Michael Lauck's Blog, page 2

Tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow (People)

In the early 1970s ITV was looking for something to compete with Doctor Who. On the very same night Doctor Who premiered in 1963 the ITV introduced its family viewing science fiction series Emerald Soup. Unlike its competition, Emerald Soup (which followed children investigating secret government radiation experiments near their village) only ran for a single series. Gerry Anderson’s UFO had been successful but was aimed at older audiences. Worse, a series of problems delayed its second series (eventually leading to the creation of Space 1999 instead of additional episodes of UFO).  In the midst of this bad luck ITV caught a break: Roger Price had been talking to David Bowie.

Price, the creator of Junior Points of View, a show featuring letters the BBC received from children, apparently met David Bowie in a studio cafeteria. According to Price the two hit it off and had a long discussion which included thoughts on the future evolution of man. This led Roger Price to solidify some ideas for a new TV show and possibly resulted in Bowie writing his 1971 song “Oh! You Pretty Things” (which includes the term homo superior, the focus of Price’s new show). Because the network was looking for something to compete with Doctor Who, which Price associated with an “old man,” the new show went with young people as the central characters. Instead of time traveling the show featured a group of young telepaths, the first few examples of the next step in human evolution. These new examples of humanity were called homo novus, or homo superior, but they referred to themselves as Tomorrow People.

The Tomorrow People develop fantastic mental powers, usually around puberty, such as telepathy, telekinesis and teleportation (they also provide the name of the series and when referring to the series Tomorrow People will be italicized). This is process of “breaking out” is extremely dangerous, though, because once their powers fully emerge they may inadvertently teleport into space or under water. The first indications of breaking out are telepathic flashes so tomorrow people are usually able to identify members of the homo superior before they break out. The psychic powers also bring a near pathological avoidance of violence and even the very idea of killing is almost inconceivable to Tomorrow People. Over the next generation or two, as homo superior become more prevalent a golden age of peace and progress would begin as it did on other worlds when their populations developed psychic powers… but until then the handful of homo superior must help others of their type develop while guarding the Earth from those looking to exploit a planet on the verge of entering the greater galactic community.

Much like the Doctor Who of the time, Tomorrow People stories were told over several half hour episodes. This gives Tomorrow People the movie serial-like feel of classic Doctor Who as most episodes feature a cliffhanger ending. They also featured a theme song (at the same time haunting and catchy) penned by long time Doctor Who composer Dudley Simpson. While the characters nominally spend their time searching for other human superiors about to break out, they often find themselves at odds with those, both human and alien, attempting to take advantage of either newly developing telepaths or the pre-telepathic Earth. The heroes see themselves as shepherds, not only for emerging telepaths, but for the entire planet as it moves towards the peaceful, prosperous future a telepathic humanity will bring. Again like Doctor Who, the special effects on Tomorrow People are often limited thanks to a combination of budget constraints and early 1970s technology. This means the Tomorrow People makes extensive use of actors superimposed over film footage and sometimes space helmets do not have glass in their visors. While some will see this as charming or nostalgic it may completely put off modern viewers used to 4k video and slick CGI.

Much like Star Trek, the creator of Tomorrow People had a strong belief the heroes of the show should be a diverse group, both men and women from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. The show opened with three existing homo superiors and their sentient talking computer TIM. John and Carol (Nichols Young and Sammie Winmill), Caucasian young adults, and Kenny (Stephen Salmon) a boy of about ten who is of African descent work out of a base hidden in an abandoned London Underground station. In the first episode they discover Stephen (Peter Vaughan-Clarke), a Causcasian teenager about to break out causing the mysterious and sinister Jedikiah to target him. Later series would expand the diversity. Much like Gene Roddenberry, Roger Price wanted to present an optimistic future. In Tomorrow People the advanced civilizations of the universe are mainly telepathic and have formed a galactic society which Earth will be invited to join once homo superior is the norm. 

All in all, Tomorrow People was entertaining, optimistic and thoughtful (if not overly intellectual) science fiction which proved popular. It lasted for eight series (sixty-eight episodes), had a long running feature in the TV series themed comic book Look-In and saw five novels published (The Visitor 1973, Three Into Three 1974, Four Into Three 1975, One Law 1976 and Lost Gods 1977) as well as an “annual” (which are combinations of series guides, behind the scenes stories, comics and/or fiction about a series popular in the UK). Unfortunately, none of these books are easily found today (at least in the US) and have not been released in an ebook format. A new book, Tomorrow People: Changes was released earlier this year to commemorate the series’ 50th anniversary (this can be found on Amazon in the US).

After the original run of Tomorrow People ended Roger Price found himself developing television programming in Canada. He created the sketch comedy show You Can’t Do That On Television which proved to be a hit both in Canada and in the US on the new children’s cable network Nickelodeon. The show’s trademark green slime (which dumped on anyone unfortunate to say “I don’t know”) remains a kind of mascot of the network to this day. He also created the globe-hopping Turkey Television, which also aired on Nickelodeon, and presented skits, music videos, action highlights and more from global television. 

Thanks to Price’s ties to Nickelodeon, Tomorrow People began airing in the US in 1981, just a couple years after its final episode aired on ITV. Often shown daily, Tomorrow People would be a regular part of the Nickelodeon line up until 1984, sometimes in conjunction with psychic anthology series The Third Eye. For many Gen X science fiction fans (myself included) Tomorrow People was their introduction to British science fiction. To be honest there are several scenes burned into my mind which I would have sworn were from Doctor Who until I acquired the first couple series of Tomorrow People on DVD. 

Unfortunately, the original Tomorrow People is not currently streaming in the United States although it can be found streaming illegally on YouTube. As far as I can determine the only US home video release of the original Tomorrow People came in 2005 when A&E released the series on DVD. It has been out of print for several years although the box sets can be found on eBay for about $15 to $35.

In the early 1990s Roger Price developed a rebooted Tomorrow People series for Tetra Films. With an international cast (to facilitate selling the series outside of England), the new series premiered in late 1992. A complete re-imagining of the original premise, the show lasted for three seasons. While the homo superior still “broke out” and retained similar powers to the original series, the main characters were completely different. Talking computer TIM was omitted and the group worked from a crashed spaceship instead of an abandoned London Underground station. Like the original, the new Tomorrow People aired in the US on Nickelodeon. Guest stars included Doctor Who alum Jean Marsh and horror legend/Star Wars villian Christopher Lee. I could not find this series streaming in the United States and appears to be unavailable on DVD.

In 2001 the original Tomorrow People returned in an audio series produced by Big Finish (the producers of Doctor Who audio and radio plays). Nicholas Young and Philip Gilbert reprised their roles (of John, the leader, and TIM, the sentient computer, respectively) along with new Tomorrow People. Five series of audio adventures were released, with other original cast members appearing, between 2001 and 2007 when Big Finish lost the rights to the show. The series is no longer available to purchase although used CDs can be found.

In 2013 Greg Berlanti (Everwood, Eli Stone, Arrow and Supergirl) and Julie Plec (The Vampire Diaries, The Originals), both fans of the original series, brought a new Tomorrow People to American broadcast television network The CW. Their series, the first television version of the show without Roger Price, portrayed a second generation of homo superior operating from a base underneath the streets of Manhattan and actively hunted by the anti-telepath group Ultra. Despite Berlanti’s strong connections with The CW the show was canceled after a single season. It is available to stream for free in the US on Tubitv.com.

After three television series seen internationally, not to mention five series of audio adventures and several books, the Tomorrow People is arguably the most successful original science fiction series of the 1970s, although Battlestar Galactica certainly has a claim to the title. Tomorrow People is perhaps the best science fiction series of the 1970s the average American science fiction fan missed. It is undoubtedly the most successful “children’s” science fiction series of its time. What I am really trying to say is even if you have no nostalgia for Tomorrow People, it is a series worth watching. The original series in particular will probably appeal to classic Doctor Who fans of all ages.

Science Fiction: Sponsored By Wheat Chex, Rice Chex and Good, Hot Ralston

ABC’s Space Patrol premiered on March 9, 1950. It was not the first science fiction television show in the United States; that honor probably goes to the DuMont Network’s Captain Video and his Video Rangers, which premiered June 27, 1949. However, Space Patrol was one of the most successful early American science fiction television series with approximately 900 15 minute daily episodes, and 210 half hour weekly episodes produced over its five year run. The show was popular enough to become one of the handful of television shows to spin-off a radio version (Tom Corbett, Space Cadet also inspired a radio series and, like Space Patrol, featured the same cast on both new television while the western Have Gun, Will Travel did not). 

Originally a 15 minute weekday serial following Commander Kit Corry (Glen Denning), Space Patrol was produced and aired locally by the ABC owned KECA-TV in Los Angeles. On December 30, 1950 ABC began airing a 30 minute weekly version on its national network in addition to the daily local shows. Like most programs of the time, Space Patrol was broadcast live but unlike many contemporary shows it was recorded on kinescope. There were a couple of comic books published by Ziff-Davis and an original adventure or two released as record albums but Space Patrol never saw novelizations or a newspaper comic strip. Instead, most Space Patrol merchandise came in the form of giveaway items offered through its sponsor Ralston.

After about 25 episodes and well before the national version began, Ed Kemmer replaced Denning as the series lead, portraying Kit Corry’s older brother Commander Buzz Corry. As the commander-in-chief of the United Planets’ Space Patrol Corry shared adventures with his apprentice Cadet Happy (Lyn Osborn), Tonga (Nina Bara), the special assistant to the Space Patrol security chief, and Carol Carlisle (Virginia Hewitt), a Patrol scientist who was also the daughter of the United Planets’ Secretary General. On both television and radio the valiant Space Patrol faced space smugglers, tracked escaped prisoners, explored inter-planetary ruins and rescued rockets in trouble. The 30 minute weekly episodes tended to be self contained stories, although the series slid into a few multiple episode arcs later in its run.

Creator and producer Mike Moser first envisioned Space Patrol while he was a pilot for the Navy during World War II. He wanted to create something that would be exciting for modern children as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon movie serials were when he was a child. Unfortunately, Moser was killed in a motorcycle accident in late 1954. The loss of Moser as producer may have led to the series cancellation on both television (ending February 26, 1955) and radio (March 19, 1955).

It has been claimed Space Patrol enjoyed a sizable adult audience. It very well may have. One of the earliest radio shows, The Hole In Space broadcast October 25, 1952, featured a spatial anomaly theorized to be a gateway to other dimensions finally controlled thanks to the fact certain metals gained superconductive properties when cooled to near absolute zero. This may have been a little over the heads of the children Ralston Purina was targeting with Chex cereal pitches and official Space Patrol Space-O-Phone sets (only 25¢ and a box top from “good, hot Ralston” cereal). The next month The Giant Bubble (broadcast November 11, 1952) centered on an attempt to use newly discovered plastic materials softened when exposed to certain electro-magnetic frequencies to create a bubble to contain an artificial atmosphere. On the other hand, though, Commander Corry did have “youthful sidekick” Cadet Happy… and the show was definitely pushing breakfast cereal and public service projects to kids.

Over its run the Ralston sponsored Space Patrol radio show would offer decoder belts, pins, Space-O-Phones (plastic phones connected by string), punch out cardboard play sets, space helmets (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkiPeUkYXyM), wearable space binoculars, signal rings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMZ5XyDXeTU) and more (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N26Juv3XxuE). 

