
on a drink called “the Chalk.”  High on “the
chalk” all the time, nobody questions the guru’s authority.






Add caption

One
of the bikers, however, proves an ally. 
Tango (Vincent Schiavelli) tells Hal that he is a former minister in the
Church of Artificial Intelligence, and that one of his ancestors came from the “other
world.”  




To prove it, he shows Hal a U.S.
dollar bill.  Anyway, Tango reveals that
any one of the bikers can issue a “challenge
of rule” to de-throne Chalktrauma. 
Hal resolves that this is the course he must take.




Hal
and Chalktrauma joust on bikes for supremacy, but just as Hal is about to lose,
Zone Troopers raid the weird commune, and the Sterlings, with Tango’s help,
slip away to safety.




If
Chalktrauma’s “challenge of rule” sounds somehow familiar to you, it may be
because it is an apparent law of many, many cult-tv cultures.  It appeared in The Starlost (“The
Goddess Calabra”) and The Fantastic Journey (“Children of
the Gods”) before being resurrected here for “Village of the Motorpigs.”  It’s a convenient way to easily vet regime
change, I suppose: challenge the leader, and usher in a new way of life.  That way, your characters don't need to
have an army at their side, or wage all-out war.




For
an episode about a colony of rough-and-tumble, desert-dwelling motorcycle riders, Otherworld’s “Village of
the Motorpigs” certainly tows the conventional, traditional line.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that,
however.  But teenage Trace gets scolded by
his mom, June, when he samples the chalk and “tunes out,” for example. 






Meanwhile,
Gina teaches Chalktrama’s lustful son (Jeff East) that people should fall in
love, or at least get to know each other before having…relations.  Mom, meanwhile,
refuses the chalk and pines for Hal, while he attempts to find a way out. 




So,
in short, “Village of the Motorpigs” = don’t do drugs + don’t have premarital
sex + promote family values.  




Again,
nothing at all wrong with any of that, but it’s just kind of…square.   




Just once, I’d like to see a sci-fi show
where inan altered-state isn’t depicted a priori as a totally negative thing.  Star Trek’s “This Side of Paradise,”
Space:
1999’s “The Guardian of Piri” and Farscape’s “Thank God it’s Friday,
Again” all push the same agenda: that any substance which alters your mental state
will also kill your sense of purpose and desire to produce, to do good
work.  It’s not that I disagree with the
premise, just that a little variety in storytelling is nice.  At least Spock does admit that the spores
made him happy in “This Side of Paradise,” but that’s as far as cult-tv goes…






“Village
of the Motorpigs” starts out as a clips show, with Gina relating to their bus
driver the story of the family’s arrival in this world, and in reaches its
zenith in a well-written, well-performed scene between Hal and June. 




He instructs her to run away with the
children if he doesn’t survive the “rule of challenge” (also known as the “blood
clash.”)  June is understandably
reluctant to leave her husband, but understands his point.  The motorpig culture is toxic to family
units, and so the children must be free of it. 
It’s an emotional scene, and well-done. 
 Both characters come off well.




So
far, I’d have to declare that I like “Village of the Motorpigs” least among the
series’ first five episodes.  The pilot
featured that great discussion of souls and artificial life, the second episode “Zone Troopers
Build Men” had a great character arc for Trace, “Paradise Lost” was a nice handling of an
adult topic (marital infidelity) and “Rock and Roll Suicide” was just
balls-to-the-walls nuts…and fun.  “Village
of the Motorpigs” isn’t exactly bad, I’d conclude, just a bit less inventive
(and more clichéd) than the other episodes.




Next
week: “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar.”

I'm on Movie Geeks United...

Movie Geeks United examines the legacy of the 1984 rock classic, Purple Rain (and subject of my latest book) in its new episode, now airing.  Jamey DuVall and I recorded the interview a few weeks ago, and had a great talk about the film, and about musicals, circa the mid-1980s.




