Wow.

Just ... wow.

Occasionally when I'm doing a bit of reading for the creative folks who've left us, I'm reminded of careers that truly transcend the ordinary perhaps without even a lot of us watching.  What I mean is that I don't watch a lot of conventional shows -- dramas, historical pieces, etc. -- of which I'm pretty certain the vast majority of Tom Wilkinson's career was preoccupied with.  (Not that there's anything wrong with such properties ... I just gravitate elsewhere, I suppose.)  Over his lifetime, the man built an incredible 25 award wins -- including two Oscars -- attached to an astonishing 75 different nominations.

Wow.  Just ... wow.

What a legacy.

Granted, we didn't see him truly stretch his legs to any massive degree in the realms of the Fantastic, and -- again -- there's nothing wrong with that.  Not all creative stewards are drawn to such scripts, and they find comfort and solace sticking to the mainstream.  I'm just glad that we had him for what entries we did, including stops along the way in flicks like Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004), Batman Begins (2005), and The Titan (2018).

Our warmest prayers are extended to the family, friends, and fans of Tom Wilkinson.

May he forever rest in peace.

​-- EZ

Good morning and welcome to December 28th, gentle readers!  How is your week progressing?  Mine is pretty interesting, that's for sure, and I'm still thrilled that we found ourselves at this special place together!

As can happen with some arrivals, I don't have a great deal to respond to directly today.  I've been ruminating on a column or two regarding the current State of the Union as it applies to the realms of the Fantastic today -- what with Star Wars continuing to fail, Marvel continuing its slump, and Doctor Who falling completely into the crapper, it would seem -- but ... well, you folks know me.  I'm really not one who likes to court controversy, you know?  I don't always feel competent much less qualified to sound off on such matters as it gets into click-bait territory fairly quickly, and that's not what we're about at SciFiHistory.Net.  I do try -- TRY -- to celebrate the good, the bad, and the ugly as many of you know; and such a position requires a reasonable amount of independence.  That doesn't mean I don't have opinions on such topics because I do; it's just that I try to approach almost each and every topic as impartially as I can ... but, yeah, even I have limits.

So ... you may see a column or two in the days ahead.  It honestly just depends upon whether I decide what I have to say is worthy of your attention.  Like I said, I'm not one to shout from the rooftops unless I feel I have something deserving your ears, so we'll see what develops.  It certainly couldn't be worse than the alternative, am I right?

Sigh.

Well, let's dispense with those pleasantries and get down to business, shall we?

​To the person who asked about whether or not SciFiHistory.Net has a podcast?

Again: I'd love to do one.

It's a matter of time, effort, and resources.

I've always said if I had more resources, then I'd definitely do something.  It probably wouldn't be the kind of thing that's done so well already on the YouTube.com, that being sounding off on the topics of the day as it pertains to the big franchises and the like.  There are far too many great voices out there already doing that, and I just don't feel I'd have much to add to that mix.  Sure, my opinion could be interesting -- thank you very much -- and, still, I've always tried to listen more than I've tried to speak.  As a listener, I think I draw more information in, and this gives me the unique advantage to collecting facts, figures, and impressions that, ultimately, maybe I'd like to present in its own format.  So ... we'll see.

The bottom line there is that if I'm going to do one then I'd want it to be something both worthy of your time and mine.  What that could be?  Well, I'm not sure I know just as of yet, but I continue to ponder the possibilities, as would any pundit.

So ... thanks for asking once again.

In the meantime, how about your daily dose of trivia?

As always, thanks for reading ... thanks for sharing ... thanks for being a fan ... and live long and prosper!

​-- EZ

Trust me when I say that there are many, many, many good stories about Star Trek, one of Science Fiction and Fantasy’s oldest and most trusted franchises.  But the one that truly endures – at least, in my humble estimation – directly involves both why and how SciFi is a hard sell thematically.  And it directly involves Trek’s greatest asset: its creator, Gene Roddenberry.
 
As the story goes, Roddenberry conceived and shot his pilot episode for Star Trek, a property he described as a “wagon train to the stars.”  The telefilm – titled “The Cage” – cast actor Jeffrey Hunter in the role of Captain Christopher Pike, captain to the Federation starship Enterprise on its mission to explore space.  The particulars of the installment explored Pike’s run-in with the Talosians, a species of alien using their mental powers to essentially manipulate captives to do their bidding.  When all was said and done, network executives ultimately rejected the pilot, deeming the story “too cerebral” and/or “too intellectual” for television audiences; but they liked enough of what Roddenberry and his team produced to ask for a second attempt, an astonishing rarity in the world of entertainment.  Inevitably, Star Trek emerged, this time with William Shatner at the helm as Captain James T. Kirk, and most readers know the rest of the story.
 