Space Patrol also offered one of the greatest giveaways in TV history. After a few appearances by Space Patrol members across America in the Ralston Rocket, a life sized prop rocket ship, it was decided to give a lucky viewer their own rocket. After running a contest (to name a planet for an upcoming episode) the winning contestant received their own Terra IV rocket cruiser… which was a specially designed rocket shaped camper on a flatbed! (Both the Ralston Rocket and the awarding of the Terra IV can be seen in this clip collection https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBwWzmTlEG4).

The legal status of Space Patrol today is a bit nebulous but many television episodes are available to stream free on TubiTV.com (at least in the United States), which is a legitimate service. The radio shows are widely available on the Internet on old time radio sites. As a modern viewer, I have to admit Space Patrol is not terribly intellectual or even unique science fiction. Both Tom Corbett, Space Cadet and Rod Brown have similar premises and storylines. Space Patrol definitely is a stepping stone, though, between the pulp space opera of the the early 20th century and the more mature stories of later part of the century. It strays away from the intergalactic threats and swashbuckling planetary romance found in earlier space opera and focuses more on smugglers, thieves and saboteurs in space. 

Because it was a live production limited the special effects were utilized and most storylines were kept simple enough for its young target audience to follow and get resolved in the short time allowed in each episode. The main draw of the show today is its nostalgic “retro-futurism” and adventure themed plots. Unfortunately, many of the Space Patrol episodes on Tubi have been trimmed of the original Ralston cereal commercials and premium offers, much like when the alt-music and counter culture program Night Flight ran the series back in the late 1980s. This does, as far as I am concerned, take away from some of the fun. Most radio episodes available still have their advertising intact.

Space Patrol still has some visual appeal despite its primitive production values. The opening sequence of the television show, which shows the launch of space ships from a space base, is accomplished entirely with moving miniatures and models. Moving models of space stations and such occasionally pop up in episodes as well. The show apparently enjoyed a very large studio which allowed for multiple sets even the show was broadcast live. The radio series is able to move beyond the special effects limitations of the television show, though, and feature action, locations and fantastic equipment which would never be able to be shown on 1950s television. The radio show also seems to enjoy slightly more complex plots at times. It also seems to me Space Patrol may have influenced later science fiction television in a few ways. 

Dick Tufeld, the announcer for the show, would later provide the voice of the robot B9 in the Lost in Space series and the 1998 film. His “Space Patrol” call to kick off the episodes would be reflected in Gary Owen’s announcing for Space Ghost. Star Ed Kemmer would go on to appear in a couple of other science fiction projects (such as Earth vs. The Spider) and would appear as astronaut Roy Selby in the ‘astronauts and their wives’ themed soap opera The Clear Horizon (CBS, 1960-1962). Co-star Lyn Osborn unfortunately died at the young age of 38 due to a brain tumor, but still appeared in several science fiction projects including Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) and The Cosmic Man (1959).

Space Patrol reminds me of Star Trek in a couple of ways. Patrol uniforms have little in common with the simple uniforms of Star Trek The Original Series at first glance, as they feature V-shaped front panels and insignia with small tunic or Mandarin style collars and no apparent rank indication. The jacket and striped trousers Space Patrol uniforms have a much more militaristic feel than the long sleeved pullovers and simple black pants of Star Trek. Like Star Trek, though, different specialties seem to have different insignia. Commander Corry’s uniform includes stylized lightning while Cadet Happy features an eagle and Major Robertson, the security chief of the Space Patrol, has a starburst design. Carol Carlisle’s uniform has a lightning insignia, but different than Commander Corry’s. The two female leads, Carol Carlisle and security operative Tonga also sport boots with surprisingly short skirts for 1954, much like Star Trek. Unlike Lieutenant Uhura, Carol Carlisle climbs ladders in her skirt!

Space Patrol featured sleek rocket ships and stuck to our solar system but it managed to foreshadow Star Trek in a couple of ways. The cast traveled back in time in multiple episodes, including an episode titled Errand of Mercy (a name shared by a Star Trek TOS episode). Much like Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek The Next Generation Buzz Corry has an interest in archaeology (as seen in the Lost City of the Carncans and The Hidden Treasure of Mars). Like Captain Kirk, Commander Corry was never one to avoid danger and led most missions himself. Commander Corry and Captain Kirk would eventually meet on Twilight Zone in the Nightmare At 20,000 Feet. Tonga and Carol were actual members of the team, not merely damsels in distress. It is also worth noting Ralston frequently addresses the boys and girls in their pitches.

To be honest, Space Patrol is not innovative science fiction nor is it particularly intelligent or forward thinking. It is undeniably a children’s show. Still, both the television and radio show are fun. They have the action emphasis found in pulp space operas but are beginning to show the desire to put the “science” in science fiction. They are also prime examples of mid century “retro-futurism,” with their silver rockets, lightning bolt motifs and V-shaped Eisenhower jackets. If nothing else, Space Patrol is worth watching for its place in science fiction TV history and to see what you used to be able to get for 25¢ and a box top).

Science Fiction: A Laughing Matter

Okay, I will admit I am late to the party. I just watched all three seasons of The Orville. I am pretty sure I watched the premiere episode back in 2017 and passed on it at the time. Truth is, I am not a huge fan of Seth MacFarlane stuff. I would rather listen to him sing than watch his shows or movies. He seems to go with what I call “lowest common denominator” humor… The kind of stuff you will find being said in the back of most junior high classrooms. Three Stooges without the charm. I hate Family Guy and its spin offs. (Just to establish some baseline values in the modern era of comedy animation I am pro-Regular Show, Invader Zim and the new Looney Tunes stuff but anti-Rick and Morty and think both The Simpsons and South Park have gone on too long!) I could not make it through Ted but thought A Million Ways To Die In The West was okay. When it started The Orville struck me as a juvenile Galaxy Quest. Truth is, the first couple episodes still struck me as such during my re-watch.

I stuck with The Orville this time, though, for two reasons. People kept telling me it was worth watching and I swore I would watch at least one full season for review purposes. I started to turn around on the series with the third episode (About A Girl). When the show sets aside some of the middle school humor it actually handles both sensitive and intellectual topics with a surprising amount of insight. In my personal opinion The Orville has handled hot button topics such as transgender rights with much more delicacy than recent Star Trek offerings, providing thought provoking story arcs without zealously preaching a viewpoint. Real world topics such as suicide, social media and relationships and science fiction favorites like time travel, first contact and artificial intelligence alike were presented in a thoughtful and entertaining manner.

The humor stayed in The Orville, although the show was often at its best when it set the jokes completely aside. As the seasons progressed the humor matured a bit with gags such as aliens discovering, becoming addicted to and trying to quit cigarettes and another group of aliens interpreting the Broadway musical Annie as moving and dark because the sun, which will come out tomorrow, is a powerful omen of death in their culture. It is crucial to note, though, whether making its most juvenile and obvious gags or its sharpest, brightest jokes The Orville never makes fun of its audience or demeans science fiction.

I ended up watching all three seasons The Orville and honestly am holding out hope Hulu renews it for a fourth. I have to admit I have become a fan. It also got me to thinking about the place comedy holds in science fiction. Comedy is a common element in more serious shows, such as Star Trek, but there is a fairly strong tradition of comedic science fiction, especially on television. 

It seems to have all kicked off in 1962 with the Hanna-Barbera animated series The Jetsons (1962-1963). Building on the success of The Flintstones (1960-1966), Hanna-Barbera and ABC sought to duplicate the formula of a standard family sitcom in a different time by fast forwarding everyday problems to the far off future. Although both The Flintstones and The Jetsons are thought of as children’s shows today (after migrating to Saturday morning and after school timeslots) it is important to remember both were originally shown in prime time. The Roman Holidays, a 1972 attempt to again adapt The Flintstones formula using the Roman Empire as a setting was Saturday morning fare, though, and not nearly as successful.

The 1960s would soon see live action science fiction sitcoms, though. First, Ray Walston and Bill Bixby hit the small screen as an alien anthropologist and the human reporter who finds and “adopts” him in My Favorite Martian (CBS, 1963-1966). In addition to applying alien powers and tech to standard sitcom themes the show also featured some time travel episodes. It would eventually see a 1973 Saturday morning cartoon spin off (My Favorite Martians) and a rather unsuccessful 1999 feature film. The 1964 television season brought My Living Doll (1964-1965), from the same creator as My Favorite Martian, to CBS. The new show followed a psychiatrist attempting to “educate” a lifelike experimental robot named Rhoda (played by a pre-Catwoman Julie Newmar). Bewitched (ABC, 1964-1972) also premiered the same year. With a modern day witch, and wife to a normal human, taking the place of a robot or alien and magic instead of technology, it was fantasy as opposed to science fiction but essentially along the same lines as My Favorite Martian and My Living Doll. Get Smart (1965-1970) came to NBC the next year. The spy spoof was arguably as much science fiction as espionage TV, though, with the variety of wacky gadgets, evil world domination plots and the eventual introduction of Hymie the Robot. In 1966 Sherwood Schwartz, creator of Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, tried his hand at science fiction sitcoms. It’s About Time (CBS, 1966-1967) followed astronauts who first accidentally travel to prehistoric times and then, in the second half of its single season, return to the modern day with a family of cave people. The final science fiction sitcom of the 1960s, The Second Hundred Years (ABC, 1967-1968), could be argued to be more of a fantasy sitcom, such as Bewitched or I Dream of Jeanie (NBC, 1965-1970). It centered on a prospector accidentally frozen in 1900 who was thawed, revived and went to live with his now elderly son’s family.

The 1970s saw a decline in science fiction comedy on American television, at least until Star Wars (1977) caused an explosion of all things science fiction. Before Star Wars all the 1970s live action science fiction comedies to premiere on US television were produced by Sid and Marty Krofft (the brothers behind HR Pufnstuf, Lidsville, Land of the Lost) and aimed at children. Far Out Space Nuts (CBS, 1975-1976) starred Bob Denver and Chuck McCann as NASA maintenance workers accidentally launched into deep space (to have wacky adventures, not to watch B movies… but more on that in a minute). The Lost Saucer (ABC, 1975) featured Jim Nabors and Ruth Buzzi as time traveling androids who bring a modern boy and his babysitter on a series of adventures with social commentary undertones. Star Maidens (featuring a pre-Blake’s 7 Gareth Thomas) was a British/German co-production in 1976 which did see some US airplay. A reverse battle of the sexes in space, it has a camp reputation today but apparently was not intended to be humorous at the time.

After Star Wars US television saw two new prime time network science fiction sitcoms. The first, Quark (NBC, 1977-1978) was from Get Smart co-creator Buck Henry. Space trash collector Adam Quark and his strange crew, including lovestruck clones and a “transmute” with both male and female personalities. The much more successful Mork and Mindy (ABC, 1978-1982) was technically a spin off of Happy Days (ABC, 1974-1984). Mork originally appeared in a 1978 episode of Happy Days which pitted his alien powers against Fonzie. The entire episode was a dream when first aired, although after the character was given his own series a new ending was created showing Mork simply making Fonzie think it was a dream for re-runs. In the spin off series Mork, an alien scout from Orkan, lives among modern humans with the help of a young woman in Colorado. The series launched the career of star Robin Williams and also saw a 1982-1983 Saturday morning cartoon spin-off.