Check out the interview here.

Saturday Morning Cult TV Blogging: Jason of Star Command: "Battle for Freedom." (December 1, 1979)

“Battle
for Freedom,” the final episode of Jason of Star Command (1978 – 1979)
really pulls out all the stops.  The
episode features several new miniatures, a grand space battle (with more space
craft per shot than we’ve seen before…), some terrific character interaction,
and, finally, even a sense of resolution.




In
this installment, Commander Stone (John Russell) is intercepted by Dragos while
en route to Fleet Command to accept a medal for his outstanding service.  Dragos holds Stone hostage and informs Jason,
now acting Commander of Star Command, that Stone will not be released unless
Jason cedes the peaceful planet Chryton to the tyrant.




Chryton’s
prime consul, Jo-neen, visiting Star Command, officially requests protection
for her planet.  Jason attempts to stall
Dragos, leaving Parsafoot in command while he searches the D-2 Star System for
Stone.  Unfortunately, the planets in
that system have strange effects on humanoids. 
Jason and Samantha take an antidote created by Parsafoot and head out to
rescue their superior officer.






On
the planet, Jason and Samantha find Commander Stone, but he has lost his memory.  Jason is able to help Stone recover his
identity. In part he does so by reminding Stone of Dragos – the man who forced Stone’s people from their
planet -- and in part by reminding him that he is “the best commanding officer Star Command has ever had.”




As
Jason, Samantha and Commander Stone leave the planet in the D2 system,
Parsafoot launches a fleet of Star Command drones to meet Dragos’ attack fleet
in space and defend Chryton.  It’s a
rout, but the defeated Dragos has one last trick up his sleeve.  He attempts to use a deadly anti-matter ray or
“projector” to blast Jason’s Star-Fire into another dimension.  Jason uses a nearby red dwarf to reflect the
beam, and Dragos instead is cast away into another reality “for a long, long time.”




You
might expect a Saturday morning’s kid show, at the end of a long season, to do
a bottle show or something rather modest, having run out of budgetary
resources.  Instead, Jason of Star Command goes
out in grand style, with a whole host of new special effects and miniatures.  For the first time, we see the unmanned Star
Command drones, and by the half-dozen, no less. 
We also see Dragos’ fearsome battle stations in orbit of Chryton. 






And,
of course, we get the final tango between the deadly Dragonstar and Jason’s zippy
Star-Fire.  There are more miniature
shots – and of greater complexity –
in this twenty-minute segment than in the last several episodes of the season
put together.




Although
certainly the intention would have been to have another season of episodes, “Battle
for Freedom” provides a nice sense of closure to the Saturday morning
series.  The socially-inept Parsafoot
begins a romantic relationship with Jo-neen, and more importantly, Jason and
Commander Stone finally seem comfortable with another.  They have some nice banter in “Battle for
Freedom,” and come to an acceptance, you might say, of their different way of
doing things.   They started out as uncomfortable allies at
the beginning of season two, and end the same season with a strong sense of
mutual respect.  In this regard, the cast
change from James Doohan as Commander Canarvin to John Russell as Commander Stone
really works in the series’ favor.  So
much so, in fact, I’m inclined to agree with Jason’s explicit assessment: Stone
is the better commander.




And,
of course, Dragos is finally defeated in this valedictory episode.  As the villain disappears, shouting
maniacally “some day…Jason…” it’s
clear he could return, had the series come back.  But as the final episode of the show, the
defeat of Dragos also plays as a final victory. 
The scourge of the universe is gone. 







Watching
Jason
of Star Command today, it never lets you forget it was made for
children.  The stories are simple and
straight-forward, so much so that they become rather boring at times for an
adult.  Yet – from time to time – the character
interaction is really great, particularly as it pertains to Stone and
Jason.  More to the point, the special
effects remain astonishing examples of 1970s post- Star Wars state of the
art.  They compare favorably, in fact,
with prime time efforts such as Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979) and
Buck
Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-1981).




