which is still pretty good, but “quatermass and the pit” (the bbc-series, the movie of the same name is just schlock) is truly genius and to this day one of the best SF ever written and put to screen
great story, great actors, sometimes even superb acting and full of surprises. cant get enough of it and I have to see it at least once a year.
(hint: you can find the whole series in extremly good quality at archive.org)
the plots were lousy, but at least in this case they had a sort-of “logical” explanation for it:
Not long after leaving Earth’s Solar System, the wandering Moon passes through a black hole and later through a couple of “space warps” which push it even further out into the universe
Looks like this show aired in September 1975, when nuclear waste disposal was a very hot topic in the UK. A year later when the Kyshtym disaster (1957 explosion caused by improper nuclear waste storage) was first recounted, John Hill (UK atomic energy czar) called the accounts “rubbish” and “science fiction”. I wonder if he ever voiced an opinion about the Space 1999 episode? Seems like it must have raised some hackles.
Gotta rev up those Majorana Major Fifths and Minor Thirds to get some ranking magnetic radiation for Nordstrom UK to stick up its nose following whatever Resident Ranking Official Bolivian Marching Powder makes the grade. Coca heather? Coca nettle? [Brings up a network monitor dashboard] Oh, that brain activity looks normal. Looks like Nordstrom’s Cheryl Strayed-ing it.
The movie is okay, but I like the serial better. The spaceship looks spacier, and the cheap FX look better in low resolution black and white. On the whole, the 1950ies ambience just works better for me.
No argument about Andrew Keir, though.
I think most Sci Fi works better in B&W. Even Star Wars (try it, you’ll see). (Maybe I’m biased because I grew up with b&w televisions; I even bought one when I moved to England, much to the amusement of the counter guy at Argos, who thought they didn’t sell them anymore.)
On the whole, the 1950ies ambience just works better for me.
Just a few short weeks and the British will get to experience that 50s ambience all over again, except that UK farmers probably no longer grow turnips in sufficient quantity to keep the population fed.
In Seveneves the moon isn’t removed from orbit (well, lots of tiny pieces are) but just broken up, so most of its gravitational influence was still in place.
I saw it (Star Maidens) as an impressionable 11 or 12 year old when it came out; for some reason there never seemed to be any re-runs, which is odd in TV.
Star Cops I came across by accident a couple of years ago on teh yootubez. I quite like the concept, but I can see why it only lasted for one season - it’s simply much cheaper to make a cop show that isn’t set in space and needs a lot of costly FX.