The 1980s were a good time for science fiction on television. The decade started with Battlestar Galactica (ABC, 1978-1980 as Galactica 1980) and Buck Rogers In The 25th Century (NBC, 1979-1981) both in prime time and later saw Star Trek return to television with The Next Generation (syndicated, 1987-1994) Science fiction shows such as Automan (ABC, 1983-1984), Knight Rider (NBC, 1982-1986), Airwolf (CBS, 1984-1986), V (NBC, 1983 original mini-series, 1984 The Final Battle mini-series, 1984-1985 V: The Series and eventually rebooted in a second series 2009-2011) and Alien Nation (Fox, 1989-1990) kept the genre in prime time throughout the decade. 

Science fiction TV comedy flourished as well, starting with radio series turned television show (and eventually film) The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (BBC 1981) which aired the in the US on many PBS stations. Hapless human Arthur Dent is saved from the end of the world by his friend, who happens not to be human but a researcher for the universe’s greatest travel guide. 1981 also saw the premiere of the science fiction superhero show The Greatest American Hero (ABC, 1981-1983). When aliens give a mild mannered teacher a suit capable of amazing powers he promptly loses the instructions and gets drafted by the government to act as a covert superhero. Although not quite a sitcom, the hour long episodes mixed drama with the slapstick efforts to control the alien superpowers. Small Wonder (syndicated, 1985-1989) was in many ways a revisiting of My Living Doll’s premise except sexy robot Rhoda was replaced with Vicki, an android who looked like a ten year old girl. An alien again tried to live with the typical American family in ALF (NBC, 1986-1990). Unlike Mork or Uncle Martin in My Favorite Martian, this time the alien was not human-like (and instead portrayed mainly by a puppet). ALF would launch two spin-off cartoons, a TV movie and eventually the character would return to TV in 2004 with a short lived talk show on TV Land. The next year Out Of This World (syndicated 1987-1991) would fine tune the alien in the typical American family formula with Evie, a girl raised on Earth who finds out she is actually half-alien when her powers begin to emerge.

In 1987 Max Headroom (ABC 1987-1988) made the jump to US broadcast television. Originally a British TV movie about a reporter whose brain functions are used to form an artificial intelligence who appeared on monitors and TV screens as a computer animated talking head. Then the character was used to host a music video show, which was shown on Cinemax in the US. Max Headroom (who played by Matt Frewer in all these incarnations and not actually computer animated) was also the spokesman for New Coke… insert your own joke about that! The ABC series, which was an hour long dark humor dramedy, returned to the ideas of the original television film. Another British series popped up the next year and would reach the US through PBS instead of cable and Coke commercials.

Red Dwarf (BBC, later Dave, 1988-2020) is arguably the most successful science fiction comedy to date. With twelve seasons and a TV film spread over 32 years it is not nearly as prolific as the typical series, but it is highly influential and simply keeps coming back. Dave Lister, the lowest ranked crew member on the massive mining ship Red Dwarf, is placed in suspended animation without pay after smuggling a pregnant cat aboard. He awakes to find a radiation leak killed the crew and the ship has been drifting for 3 million years while radiation levels returned to normal. The ship’s super computer, a hologram of his obnoxious roommate, a humanoid evolved from his cat and, eventually, an android are his companions as he navigates through uncharted space. Although this could be a very dark premise or at least a very dark comedy, Red Dwarf is a fairly light, and often good naturedly obnoxious, comedy propelled by a great cast.

Meanwhile, America was creating its own, very different, classic science fiction comedy series in 1988. Mystery Science Theater 3000, aka MST3K (various, 1988-now), is not a sitcom nor is it an hour long comedic drama. It uses a premise very much like Far Out Space Nuts as an excuse for the main character, along with some robot puppets, to heckle films, usually low budget (and often public domain) science fiction and horror movies shown to him as an experiment run by the scientists who engineered his launch into space. Like Red Dwarf it has spread 13 seasons over 32 years. It has also launched a few imitators/spin offs, live shows and even a feature film.

While the 1990s saw both Red Dwarf and MST3k continuing to flourish the decade also brought new science fiction comedies to the small screen. The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. (Fox, 1993-1994) featured cult favorite Bruce Campbell as a lawyer turned bounty hunter in the Old West trying to capture the gang who murdered his US Marshal father while using steampunk gadgetry and dealing with a mystic, possibly alien, device known as The Orb. Upstart network UPN, which later brought Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise to air, tried their own take on steampunk western sci-fi with Legend (1995), starring Richard Dean Anderson as a writer of western adventure dime novels forced to assume the role of his famous character Nicodemus Legend. The next season they tried a more traditional sitcom with Homeboys in Outer Space (1996-1997) about a pair of usually broke hustlers (in space) and their ship, the Space Hoopty. 

The bigger networks jumped into science fiction sitcoms in 1996 as well, with mixed success. NBC’s 3rd Rock From The Sun (1996-2001) brought viewers a squad of aliens observing our planet by posing as a typical American family led by John Lithgow. ABC’s Aliens In The Family, about a human trying to live a normal life after marrying an alien woman, was much less successful and only lasted a single season. Meanwhile, Disney took their film Honey, I Shrunk The Kids to the small screen by adding The Series to the title (syndicated, 1997-2000). Fox ended the 1990s, which was a decade full of dramatic science fiction on the network ranging from The X-Files (1993-2002) and Millenium (1996-1999) to Space: Above and Beyond (1995-1995), with Futurama (various, 1999-now) an animated series created by The Simpsons creator Matt Groening following a shiftless delivery guy cryogenically frozen and revived in 2999. Although originally cancelled after four seasons, like its main character the show was revived first as direct to video specials then by Comedy Central and again by Hulu.

The 21st century did not bring us the robots or flying cars many earlier science fiction properties had predicted, but it did continue to bring science fiction comedy to television starting with (the infamous) action comedy Cleopatra 2525 (syndicated, 2000-2001). A play on the Buck Rogers formula (also used in The Second Hundred Years and Futurama) the show followed a bubbly stripper cryogenically frozen after a botched cosmetic surgery revived after 500 years into a world where machines have taken over and resistance fighters live underground. Although technically a kids’ show on a kids’ network, Invader Zim (Nickelodeon, 2001-2006) collected many adult viewers as a diminutive and incompetent alien tried to conquer the Earth while masquerading as a child. The Sci-Fi Channel’s Eureka (2006-2012) was an hour long dramedy centered on a straight laced cop who becomes the new sheriff in Eureka, a town filled with eccentric super geniuses and their experiments. Chuck (NBC, 2007-2012), also an hour long action comedy, told the story of a lovable, under-achieving nerd who is forced to become a super-spy when a powerful government computer system is downloaded into his brain. It was reminiscent of earlier, more serious UPN series Jake 2.0 (2003) which saw an NSA computer expert accidentally injected with nanobots which essentially granted him superpowers. 

The 2010s continued the trend of hour long science fiction comedy dramas, first with No Ordinary Family (ABC, 2010-2011). The show centered on a family who acquired super powers after a plane crash. The Neighbors (ABC, 2012-2014), about a family who discovers all the other residents of their gated community are actually aliens, returned to a classic thirty minute sitcom format. Also following the classic sitcom format was the Yahoo! Screen streaming series Other Space (2015) which boasted MST3k cast members Trace Beaulieu and Joel Hodgson among the crew of a space ship trapped in another universe. BrainDead (CBS, 2016) was another hour long series, this one with political satire overtones, about a congressional staffer who discovers aliens are taking over members of the US government. Hulu’s FutureMan (2017-2020) more or less stuck to the sitcom format, although it could stretch its episodes a few minutes thanks to the streaming format. It told the story of an underachieving janitor recruited to fight a war in the future after being recruited through a video game. The same year Fox premiered The Orville (2017-now), which eventually moved to Hulu for its third season. The hour long comedy drama centers on a new starship captain forced to take his ex-wife as his first officer.

The 2020s started with science fiction comedy stalwart Red Dwarf still putting out new material and would eventually see both Futurama and MST3k returning to production. HBO offered Hugh Laurie as a luxury starship captain in sitcom formatted Avenue 5 (2020-2022) and Star Trek: Lower Decks (Paramount+, 2020-now) became the franchises’ second animated series and first comedy focused series (and as far as I am concerned the best of the current Star Trek shows).

What does the future hold for science fiction comedies? Definitely more animation with Hulu announcing Futurama has been renewed through 2025 and a fifth season of Star Trek: Lower Decks in production. The Orville’s future is up in the air, with creator Seth MacFarlane recently saying the show was not cancelled but its future was unsure. However, with over six decades of history and more content providers than ever, it seems a good bet science fiction comedy will continue to be seen on American television screens… at least until we get those flying cars and robots.

Gil Kane: More Than Superhero Comics

Despite his death in 2000, Gil Kane is a familiar name to many comic book readers today. He is credited as a co-creator of two highly recognizable superheroes: Marvel’s Iron Fist and the modern incarnation of Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) for DC Comics. He is widely known as a comic book artist with credits on many 1970s and 1980s series including Teen Titans, Spider-Man, Hulk and Agents of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. He also is given credit for the Silver Age version of The Atom and for the co-creation of Morbius, The Living Vampire. Many of his characters have found new life in movies, video games and television series so it is only natural he is associated with mainstream comic books.

However, Gil Kane was a much more prolific and ambitious artist than many of today’s science fiction and fantasy fans realize. He pioneered elevating sequential art from comic strips and comic books to graphic novels. Even if you are not a fan of comics, if you grew up in the 1980s his cartoon work may have been part of your daily after-school viewing.

Born Eli Katz in 1926, his family emigrated to New York from Latvia before Kane was old enough to attend school. He grew up in Brooklyn and studied at the School of Industrial Arts, a technical high school in Manhattan. While in high school he started visiting New York comic book publishers and eventually dropped out of high school senior year to work at MLJ Comics, the publisher of Archie titles. His soon moved to Jack Binder’s agency, which did work for hire for comic publishers, before returning to MLJ. After serving in the Pacific Theater during World War II, he returned to comics. Kane later said he did some television work in the early 1950s drawing storyboards.

In the mid 1950s he began regularly working for National Comics (which became DC Comics) before moving to Marvel in the late 1960s. Kane was the artist for the famous 1971 Amazing Spider-Man storyline featuring the dangers of drug abuse (and produced in co-operation with the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare) which had to be published without the Comics Code Authority seal of approval. Kane’s mainstream comic career would continue with both DC and Marvel for the rest of his life.

Collaborating with writer Archie Goodwin, Kane illustrated His Name Is… Savage. The self published 40 page magazine sized comic was a science fiction espionage story actually aimed at adult readers. Although not the first comic aimed at older readers (St. John Publications had tried digest sized detective comics aimed at adults as early as 1950 and Warren Publications, Goodwin’s regular employer, had been aiming at older readers with their magazine sized horror comics Eerie, Creepy and Vampirella since the mid-1960s), it was an important step forward for both graphic novels and artist/author owned works. Kane made an even more daring step in the direction of adult-oriented graphic novels in 1971 when Bantam Books published Blackmark. 

The size of a standard Bantam paperback book, Blackmark is a post-apocalyptic barbarian story told primarily with black and white illustrations. Although a bit text heavy in the narrative, it is a standard book sized comic which was sold at bookstores alongside other Bantam paperbacks as opposed to on newsstands with comic books. The plan was for a series of books but poor sales led to the cancellation of project by Bantam. A sequel was eventually published in the magazine sized Marvel Preview #17 in 1979.

Even while continuing to work in comics Gil Kane branched out to other projects. In 1977 he collaborated with science fiction author Ron Goulart to create and produce Star Hawks, a comic strip with both daily and weekend features. For the first two years of its run Star Hawks was double the size of a normal strip allowing for more panels and advanced storylines. It ran for almost four years (over 1,200 strips) with two tie-in novels (Empire 99 and The Cyborg King) written by Goulart and illustrated by Kane, who also did the cover of the first novel. 