 I
can’t say I wouldn’t have appreciated more thematic depth in a lot of these second
season episodes, but again…these shows were designed for kids.  Right now, my five year old son Joel is into
Transformers , Ben 10 and other modern franchises,
but if he ever gets into the realm of space adventures, Jason of Star Command is
a perfect gateway.  

Cult Movie Review: The Blood of Heroes (1989)

“Life is hard
everywhere.”




-         
The
Blood of the Heroes (1989)














I
commenced this week on the blog with a survey of the Cult-TV faces of “sports
and fitness,” and shall now close it with a look back at The
Blood of Heroes (1989), a film concerning a particularly vicious sport
called “Jugger.” 




Since
I watched and
reviewed Rollerball (1975) a few months ago, I’ve been fascinated with
the future of professional sports. We know that professional sports will likely
remain extremely commercial and profitable going forward, but the contemporary
and ongoing scandal involving Gregg Williams, defensive coordinator for the New
Orleans Saints also suggests that, perhaps, sports are growing more brutal.




In
case you haven’t heard, Williams is the fellow who coached his football players
to “kill
the head” so that “the body” would die. 
He also encouraged his players to rough up an opposing player with a
concussion.




Not
exactly “good sport” is it? 




And
people say that horror films incite violence…




Regardless,
The
Blood of Heroes is a violent and enthralling post-apocalyptic
film.  In some senses, it’s actually the Rocky
(1976) of the dystopia genre, because it gets the audience squarely behind its
underdog heroes, and resolves in an incredibly hard-fought victory, with the
heroic athletes bloodied but unbroken. 




Unusually,
the film is also a rite-of-passage story with a strong female character, Joan
Chen’s Kidda, holding center stage.  Most
often, even in today’s cinema, the hero’s journey is a male one, but Kidda and
her dreams of a better life pulse at the heart of the film’s action.  Rutger Hauer portrays an experienced Jugger
player named Sallow, but in many ways, this veteran actor takes on the supporting
role of the “wise elder,” revealing to Kidda the ropes of the game, and,
importantly, the politics behind the game.




Reviews
for The
Blood of Heroes were mixed upon theatrical release.  Vincent Canby at The New York Times championed
the film and wrote that it is “entertainingly grim and, in an upside-down
way, romantic.”




 Time-Out ,
meanwhile, noted that The Blood of Heroes (a.k.a. The
Salute of the Jugger ) offered “little to
look at and nothing worth hearing.”




In this instance, I agree with Canby’s conclusion. 




Although characterization in the film is
ultimately subordinate to the frequent and violent jugger matches, one
nevertheless develops genuine affection for the players here: Hauer, Chen, Vincent
D’Onofrio and Delroy Lindo. 




And although it is easy to gaze at the film and
conclude that the narrative is somewhat meandering or plot-less, this episodic quality, this loose structure, actually works in
the film’s favor.  Watching The
Blood of Heroes, you are afforded a real taste of the Jugger’s life,
from the wearying nomadic existence, to the violence and intensity of the sport,
to the seemingly-endless ritual of tending to wounds and bruises after a match.   The
film repeats this sequence of events over and over, until you
feel like you’re right there with the athletes, sweating and bleeding alongside
them.




Perhaps The Blood of Heroes’ underlying message
isn’t entirely deep, but it is, nevertheless worthwhile. The film suggests we
are all tougher than we think, and that even when the forces of the world seem
aligned against us, we’ll keep fighting and striving for something better than
the status quo.




“ Play hard, you'll forget the fear.”






The
Blood of Heroes
is set in a post-apocalyptic world in which (most) folks no longer have the
time or luxury to think about professional sports, at least as we understand
them now.  The world’s infrastructure has
collapsed following a series of wars, and folks no longer remember the “Golden Age of the 20th century”
or “the miraculous technology or cruel
wars that followed.” 