What stays with me – as a ponderer about Science Fiction and Fantasy properties in general – is that castigation of ideas being “too cerebral.”  I think that studio executives have long considered their viewership as people who don’t like to think too deeply about anything once they get home from work and plunk themselves in front of the television.  They seek out programming that is light, inoffensive, and escapist.  They don’t want to be mentally taxed.  They don’t want to be academically challenged.  Sure, such a perception is more than a bit insulting, but – only so much as it applies to the wider output of Roddenberry – the corporate administrator may’ve been on to something.
 
Not long after Star Trek’s cancellation from NBC’s lineup, Gene was hungry to get back into the game of weaving SciFi stories for the audience his show had justly earned.  In the few short years since Kirk and his crew ended their exploration of the stars, the storyteller assembled Genesis II (1973), Planet Earth (1974), and The Questor Tapes (1974).  These were three noble attempts to once again go where no one had gone before, and yet – for reasons not all that much different than what Gene had heard before – each failed to receive a green light to go into series production.
 
It seemed that – for the time being – “too cerebral” was a sign hanging around the man’s neck.
 
How interesting was it, then, that the last (and best) creation of these three – The Questor Tapes – centered precisely on perhaps “too cerebral” android searching for nothing more than its place in the world.
​

(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters.  If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment.  If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
 
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“Project Questor is the brainchild of the genius Dr. Vaslovik, who developed plans to build an android super-human.  Although he disappeared and half of the programming tape was erased in the attempt to decode it, his former colleagues continue the project and finally succeed in creating Questor.  However, Vaslovik seems to have installed a secret program in Questor’s brain.  He flees and starts to search for Vaslovik.  Since half of his knowledge is missing, he needs the help of Jerry Robinson, who is now suspected of having stolen the android.”
 
For some folks, ambition knows no bounds.
 
In the case of Gene Roddenberry, ambition was just part of the day’s work.  Maybe even a walk in the park, for that matter.
 
In 1965, he gave mankind’s ambition to explore strange new worlds a weekly procedural, and the award-winning franchise Star Trek was born.  Yes, like any program forced to work within the boundaries of television production, it had its narrative highs and lows, and yet – in three seasons – it showed mankind one possible future if we could put our petty struggles behind us.  In doing so, we’d break the bonds holding us to this world to venture out there … wherein our descendants would come face-to-face with other species still struggling with their own petty struggles, and we’d show them a new way forward.
 
Who would’ve known that one of Gene’s later attempts was to plumb the depths of the human soul?
 
The Questor Tapes was reportedly the next truly big thing for the creator after Trek.  Rumor has it that this one was received favorably by network suits, so much so that it came very close to realizing life as a regular show.  I’ve read that, ultimately, it was Roddenberry himself who turned down the chance to see it added to the broadcast dial because those same executives wanted to institute so many changes to the foundation that it wouldn’t resemble his preferred inspiration.  (IMDB.com reports that twelve scripts were prepared for a possible first season.)  What those changes were exactly we might never know, but perhaps the greater crime here is that Questor could very well have been as compelling and as groundbreaking as Trek was before it.
​
Questor (played by Robert Foxworth) awakens on a laboratory table not long after his builders were given signs of his catastrophic systems failure.  It would seem that event was meant as a distraction which would ultimately the android to escape.  As his programming was left a bit incomplete, Questor recruits the scientist most involved in his assembly – Dr. Jerry Robinson (Mike Farrell) – and, together, they set off in a race against time to defuse the bomb in the robot’s chest and to find his missing designer, Dr. Vaslovik (Lew Ayres), thus unlocking the secret behind the automaton’s origins.
​

Now, textually, it isn’t as if this was necessarily fresh and original territory so far as Roddenberry is concerned.  Fans watching closely might even have recognized some thematic similarities between the emotionless Questor and Star Trek’s half-Vulcan-half-human Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy).  As an archetype, both were constrained to think logically.  Both were limited to a reasonably passionless existence.  Both were kinda/sorta struggling to both find respective purposes for being at the same time fighting to ascertain just how they could ‘fit in’ with the vastly larger world around them.  Still, viewers would be hard pressed to identify similarities of performance as Nimoy’s hybrid certainly took greater liberties to flesh out his character’s distinctiveness over 79 episodes – for better or for worse.  With Questor, Foxworth had 100 minutes alone, and that was shared with other castmates all juggling for their own respective screentime.
 
In the end, Foxworth employed a tactic not all that dissimilar to what actor Brent Spiner did roughly over a decade later when Roddenberry crafted his android Lieutenant Commander Data for Trek’s return to the broadcast airwaves with Star Trek: The Next Generation.  Both Foxworth and Spiner crafted an undercurrent of what I’ll call pure ‘roboticism’ – a coolly mechanical approach to movement and expression which gave the appearance of a manufactured being mimicking that which his builders achieved through programming.  Occasionally artificial if not downright stiff, both actors moved and spoke with a practiced cadence, varying movements and inflections as their respective roles allowed for a little bit of human nuance.  A smile might be forced, but its intentions were clearly authentic; and I’d argue that Spiner and Foxworth should be recognized as industry pioneers for having accomplished so much with so little.
 
