TV
Growing up, my passion for film, filmmaking, and science fiction was spurred, pretty much, by one magazine – Starlog. I used to get it all the time, especially if the cover was about a film/TV show I was either desperate to see or one I had seen and was obsessing over.
Today, I discovered the Starlog Archive online. Can’t wait for a break in my daily work so I can dive in and read some of the original thoughts on films long since sequalized, lionized, disregarded, and remade.
Was having to explain to my wife, who is from a different culture and generation, what a “clicker” was… after she was lamenting the “old days” of having to actually put the key in the car door to lock/unlock it. So here’s what we found. Enjoy “flipping through channels of the past to check out early television clickers that look like ray guns and complex calculators.”
Source: A history of the TV remote control as told through its advertising
With a new season of The Expanse starting soon and having just finished watching the two existing (and impatiently awaiting the third) seasons of Killjoys, I found this an great article on where televised science fiction is heading. (Seriously, if you haven’t watched Killjoys, it’s pure pulp SF fun!)
Over the last couple of seasons of television, critics and audiences have begun to pay a considerable amount of attention to the role of women and racial diversity on their favorite shows. Despite being set in the future, science fiction television has often been stubbornly stuck in the past. With its latest lineup, however, the Syfy channel has demonstrated that a proactive approach can create lasting change.
Source: How Syfy is Leading The Charge With Imagining Diverse Futures
So, a little over a year ago, my friend and colleague Bjorn forwarded a link to me about a publisher looking for some (semi) academic essays about everyone’s favorite BBC time traveler, Doctor Who. Lacking my own share of self-confidence, I hit up another friend and colleague, Dr. Michelle Hansen, to co-write a piece with me. Since we couldn’t decide on any one topic, we pitched two, figuring to double our odds of being accepted.
It worked! It worked so well in fact, they accepted both pitches and we found ourselves with not one, but two pieces in the book, New Worlds, Terrifying Monsters, Impossible Things: Exploring the Contents and Contexts of Doctor Who. The book is available as an ebook from Amazon as well as other sites. My hope is that you’ll check it out and leave a review (hopefully a good one). There’s some really great, insightful pieces inside and if you’re a Whovian or a pop culture fanatic or just a friend to either Michelle or me, this is a book for you.
One of the most interesting things about being in a relationship with someone who is both from a different culture and has a significant age difference is that you get to share things which may seem old hat or fond memory to you, but become something new and fun to them. With us, this happens whenever we’re talking about TV shows or commercials or music… pop culture references, really. Continue reading “Up and Down the Dial”
Recently, we've been watching Lost. All of it. From the beginning. For me, this has been interesting since I never watched the whow during it's original run and even tried to watch it a couple of times over the years but got, at most, 3 episodes in before I gave up. My general reaction was along the lines of “meh.”
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 