Accordingly,
the popular game of Jugger removes the commercialism and professionalism of modern-day
sports, but amps up the brutality angle. 
In this violent game, a team consisting of several players -- a “qwik,”
a “chain,” an “enforcer” and a “slicer” -- battles an opposing team.  The match is bloody and violent, and doesn’t
end until the winning team manages to place a dog skull on a pike, or stake.  Roving Jugger teams subsist by beating local
teams, and collecting tributes for their victories.




The
film follows a group of nomadic players, led by taciturn Sallow (Hauer).  His team comes upon a farming community where
a passionate young woman, Kidda (Chen) wants to join the team as “qwik.”  Kidda boasts dreams of playing in “the
League,” inside one of the nine cities. 
Sallow himself was once in “the League” but was expelled from high
society for his inappropriate behavior with a lord’s concubine.  Since that time, Sallow has eschewed contact
with the cities, but he nonetheless tells Kidda a challenge can be issued to
the city’s team.  If the team accepts…they’re
in!




After
several victories, Sallow’s team travels to a city to mount such a challenge,
but the wronged Lord – named Vile –
still wants Sallow punished and humiliated. 
He instructs the city’s team leader, Gonzo, to blind Sallow during the
match, and then, essentially to beat him to a pulp.




The
match in the city commences in bloody fashion, and for Kidda and Sallow, their
future is on the line…




“Juggers can't fuck after
the game. It doesn't work. Unless you like to rub wounds against wounds.”






In the introduction to this
review, I mentioned Rocky as a clear antecedent to The Blood of Heroes , but
perhaps, in terms of sports movies, I also should have made notation of Bull
Durham (1987) too.  In that classic
baseball movie – one of the best ever made -- a player named Crash (Kevin
Costner) is cast out of the minor leagues and sent down to the Single A division
to mentor a promising player, one who could make it all the way to the
majors.  As that player rises, Crash
hopes to rise again too…




In very, very broad strokes,
The
Blood of Heroes follows a similar sort of outline, with an aging
player, tossed from the big leagues, coming to mentor a young, promising player
in a smaller, less professional venue. 
Sallow and Kidda represent those characters here, but in both situations
there’s this the idea of a cycle: of the
old, wiser player not only tutoring the young, but returning to the world that,
at some point, wronged him.  In terms
of visuals, The Blood of Heroes , written and directed by David Peoples,
clearly owes a lot to The Road Warrior (1982) aesthetic,
and yet thematically it is much more a sports movie than a science fiction
epic.




Here – as in real life – athletic prowess is one of the few ways one can successfully
bridge the gap in an unequal economic system. 
In the film, we see the immaculately-dressed, immaculately-cleaned upper
class citizens of the underground city, and can contrast their aristocratic look
with that of the Juggers, who are leathery, filthy, wind-blown, and marred by scars
and bruises.  Just as is the case in our
society, the upper classes are willing to pay handsomely to be entertained by
good athletes, and thus a sense of class warfare seems present in all
interactions.  One upper-class woman
likes to decorate her porcelain skin with the blood of Jugger players, and so
there’s also an impression of a vampire-like
over-class lording it over the under-class. .






Uniquely, at its valedictory
moment, The Blood of Heroes visually mirrors to its spiritual cinematic
antecedent, the aforementioned Rollerball.   There, in the final battle, James Caan’s
player Jonathan E, defeated the last enemy player right in front of his
nemesis, an executive played by John Houseman. 
Specifically, he checked the opposing player into the glass barrier
separating him from Houseman.




Here, director Peoples’
stages a nearly identical shot, with Sallow taking out Gonzo, just inches from
Vile, in front of Vile’s box seats (behind a kind of protective cage).






In both cases is the same
idea is transmitted: the notion of individualism trumping established order, or
authority. 




In both cases, defiance
beats obedience.