As a counterpart and traveling companion, Farrell was more than a bit dull, so much so that I failed to feel at any time that he was committed to the whole affair.  Some of this reception could be owed to the fact that, debatably, his character feels all too often like a bit of an afterthought in the script – so much of the action necessarily revolves around Questor, his mission, and his behaviors, etc. – and this ends up with having the actor play ‘the straight man’ a bit too often.  When you’re playing second fiddle to an actual fiddle and the fiddle is inevitably more interesting, it can be hard to leave a lasting impression even on small scenes; and – had this show gone to series – it would’ve been fascinating to see what more could’ve been done with the ‘scientist on the run’ theme.  Given that scientists historically gravitate toward an ordered existence, Robinson might’ve emerged as much the ‘fish out of water’ as was Questor … but, alas, we’ll never know.
 
Also along for the first and only ride was screen veteran John Vernon.  In the guise of Questor project head Geoffrey Darro, he’s cast as an administrator who’s hell bent to see the android brought to life, even if that means throwing proper protocols out the window despite the possible emerging threat to mankind.  With as little as a glance, Vernon made mincemeat out of anyone subservient to his wishes and desires in plenty of other films; so his casting in this role made perfect sense (perhaps too much so), but Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon’s script gives him an epiphany (and redemption) in the last act that felt a bit too orchestrated for my tastes.  Again, he’s good, but – ahem – he wasn’t that good to sacrifice himself for the greater good.
​

For those wondering … yes, even Majel Barrett Roddenberry makes an appearance in Questor.  Much like the trigger in a drinking game, she shows up in a scene here and there (drink up!) and delivers her lines with the aplomb she’s known throughout her career.  Those watching closely will even recognize the face and figure of a young Walter Koenig squeezing himself into a curious scene as a scientist on his way home from the Questor Project.  (I laughed, did a double take, rewound the tape, and laughed again just to make sure it was him.)
 
Frankly, Questor isn’t all that grand, but like Roddenberry had been warned before it’s all a bit “too cerebral” at times … and that’s why I would’ve loved to see this one realized as a series.  While it understandably would’ve been softened a bit here and there to fit that weekly broadcast mold as well as conform to network executives’ expectations, it could’ve been dynamic to experience a slowly realized discovery of what it meant to be human at Gene and Robert Foxworth’s hands.  I’ve always been a sucker for anthropomorphized robots, and this one – with its central figure uncovering a secret legacy alone that could’ve made for some fabulous yarns – felt humble and relevant in all the right ways.  I have read some online suggestions that it remains an intellectual property kicked around from time-to-time with an attempted reboot.  What with the still emerging discussion on the threats and opportunities facing mankind’s ongoing fascination with Artificial Intelligence, here’s one viewer hoping that nothing’s too cerebral to keep a do-over from happening.
 
The Questor Tapes (1974) was produced by Jeffrey Hayes Productions and Universal Television.  DVD distribution (for this particular release) is being coordinated by the good people at Kino Lorber.  As for the technical specifications?  While I’m no trained video expert, I found the sights-and-sounds to this brand-new HD Master (reported from a 2K scan of the 35mm interpositive) to be quite good.  There’s a bit of grain in the last reel involving some footage shot in the wide open outdoors, but a massive influx of light can highlight the fact that this was all shot on film, after all.  Lastly, if you’re looking for special features?  The disc boasts a textless trailer and promo, along with an audio commentary from film historian Gary Gerani.  It’s a decent collection, especially given the fact that Questor remains a largely forgotten project.
 
Recommended.
 
Though the actors might appear a bit clunky in their delivery, the ideas and concepts at play across The Questor Tapes remain relevant even to this day: not only will some scientist achieve constructing a lifelike android, but society inevitably will have to decide what to do with it for the purpose of peaceful coexistence.  While Roddenberry wasn’t perhaps the first in entertainment to posit these concepts, he clearly had the know-how and ability to craft scripts and stories that made the viewer think about them.  It’s a shame Questor didn’t make that leap from prospect to ongoing series as it arguably would’ve proven once more that Gene was the go-to source for bold and innovative yarns pushing society to see what magic and mystery the future could hold.
 
In the interests of fairness, I’m pleased to disclose that the fine folks at Kino Lorber provided me with a complimentary Blu-ray of The Questor Tapes (1974) by request for the expressed purpose of completing this review.  Their contribution to me in no way, shape, or form influenced my opinion of it.

​-- EZ

I mentioned just the other day in my review of Gene Roddenberry’s somewhat ill-fated Genesis II telefilm (available right here for readers) that it’s difficult to have a review of it without some discussion of this feature follow-up, Planet Earth.
 
