Good morning and Happy Wednesday to all of SciFiHistory.Net's readers!
One of the things I've always wanted to do is -- ahem -- catch up on my viewing of classic Science Fiction and Fantasy television. As I've mentioned many, many, many times in this space, I grew up in the small town that -- so far as you know -- is about as geographically as close to 'Hell On Earth' that one can get on this side of existence. As a consequence, our humble little television set received only a smattering of broadcast channels, the most of which were middle American affiliate stations that couldn't afford a major line-up of shows in the evening. I won't trouble you recounting what shows were heavy in rotation, but suffice it to say it really wasn't much by way of stuff that would interest audiences today. Rest assured: we had the three major networks of their day to keep us captivated after supper ... but -- as your parents and grandparents can assure you, kids, you either watched what they gave you or you didn't.
So I missed out on the two big shows so many were able to digest frequently: I could just never find The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits in syndication. When it was on, it was generally aired late at night -- I think rural stations thought it might be a bit 'heady' or even 'daring' for younger viewers, so I chucked it up as more adult fare. By the time I got into high school, shows like Star Trek (syndicated, of course) and the PBS runs of Doctor Who kept most of my TV interest, so the classic anthologies just never quite fell onto my radar.
Now that I'm older -- and definitely wiser -- I'm trying to make serious efforts to correct this, and I recently picked up the Second Season of The Outer Limits to digest as time permits. Why the Second Season first? Well, I've done some reading, and -- depending upon how one might interpret the critical assessment -- the second had some meatier stories. While I have seen snippets of a few first season entries, I figured I'd spend some time better understanding where the show went as opposed to just starting at the front and working my way to the end.
In this regard, I might be penning some episode reviews as well as making time for screencapping and whatnot. I've always wanted to do more of that with SciFiHistory.Net; it's just that -- as you can imagine -- the investment in time will be phenomenal. I can only squeeze these in when I have the legroom on my schedule (so to speak), and I just so happened to have a wee bit yesterday. 1964's "Soldier" is definitely something special, and thus I gave it a whirl. Fabulous hour. Fabulous cast. And some fabulous screencaps were taken.
If you're interested, you can find it all right here. If I get the spirit to fashion a review, I'll post that in this space as well.
As always, thanks for reading ... and live long and prosper!
-- EZ
One of the things I've always wanted to do is -- ahem -- catch up on my viewing of classic Science Fiction and Fantasy television. As I've mentioned many, many, many times in this space, I grew up in the small town that -- so far as you know -- is about as geographically as close to 'Hell On Earth' that one can get on this side of existence. As a consequence, our humble little television set received only a smattering of broadcast channels, the most of which were middle American affiliate stations that couldn't afford a major line-up of shows in the evening. I won't trouble you recounting what shows were heavy in rotation, but suffice it to say it really wasn't much by way of stuff that would interest audiences today. Rest assured: we had the three major networks of their day to keep us captivated after supper ... but -- as your parents and grandparents can assure you, kids, you either watched what they gave you or you didn't.
So I missed out on the two big shows so many were able to digest frequently: I could just never find The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits in syndication. When it was on, it was generally aired late at night -- I think rural stations thought it might be a bit 'heady' or even 'daring' for younger viewers, so I chucked it up as more adult fare. By the time I got into high school, shows like Star Trek (syndicated, of course) and the PBS runs of Doctor Who kept most of my TV interest, so the classic anthologies just never quite fell onto my radar.
Now that I'm older -- and definitely wiser -- I'm trying to make serious efforts to correct this, and I recently picked up the Second Season of The Outer Limits to digest as time permits. Why the Second Season first? Well, I've done some reading, and -- depending upon how one might interpret the critical assessment -- the second had some meatier stories. While I have seen snippets of a few first season entries, I figured I'd spend some time better understanding where the show went as opposed to just starting at the front and working my way to the end.
In this regard, I might be penning some episode reviews as well as making time for screencapping and whatnot. I've always wanted to do more of that with SciFiHistory.Net; it's just that -- as you can imagine -- the investment in time will be phenomenal. I can only squeeze these in when I have the legroom on my schedule (so to speak), and I just so happened to have a wee bit yesterday. 1964's "Soldier" is definitely something special, and thus I gave it a whirl. Fabulous hour. Fabulous cast. And some fabulous screencaps were taken.
If you're interested, you can find it all right here. If I get the spirit to fashion a review, I'll post that in this space as well.
As always, thanks for reading ... and live long and prosper!
-- EZ
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