If anything at all undercuts
the success of The Blood of Heroes , it is the final triumphal note, however,
the film sounds after Sallow and Kidda win the day.  Immediately, the vulture-like upper class descends
upon them, congratulating the players, flirting with them, chatting them
up.  The implication is that Sallow,
Kidda and the others are now in like flint, and welcomed into a life of comfort
and luxury.




But really, aren’t these
Jugger players letting the establishment absorb them, at this point, and becoming
part of the corrupt 1% percent in the process? 
Aren’t they, by joining the league, playing the aristocracy’s game?  I like some of the early shots set in the
city, where Sallow and Kidda are literally on the outside looking in (through
bars on the windows) at the upper class, but the ending seems to undercut this crucial
sense of outsider-ism. 




It seems that the real point
of the movie is (or should be…) that reaching the top doesn’t necessarily put
you where you want to be. 




Once you get there, you
realize you’re still trapped playing another man’s sport.






Aside from that complaint, The
Blood of Heroes is a rousing sports movie in a dystopian setting.  Shot in Australia, the film makes the most of
its picturesque exteriors, and we see every variation of jugger match known to
man.  The game is played in the scorching
sun, and in the rain and mud.  There’s
also some interesting symbolism in the film in the form of the game itself: a literalization of the notion of picking
over the bones of a dead world.  That’s
what Jugger is, literally, a battle to win a skull, a bone…something dead and
useless.   




The Blood of Heroes is a visceral and involving film, in my judgment, and one
made doubly so by the twin decisions to keep dialogue to a minimum and to not
over-burden the narrative with more incident or detail than necessary.  As I wrote above, the film is extremely
episodic and repetitive: travel, play, sew up wounds.  Rinse
and repeat.  If you allow yourself to
go with the flow, you can fall into synch with the movie’s distinctive,
almost-trance-like rhythm and literally almost feel what it’s like to dwell in
this world of sweat, dirt and blood.




And given the alternative of
those porcelain-skinned, aristocratic vampires, you may even come to agree with
Sallow’s opinion that scarred skin – like
this violent but memorable film -- is strangely beautiful in its own way.

Movie Trailer: The Blood of Heroes (1989)

Sci-Fi Wisdom of the Week

"This is stupid. We should be fucking and drinking by now."




- The Blood of Heroes (1989)

The (Cult-TV) War on Men: Seven Female-Dominated Societies that Have it in for Males

In the national
discourse there's been a lot of talk about the War on Women lately.  




For instance, not long
ago, Congress held
a committee meeting about birth control and no women were present. Then, a Republican candidate for President, Rick
Santorum, made the claim that women are "too
emotional" for combat
assignments in the military.  Then Virginia considered passing a law that
would - literally -- force
non-medically-necessary "trans-vaginal" penetration upon women
seeking to have an abortion.  




Finally, when asked if
he supported equal pay for women in the form of the Lily Ledbetter Act, Presidential
nominee-to-be Mitt Romney whiffed because he needed more time to interface
with the vast, remote computer bank storing all of his previously-held positions
on the issue.  Accessing…Accessing…






While this war on women
continues, no end in sight, into Election 2012, cult television history reminds
us precisely where this kind of talk could be headed.  Unless we're very,
very careful, women will strike back and wage a War on Men.




And men will lose that
war...badly.




In the sincere hope of
preventing such an unfortunate eventuality and brokering a truce in this ongoing
battle between the sexes, I thus offer up a tour of the “War on Men:” seven of the
most memorable Matriarchies in cult-television history. 




You’ll note that many of
these female-dominated cultures -- oddly -- play rather distinctly as kinky male fantasies
rather than as legitimate, consistent visions of female rule. 




Or didn’t you realize
that the first order of the day when women rule the planet is the imposition of
a new dress code?




Cat-suits and whips for all!







1. “The Confederacy of Ruth”
( Planet
Earth [1974]). In this post-apocalyptic pilot/TV-movie from Star Trek
creator Gene Roddenberry, Dylan Hunt (John Saxon) attempts to rescue a PAX
doctor from “The Confederacy of Ruth,” a female dominated society. 