For those who don’t know it, the two projects work very much like two sides of the same coin: Genesis II – as a pilot – didn’t quite have the interest of network suits, but – much like Roddenberry was given a second shot with his groundbreaking series Star Trek – Fate smiled on the Science Fiction and Fantasy creator by granting him another chance.  Textually, Planet Earth kept a good deal of Genesis’s foundation – basically this was the future, our world had been decimated by global wars, and chief hero Dylan Hunt was tasked with bringing civilization back in style – but it plucked out a great deal of what made the original interesting.  Instead of two organizations competing to control what’s left of our people and resources, Planet Earth basically starts with PAX – the peaceniks – pretty much in charge.  They’ve put the future of mankind on their capable shoulders, and their ultimate goal would be to, essentially, put things in order once again.  That’s what heroes do, after all, and that’s what we expect of them.
 
And why wouldn’t it work?
 
Planet Earth began with a feasible premise, but if this pilot film is any indication, then I’m not sure why anyone would have much faith in the project’s future.  Mind you: quality was never the universal language of studio executives, and Roddenberry purists might even point out that they tried all of this yet again – under the moniker of Strange New World (1975) – but this time without Gene’s involvement.  I’ve not seen that one (yet), so I can’t speak to its efficacy; yet I can assure you that – based entirely on what I’ve read – it undoubtedly dumbed down these concepts even further, possibly to the point wherein it had little in common with groundwork.  This future was inevitably shelved after that third attempt but let me shine a little reflection on Earth so that it doesn’t entirely vanish from genre history.
 
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters.  If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the few last paragraphs for the final assessment.  If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
 
From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“A man awakens from suspended animation and finds himself in the 22nd century, where women rule the world and men are slaves called Dinks.  He is captured and sold as a slave, but escapes and hooks up with a male rebel movement.”
​

Sigh.

I’ve mentioned before that IMDB.com’s synopses are sometimes more wrong than they are right, and that’s the case – to a degree – with Planet Earth.  The truth is that there’s a much grander backstory to the action here than is the case; in fact, while viewing Genesis II – the previous attempt to introduce this myth into entertainment – isn’t exactly a requirement to understand all that’s happening here, I’d still suggest doing so as the scripted shorthand here just isn’t enough.  There’s a good deal of exposition that sets everything in motion; Roddenberry and Juanita Bartlett’s script is more than a bit clunky, leaving the true substance of Hunt’s journey lost in transition.
 
In this second pilot adventure, Dylan Hunt (played by John Saxon) is nearly as big and bold as was Roddenberry’s previous central figure, Captain James T. Kirk (brought to life by William Shatner).  As much as this was arguably necessary to transition Genesis II from a story about ideas in conflict, it’s pretty clear that the requirements of weekly and/or episodic narratives practically required it at the time.  Alex Cord played Hunt in Genesis II – a man more of thought and principle than he was of action – but Saxon clearly sinks his teeth into the machismo required of the second coming; and – despite some reservations I had with the story as told here – the actor proved he was more than up to the task.  In fact, that’s likely what I missed most from this not being picked up: it could’ve been glorious to watch Saxon lord over a program in the way that Shatner did as he’s always been a favorite of mine.
 
At 74 minutes, I suspect that Planet Earth was ‘tooled’ to work as a 90-minute television event – something longer than the usual hour-format but notable less than a full theatrical treatment – and that works against the whole affair as there’s just not enough material to make this work.  In fact, it sometimes feels as if this story started out as two episodes that were crammed together into one; and the end result is that it’s moderately bottom heavy with a second half that gets a bit scattered and looney.  About the time that Hunt must both get drunk and then seduce the villainous Marg (Diana Muldaur), I would imagine audiences were either groaning if not outright reaching to turn the channel to find something else worth watching.
 
But what about that story?
​

Well, Hunt and his crack squad are essentially sent out into the wastelands to locate and bring back a Dr. Jonathan Connor (Jim Antonio), a noted specialist who disappeared a year previously but is now needed to save their critically injured leader Pater Kimbridge (Rai Tasco).  Lo and behold, it thankfully turns out that Connor didn’t make it all that far away after all, and he’s been living out his days as a kinda/sorta male consort after being purchased at auction by Marg.  In the guise of a more suitable mate, Hunt allows himself to sold into servitude, thus allowing him and his partner Harper-Smythe (Janet Margolin) the chance to get inside the compound, recapture Connor, and send him back home so that Kimbridge’s life can be saved.  But all of this must happen before some very Klingon-like species known as the Kreeg show up with the purpose of – ahem – putting the patriarchy back in control and reducing the surviving warrior women to, basically, pets … or something a bit more lascivious.
 