By the early 1980s Kane was working with Ruby-Spears and other animation companies. Although sources vary wildly on exactly how much they contributed to the series, Gil Kane and legendary comics artist and writer Jack Kirby worked on The Centurions. Sometimes described as co-creators, IMDB credits the pair as creative consultants. Kane’s other animation credits include Lazer Tag Academy, Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos, Rambo, Pirates of Dark Waters and Bionic Six. Kane’s work was all over both Saturday morning and after-school cartoons in the late 1980s and early 1990s, introducing more kids to science fiction and fantasy even if they never read a comic book.

Over his long career, Gil Kane received several National Cartoonists Society Awards for his work in comic books and comic strips. He also received a Shazam Award, and Inkpot Award and has been inducted into both the Eisner Award Hall of Fame and Harvey Award Jack Kirby Hall of Fame. He passed away on January 31, 2000. His characters continue to be featured in comics books, television shows and movies.

To learn more about Gil Kane in his own words, check out this interview (over two hours!) conducted by John Kozak for an unmade documentary and posted to YouTube by Mr. Kozak.

Saturday Morning Apocalypse

Recently I caught a member of “Generation Z” on TV arguing about global warning with, honestly, more emotion than facts in their arsenal. It was merely background noise as I ate breakfast in my hotel room until they declared “Older generations don’t know what it is like to grow up knowing the end of the world is coming!”

I laughed so hard hotel coffee came out my nose (it hurt but frankly it smelled better than it tasted). 

Being born in 1972, I am firmly Generation X. I can’t really speak to how the Greatest Generation felt as they went through World War II and saw the first, and thankfully only, uses of the atomic bomb in war. Nor can I really cover how the Boomers felt growing up; that is my parents’ generation. They grew up in the shadow of the atomic bomb, though, and lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. But Generation X I can speak about: my generation ate the apocalypse and crapped Armageddon.

No, seriously. This isn’t just a “Shut up, kid, your generation sucks” moment. Let’s turn our sensors to television, specifically Saturday moning catoons, Gen X grew up with. The end of the world loomed large when I was growing up. Older Gen X kids grew up with Walter Cronkite reporting casualty numbers on the news every night and nuclear attack drills at school. Before Gen X all hit college the crack epidemic and the violence it came with took over the nightly news. Kids were carrying guns and killing each other, sex had become potentially lethal with AIDS and there were still enough nuclear weapons around to destroy the world something like 250 times over. We were assigned reading such as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Hal Lindsey had prime time specials and a feature film documentary. Music would lead you to suicide. Playing Dungeons and Dragons would also lead you to suicide, possibly after being possessed. Pop music like 99 Luftballoons by Nina and Prince’s 1999 added a beat to our impending doom. It was hard, very hard, for kids like me to imagine getting as old as I am now.

And television reflected this reality in many ways. Sitcoms like Mr Belvedere had very special episodes about children with AIDS. What are you, eight years old? Hey, you could get this terrifying new lethal disease, too but be nice when you meet other kids who have it! AIDS was also covered in afterschool specials along with teen pregnancy, suicide, date rape and “The Day My Kid Went Punk.” I went punk… I am literally wearing a Black Flag t-shirt as I write. Maybe I should get my parents to watch that one and see what they say about it. Anyway, TV movies such as 1983’s The Day After examined what would happen after a “limited” nuclear war and schools told parents both to shield kids from the difficult subject matter and make it family viewing. It was so successful (and scared so many kids) in the US it forced the UK to make their own TV movie on the subject, Threads, the next year. Then it turned up on Superstation TBS in early 1985.

That was serious, though, arguably all adult stuff. Our visions of apocalypse came in lighter fare too! As revealed in the surprise ending of the 1968 film Planet of the Apes and its sequels, things would go very poorly for humanity in the future resulting in subjugation by the intelligent apes created to be servants to man. Adventures of human rebels in the ape world would come to the small screen courtesy of CBS in 1974. The 1976 film Logan’s Run, which ended with the main characters venturing out into a post-apocalyptic world, would also come to CBS as a TV series in 1977. Between these two shows Space 1999 followed the crew of Moonbase Alpha as they wandered through space after a nuclear disaster tears the moon from Earth’s orbit. While not directly post-apocalyptic this could not have been good from Earth and we will get back to the loss of the moon theme in a second. These were prime time shows set after the destruction of the world as we knew it… but the apocalypse came to Saturday morning cartoons, too!

A year after its live action TV debut Return to the Planet of the Apes brought the Apes franchise to Saturday morning television. Also premiering that year was the live action Saturday morning series ARK II from Filmation (the same folks who made Shazam, The Secrets of Isis and the ‘70s Ghost Busters with F-Troop’s Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch). It followed a group of young explorers in a sweet Damnation Alley style vehicle exploring the wastelands of 25th century Earth. ARK II, I believe, did not see civilization fall due to nuclear war but because of pollution and disease. ARK II was successful enough for Filmation to release two more live action Saturday morning science fiction shows (all three of which are hard to find today; there were DVD releases several years ago). 1977’s Space Academy told the story of cadets at a futuristic training academy on an asteroid. They often dealt with refugees, lost colonists and planets about to explode. Space Academy featured Lost In Space’s Jonathan Harris as the Academy’s head. 1978’s Jason of Star Command was a spin off which followed a secret agent working out of Space Academy.  The first season was a movie serial-like series presented as a fifteen minute segment of the Tarzan and the Super 7 animated series with Star Trek’s James Doohan in the cast. The second season was in a standard 30 minute episode format. While not overtly apocalyptic, Jason usually battled Dragos, played by Sid Haig. Evil clown Captain Spaulding of Rob Zombie’s Firefly Family movie series was a Saturday morning villain for my generation… Think about that: before House of 1,000 Corpses there was Jason of Star Command.

There was also a trend, while not quite apocalyptic, of returning to the prehistoric in 1970s kids’ programming. Best remembered is 1974’s Land of the Lost (the Sid and Marty Krofft production which spawned a 1991 reboot series and the 2009 film) about a family somehow sent back to prehistoric times. David Gerrold, who wrote the Star Trek episode The Trouble With Tribbles, was the series’ story editor. That same year Hanna-Barbera launched Valley of the Dinosaurs, an animated series with basically the same premise minus Sleestaks. Also in 1974, ABC ran the live action Saturday morning series Korg: 70,000 BC. Created by Fred Freiberger, who produced the third season of Star Trek and the second season of Space 1999, this strange offering was also produced by Hanna-Barbera. Korg presented the struggles of a Neanderthal family in a documentary style narrated by Burgess Meredith.

But the pinnacle of Saturday morning post-apocalyptic television combined the prehistoric feel of Korg and Valley of the Dinosaurs, science fiction flair from Star Wars and the actual destruction of the world as we know it in Thundarr the Barbarian. This Ruby-Spears cartoon premiered in 1980 and, at least when I was a kid in St. Louis, was the last cartoon on Saturdays before ABC kicked off its Wide World of Sports. After two seasons, by the way, ABC cancelled the show but NBC picked it up as re-runs for at least another year. The opening of Thundarr explained, over dramatic music, how a rogue planet had smashed into the moon, obliterating it, wreaking havoc on the Earth and destroying civilization. 2,000 years later Earth is full of mutants and evil wizards who wield both magic and science. Thundarr, an escaped slave, rides with Ookla the Mok (a kind of lion-man meets Wookie) and Princess Ariel (a sorceress, not a mermaid) through the wastelands of North America pitting his righteous anger and “fabulous sun sword” (picture a light saber which connects magnetically to Thundarr’s gauntlet when not in use) against pretty much anyone who looks at them funny or oppresses the weak. The show delighted in dropping obvious hints about where Thundarr and his companions were… New York, Denver, Mount Rushmore and even my own home town of St. Louis were shown as dangerous hellscapes.

If you are not Generation X then I want you to think about that for a minute: my Saturday morning entertainment included glimpses of the city where I lived as a dangerous mutated landscape after the world is destroyed by a freak space disaster. Future survivors in the shadow of the Gateway Arch are shown enslaved by the wizard Skullus to fuel his fight against his rival sorcerer Octagon. What is the future going to be like, kid? Bleak and dangerous as humanity tries to pick out a pitiful existence among the ruins of everything you know…

Cartoons are over, now go play!

Reclaiming My Childhood (One Toy At A Time)

When I was a kid, I mean like elementary school, back in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s my little brother and I had a bunch of cool toys. We grew up in the post-Star Wars toy era which also happened to be the second action figure explosion. Where the popularity of the original 12” GI Joe had led to Captain Action, Major Matt Mason, Mego licensed figures and more the Kenner Star Wars action figures launched a 3 and 3/4th inch revolution which extended to Fisher Price’s Adventure People and, of course, the GI Joe: A Real American Hero line. But Star Wars also brought an tsunami of science fiction toys. We had Battlestar Galactica toys (the Viper, the Cylon Raider and the really lame wheeled thing with a Viper front section… lame), Space 1999 disc shooters (the plastic discs were basically the “stun” setting… pennies were our preferred ammunition) and I remember desperately wanting the Eagle and Moonbase Alpha action figures. Another spaceship I was obsessed with was Milton Bradley’s Star Bird. It was so incredibly cool because its rocket engine noise changed as you moved the ship! And its lasers could actually shoot at targets! Don’t take my word for it, check out this commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhuTdX9n6DQ. Sadly, I never got either.

Two great science fiction lines we did have some toys from were Mattel’s Shogun Warriors and Micronauts from Mego. Although very different toys, both of these lines were actually licensed from Japan. Shogun Warriors were a series of robot toys (plus Godzilla and Rodan) licensed from Popy, a division of Bandai, with all designs originating in manga and anime. Shogun Warriors came in three basic sizes: a 3” series, a 5” series, both die-cast metal, and giant 24” plastic figures which shot missiles, fighter planes, buzz saws, battle axes and, in the case of Raydeen (which my brother and I both had) a big plastic fist. Later there were toys which transformed from robot to vehicle (years before Gobots or Transformers came to America). Micronauts were a license of Takara’s Microman line. It featured 3 and 3/4” figures which were mainly transparent and chromed plastic. They had interchangeable accessories which often connected to a small hole in the back (like the GI Joe backpacks). They also had vehicles and bases with interchangeable parts allowing for a near infinite ability to customize the toys… you were only limited by how many toys you owned. There was also a line of Magno Micronauts, die cast robotic looking armored warriors and their mounts with magnetic joints and interchangeable accessories and weapons. They shot plastic missiles, too, because all the best toys were dangerous. I am pretty sure their fists shot off, too. We co-opted the two lines in our play with the 24” Raydeen Shogun Warriors becoming the ultimate weapons of our Micronaut factions (and sometimes the giant gods they worshipped).

Eventually, I believe all of these toys were passed along to younger cousins along with our Star Wars and GI Joe toys. Then they all faded into the mists of history. 

I love toys. I really never stopped buying toys… I am 51 years old and I still buy Lego sets (I doubt there has been a year in the last 45 or so which has not seen me buying a Lego set or six). My Nintendo collection is a discussion for another time. Although I look back with nostalgia to Star Wars toys and my old GI Joe stuff, I am content to leave them in my childhood. I can’t really make the same claim for all my old toys!