The culture is ruled by
the dictatorial Marg (Diana Muldaur), and all men are considered property, and
called “Dinks.”  The men are also routinely
drugged by their women to make them compliant and untroubled by their status as
slaves.  Once Dylan kicks off the effects
of the drug, he turns on his manly charm and teaches Marg a thing or two about…dinks.





Planet Earth asked the memorable question: “women’s lib? Or women’s lib gone mad?!”






2. "Medusa" ( Star
Maidens [1975]).  In this
short-lived German/British series created by Eric Paice, the planet Medusa
drifts in space, and its inhabitants dwell in an underground metropolis.  There, women rule, and men serve as domestic
servants.  Two slaves, Shem (Gareth
Thomas) and Adam (Pierre Brice) decide they are tired of being taken for
granted (“who takes care of the kids?!”)
and make a beeline for nearby Earth. 




Their female masters pursue,
but are troubled by the fact that Earth is ruled by men (!).  Indeed, the Medusan mistresses claim such a
set-up is in “violation of all common
sense.”  Considering the Earth a “great disappointment,” the Medusan
Matriarchy sets out to retrieve Shem and Adam. 
If they fail, a new, illegal “men’s liberation movement” could take hold
on Medusa, overturning the apple cart.






3. Entra" ( Space:
1999: "Devil's Planet" [1976]).  In this second season
episode of Gerry Anderson’s Space: 1999, Commander Koenig (Martin
Landau) is captured by Elizia (Hildegard Neil), the warden, governor and
absolute ruler of the prison colony of Entra.  The prisoners incarcerated
there are all men -- political dissidents
who spoke against female rule, apparently -- and are now guarded by cat-suited
Amazon women who viciously wield whips.  




The prisoners' only
opportunity to escape this hellish life is to survive sadistic Elizia's vicious
game, "The Hunt."  If a prisoner does survive being hunted by
Elizia and her women on the inhospitable moon’s forest surface -- being both outnumbered
and out-equipped -- he can be transported back to the home world, his sentence
is commuted.  




The only problem: a
plague has decimated the home world, Ellna, killing all living beings.  So when Elizia beams the victorious political
dissidents back home, she's actually issuing the troublesome men a death sentence.  






4."Turnabout" ( The
Fantastic Journey [1977]).  In this episode of the short-lived TV series
set in the Bermuda Triangle, Queen Hayalana (Joan Collins) finally tires of her
brutish husband and his stupid men, and with the help of a powerful computer called
"The Complex," zaps all the males of the province away to a null
zone, or pocket universe.  




Promising "an end to male domination,"
Hayalana then captures the series' heroes, Varian (Jared Martin), Dr. Willaway
(Roddy McDowall), Scott Jordan (Ike Eisenmann) and Dr. Fred Walters (Carl
Franklin), and plans to keep them as “breeding
stock.”  To convince these visiting men to remain docile and
cooperative, this cold-hearted queen then poisons their food, and tells the men
they will only receive the antidote only if they comply with her wishes. 




Hayalana’s plans come
crashing down however, when none of the women in the province are capable of
controlling “The Complex,” a computer built by…you guessed it, a man.






5. "Xantia" ( Buck
Rogers in the 25th Century [1979]: "Planet of the Amazon Women.")
Buck (Gil Gerard) is captured by gorgeous slave traders and auctioned off to
the highest bidder in this first season episode of Buck Rogers in the 25th
Century.   You see, all the men of
Xantia have either been killed in one of their incessant wars, or are being
held prisoner by the planet’s enemy: the Ruathans.  Thus the women of Xantia need some *ahem* company,
not to mention some men to do all the physical labor. 




Watch as Buck is
stripped down to his chest, and the women “bidders” at his auction coo and gasp
over his manly physique!