There’s a bit more to the whole shebang – Marg has been supplying a drug that turns adult males into whimpering fools (this is how womankind has been able to topple mankind) – but the point is simple: men are treated no better than livestock, and it’s meant to be a commentary on the social mores of the day (i.e. the 1970’s).  Like Kirk would’ve done on Star Trek, Hunt aims to throw this society out of whack with his brazen bravado, ultimately reminding everyone that it takes two genders to tango – well, you know what I mean.  Planet Earth was definitely the kind of thing TV audiences expected from SciFi and Fantasy shows of the era.  Saxon delivers as does Muldaur but there’s no mistaking the fact that we’ve been here before, and I can’t help but imagine this is what doomed the pilot from any probable pick-up.
 
Still, Earth did bring along some other familiar faces in small roles who may or may not have been involved had it gone to series.  Their contributions here were negligible, at best, and the Kreeg villains are mutants who look like they, too, could’ve been right at home in a weekly serial.  Lastly, the telefilm benefits from some modest production design in that cars have been re-introduced on steam technology in lieu of the more traditional gas and oil.  It even occasionally as a modest ‘Road Warrior’ feel to its apocalypse, and this was a few years before that Australian franchise would see life on the silver screen.  Perhaps Roddenberry – always the technological prognosticator – even saw that world coming in his mind’s eye, eh?
 
Planet Earth (1974) was produced by Warner Bros. Television.  The film is presently available on DVD via Warner Archive.
 
Alas … only mildly recommended.
 
It isn’t as if Planet Earth couldn’t have become something had this pilot telefilm – a kinda/sorta do-over of 1973’s Genesis II, which is a touch more thoughtful and interesting – been picked up and ushered to the airwaves, but it’s hard to see where Roddenberry and the creative crew could really have taken it that might’ve given it a measure of freshness it lacked here.  Saxon is a capable talent, and I think his participation alone might’ve given an ongoing procedural a modicum of popularity amongst genre fans, but the end result here is some decidedly lowbrow antics that perhaps Science Fiction and Fantasy ought to leave behind.

​-- EZ

Good morning, gentle readers, and welcome to December 27th!

And yes, yes, yes: it's also Hump Day, ladies and gentlemen, so you know what that means.

Alas, not a whole lot to report from the SciFiHistory.Net News Desk this morning.  As each of you know, we're still in the midst of the Silly Season, and this means that news doesn't quite travel as fast as it does other times of the new.  Plus, I've had to spend more than a few moments this morning playing catch up on some routine matters of the space, having myself been away from the home on a small holiday trip.  While it's great to be back in comfortable pursuits, there are always tasks that need to get done once back in the saddle ... and that's taken a bit of focus away from the blog.  It is -- as they say -- what it is.  Still, I am trying to get up a review later today: I just need to find some extra minutes to hammer the prose into shape and find some pics online to add to it.  Keep your eyes peeled, and maybe -- just maybe -- I'll get it done.

In the meantime, might I offer you a hearty -- and heartfelt -- 61 different genre trivia citations to tide you over?  To whet your whistle?  To tickle your fancy?  In fact, might I add further that two of the Horror genre's biggest citations happen to fall on the same damn day?!  Actress Barbara Crampton and genre legend Charles Band both celebrate their birthdays on this day in Science Fiction History, as do such other illuminaries as Dune's Timothée Chalamet, Lost's Emilie De Raven, and 12 Monkeys' Aaron Stanford ... a great genre line-up if every there were ... so there's plenty to keep one tempted with this date.  Please, please, and please: head on over to the link below, and please, please, please do the old 'like & share' thing on social media.

As always, thanks for reading ... thanks for sharing ... thanks for being a fan ... and live long and prosper!

​-- EZ

The name of Kamar de los Reyes may not be as familiar to genre fans of the bigger properties, but a quick review of his resume shows that he definitely made a lasting contribution to the realms of the Fantastic.

A rundown of his earlier credits suggests that he enjoyed a respectable amount of coverage in more mainstream efforts and police-style procedures, but it wasn't long before the actor starting expanding in ways we notice.  It wasn't until 1999 that he truly set foot in the world of Science Fiction and Fantasy with a pair of appearances aboard Total Recall 2070, the TV franchise inspired by the Total Recall motion picture.  It wasn't long before the actor then turned his sights into other realms, and he made his presence felt in such entries as Touched By An Angel, Early Edition, and the big screen cerebral thriller The Cell (2000) with Jennifer Lopez.

After that, it was a string of rather conventional stuff, cop shows and the like; but in 2015 he returned to more fantastic pursuits with work aboard LA Apocalypse which was followed by his biggest turn in genre ... a 13-episode run aboard Fox TV's Sleepy Hollow.

Our warmest thoughts and prayers are extended to the family, friends, and fans of Kamar de los Reyes.

May he rest in peace.

​-- EZ

As someone who enjoys a whole lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy, I still always think it's pretty grand when a player gets to play in not one but two of the genre's biggest franchises.  While his career on the screen was reasonably limited, that can still be said of the late Richard Franklin.