A few years ago, when Gerry Anderson the creator and producer of Space 1999 passed away you could literally buy one of the Eagle studio models from his estate cheaper than the action figure sized Eagle toy (in the original box) I wanted for Christmas. Needless to say, I still don’t have an Eagle! There is a real lesson to be learned there: rebuilding (and completing) your childhood toy collection is an expensive proposition. 

A while ago (maybe two years ago or so) I decided I really, really needed to finally get a Milton Bradley Star Bird. I wanted one so badly back in the day and I think what jumpstarted my interest was finding some Star Bird inspired miniatures while picking up some spaceships for tabletop war games. Star Birds are not cheap, but I managed to pick up a few pieces on eBay which were in my budget. While searching for those I looked for the 24” Shogun Warriors and they were insanely expensive… I have literally paid less for used cars! But the desire for Shogun Warriors and Micronauts remained and the search (on a budget) continued.

I am not above visiting thrift stores and garage sales for old toys. My wife was a serious and dedicated garage saler for a long time, especially when she had to find supplies for her woefully underfunded urban elementary school classroom. She has come home and presented me with $5 boxes of Raspberry Pi boards and accessories and one time announced she had spend “a lot of money” ($20) on something that I better say I loved even if it was stupid… She had found me a working Nintendo Virtual Boy with two controllers and three games. I did not need to pretend I loved it!

But the truth is, I don’t really expect to find any of the old toys I want at a garage sale or Goodwill. Since most of these toys haven’t been on the shelves of retail stores for about 45 years it would be a pretty major stroke of luck to find anything that way. I am pretty much resigned to the fact eBay, dedicated collectible toy dealers and other collectors are my best bets. Since I constantly travel for my “grown up job” I am able to look for collectible toy stores (and used book stores) across the country. And I have plenty of hotel downtime to scour eBay when I have a little extra cash. The key is staying within my budget but I have been pretty good about it thanks to a few decisions I have made about my collecting.

First, I want nice toys but not pristine toys. I have pretty much given up on finding these with original boxes, much less still in their original packaging. Some distant day if I find a Shogun Warriors Godzilla in an unopened box and have the disposal income to drop on it, I probably would buy it. But I might not. While I can’t say I am going to run around and play with these toys the way I would have back in 1978 I can say I want to see them, not display packaging, and actually handle them. If I have grandchildren some day, I might want to even play with them again. Ironically, I have purchased some modern toys which I do keep unopened and simply displayed. I also picked up a nice Star Bird Intruder, the “bad guy” in the toy line, with its original box. It was not complete (ie it did not have the directions) but the box was in good condition and since I was able to grab it for about the price of a good Star Bird Intruder without a box I jumped on it. I might end up trading the box in the future. But when it comes to vintage toys my focus is the toy, not the packaging!  

Second, I am starting small. In the case of Shogun Warriors, I mean that literally. Although I was probably aware of the smaller, die-cast toys when I was 6 they were not really on my mind when I set out looking for Shogun Warriors. While researching the line I ran across the smaller figures and some research showed a decent 3” piece was WAAAAY cheaper than a decent 24” figure. By way cheaper I mean about $15 to $30 as opposed to $700 or $800! Some day I want all the Shogun Warriors but for now I am sticking with the smaller figures. I am applying this same strategy to my search for Micronauts, by the way, looking for the single plastic figures but so far I have not acquired anything in that line.

Another strategy I am using I refer to as the “OPAAT” method. I don’t know if you are familiar with the 1976 song “One Piece At A Time” by Johnny Cash (it was his last number one on the country charts), but it is about a guy who worked for years at a car factory. When he retired he built a car out of all the small parts he had snuck out of the factory over the years. While Johnny’s car was a Frankenstein vehicle with two different headlights from two different model years, I am trying to get all the correct parts for toys. But I do not need to buy complete toys. I am fine with the idea of getting a 5” die cast Shogun Warrior or a Micronaut vehicle for a good price that is missing some of the accessories (like those plastic missiles) and then finding replacement parts separately. I have purchased the “cockpit” of a Star Bird, which held the electronics and detached from the main body of the toy, just because it had working electronics and the stickers were in good shape even though most of the toy was missing.

I am also fine, by and large, with not acquiring instructions or bonus comics which may have been included in original packaging. The one exception to that, though, is catalogs. If I had chance to grab a cheap Micronauts toy catalog, for example, I would. It would be for research purposes as much as collecting purposes.

I am also willing to trade with other toy collectors. This means I am willing to buy multiple pieces I already own just for trade. It also means I am willing to jump on a great deal for things I don’t really collect just to offer in trade. Even though I have never owned a PSP, I have snatched up a few PlayStation Portable games in the past for a few dollars simply to trade away for games I did want. Right now I don’t have a huge reserve of toys to trade, but I am slowly building up my barter stock!

My last strategy is a little hard to explain and it kind of varies by toy line. It is kind of rooted in the old “restoration versus original condition” debate. Some things I am willing to leave as I found them, other than some minor cleaning, but not always. I have two 3” Shogun Warriors (Mazinga and Dragun) which I have cleaned. Both figures have chipped paint, which I can live with, and their metallic stickers are faded and scratched. I have purchased replacement metallic tape but I have yet to apply it to either. Right now I am happy with these little guys as they are but that could change. However, some things cry out for more than just simple clean up or restickering when it comes to restoration.

For example, I found a really cheap Milton Bradley Star Bird with most, but not all, of the pieces and working electronics for really, really cheap. At some point it had been dropped (or thrown), cracked and glued back together. Over the years the glue had yellowed at a very different rate than the white plastic body. Pure collectors would have considered this piece junk only worth purchasing to crack open and harvest the original electronics for some future restoration project.

I decided to buy this highly damaged toy. The body, though scarred by glue, was intact. The detachable engine was included although the gun turret and other detachable pieces were not. Still, I was able to acquire the damaged Star Bird for a few dollars (less than $20 including shipping). My plan is not to “restore” the toy because it will never be able to be restored to anything near its original condition. Instead I am going to clean the plastic, then sand the glue down where it is lumpy and fill in the gaps left by the cracks. Once the plastic body is in good physical condition I will paint it even though the Star Bird was not a painted toy.

I am going to treat this Star Bird almost as if it was a model kit or display. I will paint the body white since the plastic is irrevocably stained by the glue, add details and then paint the detachable pieces. Because I am not restoring it to the original issue condition I am not worried about finding original replacement parts. Instead I plan on using my 3D resin printer to make new wingtip pieces, a new gun turret and battery cover. I have already sourced modern vinyl replacement stickers for the Star Bird and am trying to decide between recreating the sticker images with paint or simply using the new replacement stickers. My Star Bird Intruder (that bad guy ship I mentioned before) is in very nice shape but has a few scratched up stickers. I plan on removing the original stickers, cleaning the black plastic body and then applying modern recreation stickers to bring that toy to a “like new” condition, essentially restoring it. Some collectors would argue the new stickers have ruined its value and I am fine with that. I just want it to look cool!

The thing about collecting is that different collectors have very different goals. Some are like historians or museum curators and want everything to be as original and pristine as possible. Others are toy doctors who want to restore these beloved old pieces. And some are just big kids who want to play with everything they acquire. There is no right way to do it although a little research, from learning the going prices for pieces to finding out how to tell vintage pieces from re-issues, is going to help any collector! The main thing, especially when it comes to collecting toys, is to find the things that make you happy. 

Out Of The Sewers… The World’s Most Successful Indie Comic?

The last few years it has seemed comic books have invaded movies and television. Movie theaters, streaming services, cable and even broadcast television have been filled with superheroes… While this is nothing new in one sense, Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) ushered in a new era of live action film and television projects aimed at older audiences. Earlier forays of comic characters into both the big and small screen had been mainly aimed at children and almost always animated. Sure, Superman and Spiderman had both spawned live action television series (as had Batman) but they were firmly rooted in family friendly adventure. The success of Batman and its darker view of the Dark Knight started a comic book adaptation renaissance leading to non-super hero books, such as Men In Black and later Cowboys and Aliens and even The Walking Dead, getting their chance at Hollywood as well as foreign comic characters (such as Judge Dredd, even though Stallone kind of butchered that… at least Karl Urban gave every fan what they really wanted several years later with Dredd) and comparatively minor heroes (Steel). Still, it was the big two publishers (DC and Marvel) who reigned over the comic book movies then and, honestly, still do today.

However, there was one breakout comic book hit which spawned seven theatrical films, four animated TV series, a live action TV show, a fistful of straight to TV or video animated films, about two dozen video games and so many wonderful toys. A simple story of four brothers, their adopted father and friends united in a battle against evil ninja clans and trans-dimensional aliens: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Mirage Studios was started in 1983, almost fifty years after Superman had burst on to the scene, by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in New Hampshire (which was not exactly the center of the publishing, entertainment or comic book universes… and honestly still isn’t). Legend says they used a tax refund and a loan from a relative to start their independent comic book publishing company and the very next year they introduced their biggest hit: a black and white series called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. True to the title, it featured teenaged brothers named after great Italian painters who happened to be mutated turtles (raised by a mutated rat) living in the sewers and practicing the ancient art of ninjitsu. Although the genesis of the franchise was a joke, a parody of popular comic books of the day, Turtles was not a joke when it hit the comic book shops nor was it meant for children.

Even though the comic book was not marketed to kids, in 1987 Mirage struck a deal with Playmates to produce a line of toys. This lead to an animated after school series the same year which ran for 10 seasons. There have since been three additional animated series (combining for 14 seasons between them) and a live action series (1997’s Ninja Turtles The Next Mutation, produced by the same people who were making Power Rangers at the time… and yes, the Turtles met the Power Rangers).

The first live action movie was released in 1990, followed by two sequels. A CGI animated film hit theaters in 2007 and in 2014 the first of two Michael Bay produced Turtles films premiered. This year a new animated film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, was released and you can now see it on Paramount+ (along with most of the previous Turtle releases). There have also been at least two dozen video game releases for home gaming systems. By the early 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had sold over one billion dollars worth of toys alone and in 1994 it was estimated 6.4 billion dollars of TMNT merchandise had been sold worldwide. Kevin Eastman sold his interest in Turtles to Peter Laird in 2000. Eastman had purchased the influential adult oriented comic magazine Heavy Metal in the early 1990s and concentrated on it and other interests for a time. (He sold Heavy Metal in 2014 but held a minority interest and continued to edit the publication until 2020).

Peter Laird sold the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise to Viacom and 2009 and IDW has been publishing TMNT comics since 2011. Kevin Eastman has contributed to the IDW series and co-wrote the mini-series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin which is currently available as a collected edition in bookstores and Walmarts across the United States.

Why has Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles been so incredibly popular? Honestly, now one can argue it is riding a wave of nostalgia as today’s young parents can look back on their now childhoods and memories of the pizza eating “Cowabunga” yelling cartoon ninjas. But there is more than simple Gen Z nostalgia at work; the Turtles are good, relatable and likable characters. (Yes, I said the mutated turtles are characters you can relate to and I stand by that!). If you have never read an issue of TMNT maybe it is time you started; there is probably a collection or two at your local library. If you can, start at the beginning with the black and white comics. And if you haven’t watched the Turtles in a while (or ever) I suggest skipping the Michael Bay films and heading straight for the recent Mutant Mayhem or the 2007 CGI film which boasts Patrick Stewart, Lawrence Fishburne, Chris Evans, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ziyi Zhang among its cast.