6. "Adore" ( Otherworld
[1985]: "I am Woman, Hear Me Roar.")  In this episode of the
1985 cult series, Otherworld , a militantly female society rules the roost in the
province of “Adore,” founded by a female Zone Trooper commandment, Livia.
 




The men in “Adore” do
not even know how to read, and the "gender stratification" laws
discourage marriage.  A “gender patrol”
walks the streets, maintaining order, and girls ogle slave men in the popular
magazine, “Available Hunk.” 




And, of course, there’s
the Gender Arcade, the marketplace where men are greased up, stripped down, and
sold to the highest bidder. 




When the patriarch of
the Sterling family, Hal (Sam Groom), objects to the status of males as
second-class citizens, a woman in power reminds him to: “keep in mind that this is a conservative part of town and will resist
compromise.”  When Hal’s wife, June
(Gretchen Corbett) sticks up for him, the same women sneers: “Oh…I understand…you’re progressives.” 




7. "Angel One." ( Star
Trek: The Next Generation [1987]:"Angel One.") In this first
season episode o f Star Trek: The Next Generation , the Enterprise D visits the
Matriarchy of “Angel One” in hopes of finding out if survivors of a freighter,
the Odin, landed there.  They find out
that a group of men did survive, and are making trouble for the female
leadership. 




Mistress Baeta (Karen
Montgomery) – or “the elected one” –
pronounces the death sentence for the survivors of the Odin and any women unwise
enough to attempt to alter the peace of Angel One’s female-dominated
society.   Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) steps in to
argue against the death penalty.  Ultimately,
he is persuasive...perhaps because Mistress Baeta still remembers the space
stud in his colorful, open-chest blouse and earrings…





Finally, besides Star Maidens, another series also featured female-dominated world as its setting: Norman Lear's All that Glitters (1977), starring Linda Gray and Greg Evigan.  I've never seen it, but would love to get my hands on a few episodes.

Memory Bank: TV Guide

Growing
up in the 1970s and 1980s, TV Guide was not just a fact of
life, it was an absolute necessity.




In the late 1970s and early 1980s in
particular, TV Guide was not merely a magazine about program schedules, it
was actually a huge and valuable research database for the developing film buff. 
Before home video media really exploded to life (VHS and Betamax, at
first), the only way to find movies you hoped or desired to see was to scour the pages of TV
Guide every week for signs that a local or national station planned to
air it. 




And
miserable were the times when you indeed found the movie you were seeking, but
your local area did not carry the particular station/channel planning to air
it.  This happened to me on several
occasions.  I remember one time when a TV station
not in my area (but featured in TV Guide ) aired the Gerry Anderson
compilation movie “Alien Attack,” and I couldn’t see it.  All I had was that delicious, tantalizing TV Guide synopsis, which I promptly cut out and kept in a scrapbook.  




Yes, I'm crazy.




Seriously though,
by scouring the pages of TV Guide on a regular basis, I discovered for the
first time (through reruns) TV-films such as Gargoyles, Satan’s School for
Girls and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark .  




By searching, religiously -- marker in hand -- the pages of TV Guide, I
first discovered films such as The Green Slime, Soylent Green and The
Omega Man .  




It was an amazing
time, especially because I was reading about classic and newer movies in the pages of Starlog,
Fantastic Films, and movie reference books.   So I was grateful to see such films as Konga,
Gorgo, Mighty Joe Young, Day of the Triffids  and the like, even cut-up and hacked to bits with
commercials.




Today,
with Netflix, Roku, cable television, satellite TV and the like, this sort of advance
planning for your viewing week isn’t really necessary, I suppose.  Any title you read about, you can usually be watching within a week or
two, with a few notable exceptions.  




But
back in the day, TV Guide promised a constantly renewing world of wonders every damned
week. Of course, you had to stay up till all hours of the night, sometimes, to
catch the movies you hoped to see, but this fact just added to the fun of the
experience.