Wearing the uniform on behalf of His Majesty, the Queen, Franklin starred in the role of 'Captain Mike Yates,' and his tour of duty within the wide, wide world of Doctor Who lasted an incredible 42 episodes.

But ... that's not all, as they say ...

... for, in 2016, the man enjoyed a role -- albeit a vastly smaller one -- in the guise of one of the doomed engineers that helped usher in the age of true Imperial oppression by completing the Death Star on behalf of the Galactic Empire.  His character -- along with several others -- met a grisly end on the planet of Eadu as depicted in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

Sad.  Yet, characters come and go.

However, a quick glance at Franklin's resume indicates that these weren't his only forays into the realms of the Fantastic.  He also enjoyed some work aboard such other entries as Blake's 7, The Tomorrow People (podcast), Sapphire & Steel (podcast), and Chemical Wedding (2008).  With only thirty screen credits to his name, it's nonetheless grand to see so many in projects we here at SciFiHistory.Net find so compelling.

Our warmest thoughts and prayers are extended to the family, friends, and fans of Richard Franklin.

May he rest in peace.

​-- EZ

First Order of Business:
Good morning and continued blessings to you and yours, gentle readers!

Second Order of Business:
No, no, and no: I haven't watched Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon, but thanks for asking.  Honestly, I don't know that I will, and I say this specifically because the storyteller is already on record explaining that there will be another cut -- one more adult-themed, or something -- that kinda/sorta recaptures the story in a different way.

Now ... you folks know me: I don't usually do hole 'pile-on' when it comes to storytellers.  I do think that the good ones deserve a bit of freedom to step out into the limelight and weave a yarn as distinctly as possible for discriminating audiences.  Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre did that all the time, and look how well it worked out for them?  (No, no, and no: I'm not suggesting that Snyder is the reincarnation or Second Coming of Orson Welles.)  Viewers go into a movie or television show with a level of expectation, and Snyder has shown himself capable of both working with what they expect and somehow going a bit more, even when less was what was truly needed.  Without getting into any protracted cross examination of his library, I will say that his cut of Justice League is exactly how an epic myth should be told on the screen, and I'll leave it at that.

But with Rebel Moon ... this is a whole new playing field, so why in all that is holy would you start right out of the gate with two cuts?  There's no audience established yet -- it's an entirely fresh IP, so far as I know -- and I'm starting to think that perhaps way more was bitten off than anyone could chew.  No storyteller should be granted two unique different cuts just because, and when it looks so much like that's what was planned from the beginning then I'm not so sure that the audience's expectations were ever kept in mind.  I'm a capitalist, so I can appreciate an obvious 'cash grab' here and there, but I'm really struggling with the corporate logic here with an untried premise.

So, frankly, I'm undecided at this point.  I had fully intended to watch it and review it.  Now that I know this cut may not even be the one that's intended to establish this story?  I'm thinking, "Why bother?"
​
Third Order of Business:
Okay, okay, and okay.  Now that we got that rumination out of the way, let's get down to the brass tacks, as they say.

You're here for the straight skinny, and the straight skinny is that -- sigh -- I still have some work to do in amping up the volume to 11 so far as December 23rd is concerned.  Of course, there are some fabulous trivia references in here -- I accept nothing less -- but, presently, it's only a mind-boggling fifty-two different ones ... and my readers deserve more.  My archives has quite a bit for addition, but -- this being the holidays -- my time is very limited.  The wifey and I are taking off for our destination only a few hours from now, so, yeah, my time is VERY limited.

​Without further ado ...

As always, thank you for being a reader ... thank you for sharing ... thank you for being a fan ... and live long and prosper!

​-- EZ

Good afternoon and welcome to your daily announcement of SciFi, Fantasy, and Horror trivia, gentle readers!  How is your day going thus far, eh?

Not a whole lot to report other than the usual today.  Had to run a few errands this morning, and that's the reason for this lateness of this post.  It isn't every December morning that we get some great weather, so you have to get while the getting's good, as they say, but I did want to pop in here for a few moments to give you the daily lowdown.  There are a lot of great little blurbs up there in the Daily Citation Page, and I suspect you'll find something worth celebrating all of its own as well.  I checked my archives, and I do have quite a bit more to add, but we'll see if I can get around to that this afternoon.  Have a few other items I needed to get to, so my time here might be brief.

Perhaps the biggest pure SciFi anniversary today is, likely, that involving the theatrical launch of the 1978 incarnation of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.  Now, it may lack some of the nuance of the original, but what it's missing there is definitely recouped in slimy creepiness.  I remember rewatching that one last year -- I was provided a great new disc via a distributor -- and it was quite solid.  I'd forgotten how many great stars actually made up that cast, so that was a great re-discovery all on its own.  Donald Sutherland.  Jeff Goldblum.  Leonard Nimoy.  Wow.  Quite a line-up, and it remains an entertaining conspiracy yarn decades later.  So, yes, I give that one a thumbs up.  While it may not be a holiday classic, it's definitely worth your time.