The Glory And Disappointments of “New Trek”

A Brief History of The Final Frontier

Star Trek is a global cultural phenomenon. Whether a fan or not, you simply can not deny its impact since the broadcast premiere of The Man Trap on September 8, 1966. Terms such as “warp speed,” “tractor beam” and “cascade failure” may not have originated on the show, but they entered the popular vernacular due to Star Trek, not to mention “Klingon” and “Spock.” Scientists, engineers and astronauts have been inspired by the show and NASA even christened a space shuttle “Enterprise” in honor of the show’s famous starship after a fan letter writing campaign aimed at President Gerald Ford.

This was hardly the first letter writing campaign in the show’s history. In danger of being cancelled after its second season, fans of the original Star Trek (now often called The Original Series), launched a massive letter writing campaign which famously saved the show and led to a third season. This not only made waves in the world of corporate media but galvanized the fans into a new breed of rabid pop-culture enthusiasts. Although science fiction conventions had been around since at least the 1930s and fan clubs even longer, the 1972 Star Trek Lives! convention launched the modern pop culture convention era. Both fan-fiction and cosplay were popularized by Star Trek fans as well.

The dedicated fan base only grew as re-runs of the show entered syndication, which in turn launched efforts to return the series to production. And these efforts succeeded. First, the original crew (and much of the original cast) returned to television in 1973 as a Saturday morning cartoon (Star Trek: The Animated Series). Then came real movement towards a return of the series which eventually transformed to 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture. A slew of successful sequels followed and Star Trek finally returned to television in 1987 with Star Trek: The Next Generation. The franchise continued to grow with Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise as well as a total of five sequels to The Motion Picture and an additional four films based on The Next Generation, the last of which premiered in 2002. The last episode of Enterprise, the sixth broadcast series, aired in 2005. Although books, comics and video games continued to be produced, the Star Trek franchise did not produce any new film or television until a new movie series in 2009 which featured new (younger) actors playing the familiar characters. This, essentially, was a reboot of Star Trek. It was not the original series but was firmly established as an alternate timeline (dubbed by fans the Kelvinverse).

With the launch of Paramount’s new streaming service Star Trek would return to the episodic series format, although no longer on free, broadcast television. It was announced the new series, Discovery, would take place before the Original Series, but in the same universe and timeline. Soon, two new animated series, and two additional live action shows and a handful of shorts joined Discovery, all streaming on the Paramount pay service (although one of the animated series also ran on the cable network Nickelodeon).

Trekkies, Trekkers, Whatever: Star Trek’s Very Special Fans

Star Trek is hardly the oldest science fiction franchise (not even the oldest science fiction TV franchise still running… Doctor Who and the Ultra Series both pre-date it) nor is it the most prolific (the Ultra Series has produced more television series and more films). It is not even the only science fiction property to take on the day’s social issues. Nonetheless, Star Trek is arguably the most influential science fiction franchise of all time. 

There are literally books and documentaries about the history of Star Trek, its cultural influence and its production. Creator Gene Roddenberry, his production crew and the original cast came together to create a franchise which has lasted almost sixty years. I do not wish to denigrate or cheapen these efforts in any way, nor do I want to enter into the fray and opine on who deserves credit for various aspects of the show and/or what made Star Trek unique. I want to focus on a huge aspect of Star Trek’s success and influence: the fans.

All television (really all media) relies on creating and retaining fans. For television shows bigger audiences mean higher ratings, higher ad revenues and and better chance of renewal. Star Trek has a very special and dedicated fan base. As I already mentioned, the show was actually saved from cancellation after a fan letter writing campaign in the late 1960s and later Star Trek fans were able to get a space shuttle named after the USS Enterprise. During the original run of the series there was such a demand for photographs, scripts and souvenirs a dedicated mail order company had to be created! In 1972 the first Star Trek focused convention was held in New York. 3,000 fans, at least five or six times the number organizers hoped for, attended causing the event to attract national attention.

Called Trekkies (often derisively) or Trekkers, Star Trek fans gained a reputation for their devotion to the show and often encyclopedic knowledge of the episodes. Thanks to daily syndication in many markets, fans were able to rewatch the entire series as many as three times a year, year after year. Many viewers did just that, making Star Trek a regular part of their days. It was entirely possible that many of those first convention attendees had seen their favorite episodes a half a dozen times. This was a relatively new phenomenon in the age before home video!

However, it went beyond simply knowing the show backwards and forwards. Fans made their own costumes, wrote their own stories and even filmed their own episodes! After the movies created an actual Klingon language, complete with a dictionary, many fans took up the study of Klingonaase. Non-Star Trek books have been translated into the Klingon language, the language teaching app DuoLingo offers it as an option and the Guinness World Records commission recognized Klingonaase as the world’s most popular fictitious language with more speakers than even Esperanto, the language created to be a universal tongue and enable international cooperation almost one hundred years earlier. 

Star Trek and Me

I recently turned 51, so I was born a few months after that first convention, about three years after The Original Series was cancelled and about one year before Star Trek returned in the form of The Animated Series. I vividly remember The Animated Series reruns on Saturday mornings when I was a kid and then, just a couple hours later, The Original Series reruns on Saturday afternoon. Although Star Trek was regularly on in my house when I was a kid, it definitely got skipped over if there was a baseball or interesting college football game on! I honestly do not remember the Mego Star Trek toys. I do remember having a kite with the USS Enterprise (animated version) hanging in my room when I was about six and I know I had Star Trek Viewmaster reels from both live action and animated episodes. Still, I can’t say I was a huge Star Trek fan when I was very small.

By the time I was in second grade my parents had a problem: I read at a high school level. That does not sound like a problem, but it was. Although I read with the comprehension of a high school student I was still only seven years old. Books which were appropriate for my age level were ridiculously easy for me to read and books which were appropriate for my reading skills were full of language and concepts which were simply not rated PG (much less G). The local librarian provided the answer when she asked me one day if I liked Star Trek. The library had all twelve of the books collecting Star Trek episodes. Written by James Blish, each of these paperbacks featured several episodes in the form of short stories. They were written for adults, the librarian reasoned, but based on a show suitable for prime time network television. 

These books were perfect! Today they seem like strange digest versions of the television episodes… which is essentially what they were. Again, this was an era without home video. For a seven year old with an overblown vocabulary they were perfect. The James Blish Star Trek episode collections led me to the Bantam paperbacks, as well as novelizations of Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars. By the time Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out in late 1979 I was a major fan. Over forty years later I still remember the day my mother took my little brother and I to see The Motion Picture. I can tell you which McDonald’s we went to beforehand to feast on Star Trek themed Happy Meals and the movie theater we chose. I also know for a fact I waited to read the novelization of the film until after I saw the movie. It also probably goes without saying but over forty years later and I am still a fan.

To be honest, I do not consider myself any kind of Star Trek super fan. Sure, I own all of the movies on blu-ray… as well as The Original and Animated Series and at least one season of Enterprise. I will also admit to two shelves crammed full of Star Trek books (both fiction and non-fiction). I own a pretty good amount of Star Trek comics, mainly in digital form thanks to a DVD-Rom which came out a few years ago collecting every Star Trek comic book up to its production. Oh yeah, I also have an unknown number of Star Trek ebooks… but that is because publishers Simon and Schuster offer 99¢ ebooks every month (you can find those each month here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/p/star-trek-ebook-deals). And even though I really do not consider myself a Star Trek super fan I must admit I have seen every single episode and film. In fact, during the first year of Discovery I rewatched every episode and film in the order they were released. (In my own defense let me say I travel a great deal… and I was also very interested in the evolution of a fictional universe with many contributors as a kind of academic exercise. Taking on Star Trek was easier than trying to reading 80 years of DC comics or tracking down all the Perry Rhodan books!)

Okay, stop yelling! Many of you have read all that and are almost screaming at me: “You really don’t think you are a super fan? Did you hear what you just said?” I get where you might look at the last paragraph and want to brand me with a big ol’ TREKKIE SUPERFAN stamp across the forehead. I completely understand but I would argue there are really much more dedicated Star Trek fans than yours truly! I am an unapologetic Star Trek fan but I pale in comparison to many fans! I don’t cosplay, I don’t memorize trivia and I don’t even speak Klingon.

Paramount Plus And “New Trek”

Five or six years ago, after a series of successful Star Trek reboot films set in an alternate timeline (thereby preserving the canon of the pre-reboot series and films) Paramount announced they were producing a new Star Trek television series. It would only be available on their streaming platform, which is currently called Paramount+ (I think it was called CBS All Access at the time). It really should not come as any surprise, but I purchased an annual subscription. Star Trek: Discovery premiered in 2017, followed by the animated parody series Lower Decks, a few shorts, the live action Picard and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds as well as Prodigy, a second animated series aimed at younger viewers. It ran on the Nickelodeon cable network instead of exclusively on the Paramount streaming service as all the other “New Trek” shows did. Recently, by the way, Paramount announced Prodigy has been cancelled.

When Discovery was announced, it was stated it would be the first of several new Star Trek properties offered on the Paramount streaming platform. Bryan Fuller, the show runner, also stated the show would be set about a decade before The Original Series in the regular Star Trek universe, unlike the reboot films (https://www.simonandschuster.com/p/star-trek-ebook-dealshttps://ew.com/article/2016/08/10/star-trek-tv-series/). At this time it was also teased the main character would be female, would not be a captain and would represent some “level of diversity.” Fuller also stated Discovery would explore something mentioned in Star Trek but never truly explained or explored.

By the time Discovery was set to premiere it was known Sonequa Martin-Green, recently of The Walking Dead, would star and her captain would be played by international superstar Michelle Yeoh. Although I was cooling on The Walking Dead by then, I was a fan of Sonequa Martin-Green and I have been a Michelle Yeoh fan since I saw Supercop and Heroic Trio at the midnight Chinese language movies they used to run in St. Louis back in the early 1990s. 

I had high hopes for a show which would fill in some of the backstory of Star Fleet and the Federation in the years between Enterprise and The Original Series. At the same time, I was nervous. Why? Those damn reboot films! I approached the first warily, but in the first few minutes it established its narrative would be in a different timeline (the so-called Kelvinverse). Perfect! Now they could tell the story of early careers of my favorite characters without erasing the “established history,” or canon, established by the franchise up to that point. I loved that first reboot film up until the last five or ten minutes. 

The first reboot movie ruined itself at the end when James T. Kirk, recently thrown out of Star Fleet Academy saved the day and was recognized as a hero. So far so good. He was NOT rewarded with a re-admission to the Academy so he could finish his education and start his career. This film ended with a promotion straight to Captain, skipping at least four ranks, AND command of the Enterprise (the de facto flagship of Starfleet)! That did not make sense and it kind of erased the goal of telling the story of the beloved characters before they were assigned to the Enterprise because now everyone was assigned to the ship (and they were all basically the same age). Was Starfleet run by idiots or was it just the writers and producers? In all fairness there were probably huge studio pressures to “get to the Star Trek crew everyone loves” so I really can not say who is to blame… but the end result was something I really did not enjoy.

So I had mixed feelings but high hopes when Discovery premiered. I was relieved to find it was a very well written and compelling show but overall I was pretty much immediately disappointed. Before I talk about the highs and lows of the Paramount+ New Trek offerings, let me just say from here on the discussion can not continue without spoilers of Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Picard and maybe even Lower Decks and the so-called “Relaunch” novels…. You have been warned.