TV
Guide began
its run in 1953 and today is known as TV Guide Magazine .  Is it still fun to read?  I don’t know, because I don’t read it anymore.  But I remember being a kid in the late 1970s
and early 1980s and waiting with tremendous anticipation every year for the new “fall season preview” edition, which
would reveal the nature of new programs coming on, and which old favorites were
returning.  I remember reading about (and
being baffled by…) the changes in Buck Rogers in the 25th Century ,
for example, during the second season.  I
remember reading about Galactica 1980,
and thinking – Wow! This is going to be
great!




TV Guide was definitely good to the cult-tv fan in other ways too.  Over the years, the magazine has featured a
number of incredible covers of science fiction and horror series.  Battlestar Galactica (9/16/78), Cosmos
(9/27/80) Mork and Mindy (11/22/80), and Alf (8/15/87) all graced
covers of TV Guide over the years. 
In the 1990s, Star Trek dominated the magazine
with covers featuring Kirk vs. Picard (8/31/91) and Deep Space Nine
(01/02/93).




Again, I don’t read TV
Guide today – I don’t need to. But I have these great, happy memories
of stretching out on my sofa in the 1980s, and highlighting the programs and films I
hoped to tape on my VCR.  




I was thrilled,
for instance, when WPIX began, in 1987-1988, airing reruns of
Space: 1999 on at 2:00 am each weeknight.  I never would have known about it without TV
Guide.   Another station, I think, aired Twilight Zone and One
Step Beyond at the wee hours, and believe me, watching
those creepy programs at that hour of half-consciousness was a marvelous,
surreal experience.  And, yep, I had TV Guide to thank for pointing out, where, in the universe, I should be "tuned in."






Every
Friday was an exciting day as well, growing up, because the mail would bring next week’s
edition of TV Guide , and open up to me a new universe of wonders.  Look,
it’s Planet
of the Apes week on the 4:30 Movie!

Collectible of the Week: Star Hawk (Ideal; 1970 and 1977)

Last
week for the collectible of the week I remembered the Darth Vader-esque Knight of Darkness, from Ideal’s “Star Team” line in 1977.  This week, I want to offer a closer look at another
cool space toy in that same line (carefully labeled to include the copyright
dates of both 1970 and 1977). 




Here
it is: the Star Hawk, the “Star Team
spaceship with motorized hatch and space-like sounds.”




This
large red and gray flying saucer-type craft came “complete with Zeroid, moveable landing pods, revolving platform, exit
ramp and clear dome.” 




And
“Zeroid’s spaceship, the Star Hawk
transports your Zeroid from one daring adventure to the next.  When you activate the special motor, the
hatch slides open, landing pods go into position, exit ramp lowers, and
space-like sounds announce the arrival of Zeroid, to help you save the day.”






As
for the Zeroid himself -- one of the Knight’s nemeses along with ZEM-21 -- he
is a modified version of the popular (and now incredibly expensive...) 1960s Zeroid line. 
He’s a “highly detailed action
robot with moveable arms. ZEROID rolls on a twin-tread base.  Flip on his special flishing signal lamp and
send messages to his friends.”




I
wrote last week how my grandparents bought me the Star Hawk (w/Zeroid), the
Knight of Darkness and ZEM-21, and at first I was disappointed with the
generous gift because I would have preferred the Millennium Falcon, Darth
Vader, R2-D2 and C3PO.  But it wasn’t
long before I became intrigued by these Star Wars knock-off toys, and came to see that
they allowed me to create my own play universe. 
In particular, I remember that the Knight of Darkness camped out in G.I.
Joe’s Adventure Team Headquarters.   




Today,
I’m really glad I still have these particular toys in my home office.  Even today, Zeroid’s dome lights up, and the
Star Hawk hatch still slides open (with a springy rat-a-tat sound).  The decals are coming off now, after all
these years, but these toys remain…ideal for the imagination.  My son Joel loves them, particularly the
Zeroid and his ship, the Star Hawk.