Still, I'll let all of you get yourselves over to the business of the day.  Here's what you're really waiting for, and I aim to please:

As always, thanks for reading ... thanks for sharing ... thanks for being a fan ... and live long and prosper! 

​-- EZ

I kid you not: I once got into a debate with a reviewer who insisted that the late Gene Roddenberry was little more than a ‘one hit wonder.’
 
Now, I’m going to bypass going into a full rundown of this person’s argument and supporting logic only to save all of us time.  I will say that he didn’t mean it with any disrespect whatsoever, but the gist remained that outside of Star Trek – that space saga that’s stretched well into multiple decades – the writer and creator really hadn’t entered anything else into the entertainment lexicon.  I naturally countered his position with some facts and figures he wasn’t as deeply aware of as I was, but – even after establishing the reality that there was a bit more to the award-winning fellow than meets the eye – the gentleman insisted that Roddenberry’s follow-up efforts never matched the grand tapestry of the Captain James T. Kirk original.  Of that, there can be no doubt … and yet there fundamentally can be no denying that Gene’s ideas and ruminations about what lay ahead for all of mankind deserves more study.  Readers of this piece might consider this just one such effort.
 
I’d seen bits and pieces of Genesis II (1973) over the years from a variety of outlets, and – quite frankly – several of the sequences were even horribly mislabeled, attributing footage to it that came from not one but two of the potential show’s spin-off attempts.  Given how closely these three separate projects resemble one another in setting and characters, it’s easy to understand how that’s happened.  But having watched both Genesis II and its direct descendant – 1974’s Planet Earth – in a single setting, I’m hoping to set the record straight with my thoughts on the first adventure, though I might have to clear up some of the confusion with a bit of focus on its somewhat misguided offspring.
 
Still, let me say categorically that I’ve never ever assumed Gene Roddenberry to be a one hit wonder.  With Star Trek, Genesis II, Planet Earth, Spectre, Earth: Final Conflict, and Andromeda as feathers in his proverbial cap, he was anything but.
 
(NOTE: The following review will contain minor spoilers necessary solely for the discussion of plot and/or characters.  If you’re the type of reader who prefers a review entirely spoiler-free, then I’d encourage you to skip down to the last few paragraphs for the final assessment.  If, however, you’re accepting of a few modest hints at ‘things to come,’ then read on …)
​

From the film’s IMDB.com page citation:
“A scientist who has been preserved in suspended animation wakes up to find himself in a primitive society in the future.”
 
As best as I understand my history of Roddenberry’s career, he had taken a much-earned sojourn from writing and producing, spending some time away from the hustle and bustle of the entertainment industry.  But inspiration strikes in the least likely places, and – while on vacation – he came up with the idea for an all-new Science Fiction and Fantasy show.  He had already proven with Star Trek that audiences liked such trips into tomorrow, and he latched upon the idea of one man awakening from suspended animation only to find that mankind had once again destroyed itself.  This man, however, would make it his life’s mission to help put things right once again, and Roddenberry named this creation Dylan Hunt.
 
Now … buckle up, kids, because this is where it does get a bit confusing.
 
Any conversation involving Genesis II and its central hero – Dylan Hunt – might necessarily require some discussion surrounding Planet Earth, Roddenberry’s second attempt to harness the ideas of Genesis and turn it into a project befitting a weekly broadcast akin to Star Trek.  (In case you missed it, then let me say that the first production didn’t exactly emerge as a barn-burner; and the man stuck to his guns with a loose sequel geared more toward what television executives expected of the day.  He’d rather famously been given a second chance with Star Trek’s pilot, so this wasn’t unheard of when it comes to Roddenberry.)  Furthermore, some of you true blue genre elites might be scratching your head over the realization that ‘Dylan Hunt’ was a name Roddenberry used yet again – along with similar concepts – in crafting his serialized space saga Andromeda (2000-2005).  That incarnation saw star Kevin Sorbo in the role of rebuilding a galaxy-spanning ‘federation of planets’ that went by the name of the Commonwealth.  Suffice it to say, these ideas stayed in the forefront of Roddenberry’s fertile imagination, and who could blame the man for sticking with what he had done so uniquely well over the years?
 
For the purposes of this review, however, I’m going to now disconnect from any significant comparisons between these similar properties.  I’ll likely reference Planet Earth again, but I think readers will understand why when I do.
​

Aboard Genesis II, Hunt (played by Alex Cord, whom genre fans might recognize from TV’s Airwolf) spearheaded Project Ganymede, a program originally intended for astronauts to utilize a form of suspended animation for deep space travel.  On the day of the first test, the scientist is sealed into a small chamber that, unfortunately, is soon buried under rubble resulting from a sudden earthquake.  Two centuries later, explorers of the PAX society unearth the room, and Hunt finds himself awakened in the year 2133.
 