Those F’ing Klingons! The Highs and Lows of New Trek

After only a few episodes of Star Trek: Discovery I could sum up all the strengths and weaknesses which have run through not only Discovery but almost all of the New Trek series to follow. The cast was excellent. The characters were compelling and interesting. Episode by episode, the show was well written. Taken on its own Discovery makes you want to come back every week. In the larger context of Star Trek, though, it is kind of a confusing mess. First of all, the main character is a human raised on Vulcan by Vulcans which is a really interesting concept. However she is the adopted sister of Spock… something he had never mentioned over the course of The Original Series, The Animated Series, six movies and various guest spots on other Trek shows, often focusing on his family. She was not even mentioned in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier when it was revealed Spock had a renegade Vulcan half brother named Sybok! It is that last bit which was key to me because with Star Trek V in mind Discovery’s choice to make Michael Burnham Spock’s unknown adopted human sister did not feel brave or surprising but a bit hackneyed. The story of Spock and his family, particularly his relationship with his father, had stretched beyond The Original Series into The Next Generation and into the films. In Star Trek V the revelation Sybok was Spock’s older half-brother could not save an otherwise bad film. In Discovery the revelation Burnham was raised by Sarek and Amanda just seemed like a retread of a previous idea.

Worse yet, Discovery changed the Klingons again and completely without explanation. The Klingons, of course, had a rather famous and massive re-design in The Motion Picture. Why did the Klingons of The Original Series look so different than their movie counterparts? An explanation was something avoided by the franchise for years. In fact, Deep Space Nine famously made fun of the issue when Worf and other crew from the show traveled back in time to participate in the events of the Original Series episode “The Trouble With Tribbles” (which featured the modern actors digitally inserted into several vintage scenes). When the DS9 crew see the Original Series style Klingons Worf simply says “It is something we do not discuss.” In fact, the show made things even worse by bringing back several prominent Klingons from The Original Series played by the original actors but now in the modern style Klingon makeup. Eventually, the mysteries of the Klingons’ appearance were settled in Enterprise (after a rather valiant attempt in FASA’s role playing game) but the truth was Star Trek: The Motion Picture had a movie budget not a weekly television budget. They could make Klingons much more visually impressive so they did. The entire point of The Motion Picture is pretty much to say “Look! Look! See the cool stuff we can do with modern special effects and piles of cash?” That is why the big heroic musical fanfare is not for the entry of any character (not even Admiral Kirk) but reserved for when Kirk and Scotty swing the shuttle around the shipyards and see the newly refitted Enterprise in all of her glory. (And I tear up every time… and I still do not consider myself a superfan!)

Keeping this leeway in mind, I did not mind when the Star Fleet technology of Discovery featured cool holographic displays and slick uniforms instead of randomly flashing lights on silver painted plywood and long sleeved t-shirts despite the fact it was supposed to be a decade before The Original Series. Honestly, it might have been cool to use modern effects technology to create a retro-science fiction look for Discovery but it was not the direction the producers went. However, why change the Klingons? They were entirely alien to both the swarthy actors in dark makeup of The Original Series and the long haired, bone crested warriors of the films and subsequent series. They also seemed to have a slightly different culture. This certainly suggested Discovery was in a different timeline or reality than other Star Trek shows but the producers had flatly stated this was not the case. Why create this issue again? Why were the producers of Discovery blatantly ignoring the history of the franchise? 

The problem got worse as new shows were added. Strange New Worlds follows the crew of the Enterprise under Captain Pike, the man who commanded the ship before James T. Kirk. This was the crew famously featured in the original pilot for Star Trek (parts of which were later used in the episode The Menagerie, which also showed Pike being crippled in a recent accident). Spock and first officer Number One, both featured in the original pilot, are characters in Strange New Worlds but so are Nurse Chapel and Uhura from The Original Series even though there was no reference to either of them serving under Pike. That is an annoying but could probably be overlooked if it were the only time the show felt the need to ignore the Star Trek canon. Of course, it was not!

In The Original Series when it is revealed Spock must return to Vulcan for his wedding everyone is surprised and he states he has not seen his fiancé since they were children. However, his fiancé has made several appearances on Strange New Worlds and both Uhura and Chapel are aware of her. In The Original Series Nurse Chapel has an unrequited love for Spock which he, living under Vulcan disciplines, can never return. In Strange New Worlds, despite the fact he is engaged and everyone knows it, Chapel and Spock are dating. Also in The Original Series episode “The Arena” the Gorn are a mysterious race no one in the Federation has ever seen. They turn out to be thickly built humanoid reptiles… but in Strange New Worlds the Enterprise crew (including a young James T. Kirk who happens to be working with then) have all fought the Gorn. Except these Gorn are reptilian version of the xenomorph from Aliens who like to lay eggs in people so their young can eat their way out. That, by the way, makes them very similar to the Magog from Andromeda, a show created by Gene Roddenberry but not produced until after his death. 

I understand wanting to pit Star Fleet against a much more bestial and scary alien adversary but why change an alien race already established in the show? Just create a new type of alien! Or maybe, as a wink to Roddenberry’s other work, call them the Magog? Why set up yet another conflict with the events as they transpire in The Original Series? Since I mentioned Andromeda I should probably mention its premise, a man from the past who sets out to rebuild a once mighty and benevolent league of planets, also becomes the premise of the later seasons of Discovery!

People have suggested anyone who has problems with New Trek are simply too old and/or conservative for the progressive storylines. I think that probably needs to be addressed. I am old (getting older every day as it turns out) and have been a Star Trek fan for a very long time. I am well aware of its progressive ideals and accomplishments. I think the relationship between Stamets and Dr. Culber (both males) is probably the strongest and best written love story in all of Star Trek (sorry Riker, Troi, Paris and Torres). I will admit to being extremely uncomfortable, though, when Stacey Abrams made a cameo as the president of Earth. I could care less about her politics; it was the fact she is still an active politician which bothered me. I believe she was actually running for the Georgia governorship at the time of her appearance. It struck me the wrong way. I would have no problem with Michelle Obama, for example, appearing as Earth’s president because she was not actively running for office. Including a politician seeking office does not sit well with me but that on its own would not have turned me against Discovery or New Trek in general.

It Comes Down To Canon

When the producers of the current Star Trek series ignore the history of the story as established in the franchise, the canon, of Star Trek I feel like they do not respect the series or me as a fan. Star Trek has always enjoyed a very committed fan base and, in fact, it is only still a viable franchise in 2023 because of those very active and dedicated fans. I do not believe producers or writers need to bend to the general will of fans (fan service is a problem in itself in both science fiction/fantasy in general and in Star Trek) but I do believe fans should be respected. One of the ways a franchise can show respect is to honor the long and established history of the franchise. After all, the existing properties in a franchise are what created the fans in the first place. This seems especially prudent when your fan base is known its devotion to the minutiae of the franchise!

To be fair, canon does not have to be absolute. In Star Trek, for example, there is the Kelvinverse created by the reboot films. Long before it, though, there were already Star Trek properties, such as novels and comic books, creating their own parallel canon to the series. By the way, I think the so-called “relaunch novels,” which follow Picard and the Enterprise after the events of the movie Star Trek: Nemesis are markedly better than the New Trek series Picard. While Picard continues to ignore canon (Jean Luc appeared to completely forget during an extended series of flashbacks about his childhood that he was not an only child and why didn’t anyone ask Worf about Alexander when the crew was talking about their children? And don’t get me started on Lal and Data’s Daughter…) the books not only respected what was established in the television series but built upon it. Also, I feel the books introduced more interesting characters such as T’Ryssa Chen, a half human, half Vulcan who chooses to live as a human.

Other franchises have approached canon in different ways. Comic books have some of the longest histories in science fiction and fantasy, for example, and some interesting approaches to canon. DC Comics basically reboots its story universe every few years, which is why Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent are still relatively young men even though Batman and Superman have been around for over eight decades. Although the core concepts behind characters remain, the story universe is basically refreshed and older storylines often become official variants in the DC multi-verse (although sometimes they go crazy and erase the multi-verses, too!). Japan’s Ultra series tends to take the multiverse approach, too. Some shows (Ultraman, Ultraseven and Return of Ultraman for example) are connected while others are not. Some shows are direct sequels to others while others are independent from the rest. Leiji Matsumoto, the Japanese manga writer and artist, has taken a very different approach to canon with his space pirate character Captain Harlock. The character is consistent but his history and the universe he inhabits change from project to project. In some Earth has been conquered by hostile aliens and Harlock is the last free Earth spaceship captain while in other stories Earth is the hostile oppressor and Harlock is a rebel fighting for freedom. Matsumoto has basically said it is his character and he will do what he wants to tell the story he wants!

Star Trek told its fans the new shows would be part of the regular, established Star Trek universe and timeline and then has ignored the canon of that established universe and timeline. This is the stuff of sub-par comic books and soap opera at best. Given Star Trek’s dedicated fan base, ignoring canon seems almost offensive. It is almost as if the producers of New Trek are saying “Come spend a bunch of money to watch new Star Trek shows because you watch the other shows every night in re-runs and we know you love Star Trek… But if all those shows you have been watching in syndication, on H&I or on BBC America get in the way of what we are doing or make our job as writers a little harder then  we will just ignore them!” You can not have it both ways! Ironically, the New Trek show with the most references to (and maybe even the most respect for) the history of Star Trek is the animated parody series Star Trek: Lower Decks. 

Towards The Future

Soon Star Trek will reach its sixtieth anniversary. Fans new and old will celebrate the long history of the show and the rich collection of stories and characters Star Trek has given its viewers. This will only shine a light on the issues of the newer Star Trek offerings and the current producers’ decisions to simply cast aside the complex and beloved story created over the last six decades whenever it suits them. If Star Trek is going to remain a successful franchise long enough to reach its seventy-fifth anniversary and beyond it will need to stay true to its roots and what has made the franchise so popular for the last sixty years.

The Real Davros: Terry Nation

Although the United Kingdom has a rich history of important contributions to science fiction and fantasy, including notable authors such as HG Wells, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and JRR Tolkien, there is a strong argument to be made for Doctor Who as Great Britain’s greatest science fiction and fantasy contribution. Like any great hero, the good Doctor has been elevated by his foes… and chief among them are the Daleks. 

Debuting in the show’s second story, the Daleks were unlike any alien or monster ever created for television. Although robotic and very alien in appearance they were distinctly non-humanoid. They managed to avoid completely the “man in a suit” look which worked against so many TV and movie monsters and robots in the past to create a very credible and unique threat. Daleks immediately took off and anywhere the BBC could be seen was swept in Dalekmania. The Daleks were so popular they were featured in two films, starring Peter Cushing, which played even in the United States (where Doctor Who was an unknown quantity) and almost got their own US television series.

In the canon of the series, the Daleks are the mutant descendants of Skarro’s Kaled people. After generations of chemical and nuclear warfare they were doomed to evolve from humanoids into octopus-like creatures roving the halls of their city in personalized tanks. These mechanized battle suits, and indeed the progression of the Kaled into Daleks, were masterminded by the crazed Kaled genius Davros. In real life, the Daleks were created by a 34 year old Welsh writer named Terry Nation (August 8, 1930 – March 9, 1997) who had been writing for Tony Hancock’s BBC comedy show.

It is not hyperbole to use the word iconic when describing the Daleks. They have become one of science fiction and fantasy’s greatest and most recognizable villains, easily rivaling the Klingons and the Sith (both of whom they pre-date). Over the years the seemingly one dimensional violent and xenophobic race known for screaming “Exterminate” in terrible, mechanized voices have developed into a multi-faceted violent and xenophobic villain with their own history, motivations and internal conflict. Factions arose among the Daleks, a civil war raged, other enemies were revealed and eventually they challenged not only the Doctor but the Time Lords themselves for control of eternity. Because the BBC actually allowed Nation to retain intellectual property rights for the Daleks, he was personally involved with the majority of stories featuring them during his lifetime. Of the thirteen stories in the original series which feature Daleks*, Nation wrote or co-wrote eight.

The great popularity of the Daleks led to comics, books, two feature adaptations of Dalek stories with a different version of the Doctor (an Earth scientist portrayed by Peter Cushing) and even an attempt to sell a US series in the 1960s featuring a future Earth-Dalek war. Since Terry Nation’s death in 1997, the Daleks have returned in the new Doctor Who series, video games, several Big Finish audio dramas (including Dalek-themed series I, Davros and Dalek Empire) and even as Lego toys. Given their impact, the Daleks alone would be an incredible legacy for Terry Nation. However, he gave more to science fiction and fantasy fans than the Daleks!

When Doctor Who premiered, Nation had primarily worked in comedy (including a feature film screenplay about a reporter faking a Loch Ness monster sighting) although he had penned three episodes of the British science fiction anthology series Out Of This World. After creating the Daleks, Nation finished out the 1960s contributing to horror anthology series Out of the Unknown and writing episodes of The Avengers, spy series The Baron and The Champions, which featured spies with paranormal abilities. Like The Avengers, it would also be aired in teh United States.

In the 1970s, Terry Nation created two science fiction dramas which were highly influential in the United Kingdom, although they received less attention in the US. The first, Survivors, ran for three series starting in 1975. After a Chinese scientist creates a mutated plague which kills 98% of the world’s population, the show follows a group trying to navigate the post-pandemic world in a chilling mix of real life and the later series The Walking Dead. Big Finish has since released several audio plays based on the series and Survivors was also rebooted by the BBC in 2008 for two additional television series. Then, in the wake of the success of Star Wars and the science fiction boom it inspired, Nation created Blake’s 7.

Much like Doctor Who, many US viewers were introduced to Blake’s 7 thanks to airings on PBS in the 1980s. Unlike Doctor Who, Blake’s 7 has never been released on home video in the US (although it is currently available in the US exclusively on the BritBox streaming service). Set in a future where an Orwellian Earth dominates the known galaxy, a group of escaped criminals with an alien spaceship fight to spread freedom. Although definitely a product of the late 1970s and early 1980s in appearance, Blake’s 7 is a surprisingly mature (and often dark) series which offers a much more adult storyline than Star Wars. Arguably an influence on later series, such as Firefly, Farscape and even Star Trek: The Next Generation, Blake’s 7 was bold enough to kill off main characters and included an ambitious, duplicitous and power mad female government official as its main villain. Big Finish has also continued this Terry Nation series in the form of audio plays although attempts to revive the series on television or the silver screen (and there have been a few, including an announced SyFy series) have never materialized.

Terry Nation’s influence on science fiction is undeniable, particularly television science fiction. His name should be as familiar to modern fans as Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas. From the shrill cries of “Exterminate!” recognized by fans around the world as the Dalek battle cry to the more subtle influences of Survivors and Blake’s 7 on later series, Nation has placed his stamp on modern science fiction and the genre is better for it.

(*I am not counting Mission to the Unknown, as it is a single episode stand-alone prequel to The Dalek’s Master Plan. Even though it aired with a different, non-Dalek serial between it and the main serial it is essentially part of The Dalek’s Master Plan. Frontier in Space has Daleks in the final episode, but this ties into the next story Planet of the Daleks, which is arguably a continuation of the same story, so I am counting these two stories as a single unit. Finally, a Dalek makes a brief cameo in The Five Doctors, but it is not central to the story so I am not counting this story in the total either.)

Science Fiction’s Ultra Franchise

In July of 1966 the Japanese tokusatsu (special effects) television series Ultra Q aired its final episode. Intrepid (and stylishly mod) reporter Yuriko would no longer track down stories of the strange and supernatural with her pilot friends Jun and Ippei. The series, from Tsuburaya Productions, had been created by Eiji Tsuburaya the man behind the special effects used in Gojira (Godzilla) and featured a number of strange aliens and other kaiju (giant monsters) In many ways a forerunner to the US series Kolchak and The X-Files (and arguably in the same spirit as Scooby Doo without the dog) the series had been relatively successful over its 28 episode run. 

One week later a live special aired introducing Ultra Q’s replacement to the young audience. This new series would feature Shin Hayata and his companions in the Science Patrol defending Earth from aliens (and kaiju). Luckily, and unknown to the rest of the team, Hayata was able to transform into a giant-sized warrior. Sakurai Kiroko, who starred as Yuriko in Ultra Q, carefully explained in the special she is no longer Yuriko but now portrays Akiko Fuji, the lone female member of the Science Patrol. The next week, on July 17, 1966 the new series, called Ultraman, premiered. It was wildly popular in Japan and by the end of the year United Artists Television brought a translated version (featuring Speed Racer’s voice Peter Fernandez) to US syndication. Shin Ultraman, a big screen reimagining of the original series, was released in Japanese theaters in May of 2022 and will be released for US home video in July. 

In the time between the end of Ultra Q and the premiere of Shin Ultraman, the series has remained incredibly popular. How popular? Shin Ultraman is actually the 37th film to be produced for the franchise. Back in 2013 the Guinness Book of World Records recognized the Ultra series as the television series with the most spin-off series. Nine additional live action Ultra series shows have been produced since then with the newest, Ultraman Blazar, premiering in Japan this July. Wikipedia lists 30 television series without counting the anime currently airing on Netflix in the US. There are also at least 35 specials and mini-series. The adventures of Ultraman are also featured in manga, Marvel comics and in video games!

The sheer amount of Ultra series content is a double edged sword. On the one hand, the show is obviously doing something right to enjoy this level of longevity and world wide popularity. However, it is more than a bit overwhelming for a potential new fan. Where does one even begin? With the first episode of Ultraman? Perhaps with Ultra Q? Where can you even find the Ultra series outside of Japan? If you are intrigued then read on!

At its core, Ultraman and its spin-offs are superhero shows. When the first Ultra being to came to Earth it crashed into Shin Hayata’s fighter while both were chasing an alien invader. The only way to save Hayata’s life was for the Ultra to fuse himself with the pilot. This not only saved Hayata but gave him the ability to transform, for a limited time, into Ultraman whenever Earth needed a giant red and silver alien to karate chop a laser shooting alien dinosaur into submission. Subsequent series tend to focus on other Ultra beings sent to protect Earth from alien invaders (who are either giant sized or attack with various kaiju). 

This was all done, by the way, with “practical” special effects, meaning Ultraman is a guy in a suit, the kaiju of the week is another stunt man in a suit and they are surrounded by miniatures when they square off in a fistfight. It should be remembered at this point the show was created and produced by Eiji Tsuburaya, the genius behind the effects in Godzilla and Kurosawa’s Thorne of Blood! Subsequent shows have followed this formula for the most part… although not all Ultra series shows occur in the same timeline/dimension. For example, several recent shows are re-imaginings of earlier shows. These shows provide a convenient starting point for newer fans and also add some modern CGI to the tried and true Tsuburaya Productions practical effects (mainly in the form of transformations, energy weapon bolts and explosions).

Ultraman Z (2020) reimagined 2010’s Ultraman Zero. It tells a story that does not rely on viewers being familiar with earlier shows so it is a great lead-in to the greater Ultra Universe of content. It also has the advantage of legally streaming free with English subtitles on Tsuburaya Productions’ official YouTube page. This was followed by Ultraman Trigger: New Generation Tiga, a 2021 series reimagining and celebrating the 25th anniversary of Ultraman Tiga. Like Ultraman Z, it is free with English subtitles on the Tsuburaya Productions’ YouTube page. Ultraman Decker (2022) followed and, you guessed it, is also available on the Tsuburaya YouTube page. 

This is just a small amount of the content available for free on the Tsuburaya Productions YouTube page. The new series, Ultraman Blazar, will premiere soon and there are several mini-series (such as New Generation Heroes, The Absolute Conspiracy, The Destined Crossroads and the 1970s kung fu movie influenced Ultraman Regulos) also available with English subtitles. You will even find audio series and a few taped stage shows which were either special live web broadcast celebrations or from conventions and other events.

While Tsuburaya Productions free YouTube content provides plenty of material for any Ultra fan it is all from the last few years and frankly only scratches the surface of the Ultra series. There is a treasure trove of vintage content on the free (but ad supported) streaming service Tubi. A quick search revealed over twenty titles in the Ultra series available, starting with Ultra Q and Ultraman. In fact, most of the vintage Ultra series from the 1960s, 70s and 80s can be found on the service (as well as a few much more recent Ultra offerings). If you grew up with Ultraman or Ultraseven (or just insist on watching things in absolute chronological order) Tubi may be the best place for you to begin. This content seems to be in place due to an agreement with Shout Factory (who distribute the DVDs in the US) and can also be found on Shout’s streaming website. I honestly find Tubi works a little better (please note I do not have any relationship with Tubi or Shout Factory and there are no affiliate links in this piece).

Two entries in the Ultra series which may be familiar to some US viewers are almost impossible to find. Many of you may remember the series Ultraman: Towards the Future, an Australian/Japanese series which aired in the US on the Fox Kids block in the early 1990s during the Power Rangers boom. Or you might remember the animated Ultraman The Adventure Begins, which was a Tsuburaya and Hanna-Barbera coproduction released theatrically in 1987. Why did Tsuburaya turn to Hanna-Barbera when there were so many quality anime production companies in Japan (especially since they had already produced The Ultraman in 1979 with Nippon Sunrise, the studio behind Mobile Suit Gundam)? I really have no idea but I can tell you Ultraman: Towards the Future and Ultraman: The Adventure Begins are pretty much only to be found on 30+ year old VHS tapes (although The Ultraman is on Tubi). I honestly last saw Ultraman: Towards the Future about 17 years ago when I was working in Shanghai!

It is unclear if it is lack of demand, some type of international rights conflict or simply reluctance to deal with foreign film companies (due to a long running lawsuit with a Thai production company) which keep these two products from being released. Just to confuse things a little more, Towards the Future’s Ultraman Great recently appeared in The Absolute Conspiracy miniseries and the Ultra characters from Hanna-Barbera’s Ultraman: The Adventure Begins all appeared in the recent live action mini-series The Destined Crossroad! 

Honestly, Ultraman and its spin offs are probably not for everyone. For one thing, you need to be okay with subtitles (or fairly fluent in Japanese) and this will turn away some science fiction and fantasy fans. You also probably need to be a fan of the superhero formula, because despite the science fiction trappings most Ultra shows are superhero shows (Ultra Q and its much more recent revival Neo Ultra Q being the notable exceptions). This includes, by the way, the superhero concept that most problems can be solved with a well delivered drop kick! In recent years the show has become very commercial, too, with some obvious toy tie ins (such as the devices used by characters to transform into Ultra-beings… and you will see the commercials for the Bandai toys built into the Tsuburaya Productions YouTube streams). That being said, if you are looking light science fiction action featuring practical special effects and models with lots of physical stunts, the Ultra series delivers in nice, 30 minute bite sized pieces. After all, this is a science fiction franchise older than Star Trek and with more content (and incarnations) than even Doctor Who. They must be doing something right!