As tends to happen in Science Fiction television shows, civilization has collapsed; and mankind has splintered into various factions.  In the United States, the two major factions – the PAX and the Tyranians – remain in conflict; and – early in the film – Hunt is uncertain as to who has what remains of our planet and its inhabitants’ best wishes in mind.  Initially, the scientist sides with the lovely Lyra-a (Mariette Hartley), a Tyranian spy who helped the PAX people by nursing him back to health; but in the second half he discovers that her ulterior motives might inadvertently gives her people a technological superiority meant to end the conflict but could decimate all survivors with a nuclear blast.
 
There’s a bit more to the story, but as this summarizes the main conflict, I’ll leave it there.  Slowly, Hunt realizes that the Tyranians are truly Fascists at heart, he joins with the growing slave rebellion by arming them with pain-dispensing rods (like today’s tazers) and eventually rigging a power plant to destroy their city.  So what audiences are treated to with Genesis II – as they had been previously with so many episodes of Star Trek – were discussions of politics and oppression, of justice and compassion, and of personal liberty squared off against the collective good.  To fully side with the PAX people in the last reel, Hunt must agree to never take another human life as their code of conduct prohibits murder under any and all circumstances, even in the face of necessity.  It’s safe to suggest that, as strongly as morality was put under the microscope by the crew of the Starship Enterprise, Roddenberry planned much the same with Genesis II, and why shouldn’t it?  That formula worked so well the first time it was applied that a thematic sequel could work equal wonders.
 
On its own merits, Genesis looks and feels very much like it could’ve existed in the fictional downtime rarely explored between Earth’s collapse (in Star Trek time) and the foundation of Starfleet and the Federation.  Scripts and stories in that big universe often suggested that our planet went through some very dark decades before emerging into the light, and maybe this is the vein Roddenberry was trying to tap with this script.  Arguably, Planet Earth – the aforementioned follow-up to the telefilm – even pushes the Trek formula further (it essentially recasts the scientist Hunt into the action figure format emboldened by Captain Kirk himself), but we’ll never know for certain as no subsequent series ever materialized … at least, not in this fashion.
 
Genesis production standards are quite good.  The sets for the telefilm’s subterranean shuttles are wonderfully elaborate for the time – apparently, mankind existed long enough to manufacture a subway-style system spanning the nation, and this remaining technology is what gave the PAX people their strategic advantage over other developing cultures.  Once the story moves to the Tyranian city, I could argue that it feels even more like a 1960’s Star Trek spin-off as characters are garbed in tunics, jumpsuits, and the like, many of which look exceedingly similar to those worn by Trek guest stars.  What can I say?  Even in the future, “it’s a small world after all.”
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As for the on-screen talent?  Cord is quite good, though he definitely lacks the sometime blustering conviction of the famed Captain Kirk.  The truth is that his character is required to be a bit more pensive and thoughtful than a Starfleet officer would, so perhaps that’s the reason for so much difference between the two men.  Genre regular Ted Cassidy gets solid screen time as the muscular ‘Isiah,’ one of the rebels pushing back against the Tyranian tyranny.  While Hartley is about as fetching as ever – audiences were even treated to her characters not one but two navels (don’t worry, it’s a plot point, not authentically two belly buttons) – her central character never quite congeals.  At times, she’s obviously villainous, but Roddenberry’s script suggests that there may’ve been a heart of gold – two of them, apparently – beating beneath her porcelain skin.
 
Without question, I think the greatest reason any person should take a gander at Genesis II is that there’s so much of what consumed Roddenberry’s ideals on full display.  As I’ve mentioned, it isn’t difficult at all to see how closely this story aligns with the intellectual right stuff given amble disclosure in Trek and beyond, so the storyteller’s fingerprints are all over this.  Precisely where he could’ve taken this concoction might inevitably be little more than conjecture, but there’s no discounting its lineage.  This sprang from the recesses of a mind that had already put great thought into such matters, and I think it deserves to be studied by not only Trek enthusiasts but also by Science Fiction aficionados everywhere.  It may not be perfect … but it’s most definitely Roddenberry.
 
Genesis II (1973) was produced by Norway Productions and Warner Bros. Television.  The film is currently available on DVD under the Warner Archive imprint.
 
Mildly recommended.
 
While imperfect and extraordinarily similar to several other Science Fiction franchises and stories, Genesis II occasionally looks and sounds interesting, and yet it never quite ‘sticks the landing.’  There’s far too much nebulousness to the whole affair – character alliances, the wider state of the world outside, and just how some technology survives yet much else doesn’t – and a greater cohesive whole might very well have inspired both studio and network suits to carry it forward in whatever fashion they deemed deliverable.  Roddenberry purists deserve to give it a spin, as there’s plenty in there that the storyteller has touched upon again and again – even with some familiar faces – and they’ll no doubt delight themselves with thoughts of ‘what could’ve been.’

​-- EZ