And now I begin a third incarnation of my Weblog. The previous two incarnations of Kevin McCorry's Weblog are April 16, 2007-to-September 19, 2015 and October 4, 2015-to-May 4, 2018.
Windy Saturday, May 5, 2018.
On the subject of a chronology for Spiderman, here is what I have put together thus far. 1962 being the year in which Spidey first appeared in Marvel Comics' publications, it would be the most apt year to begin the web-swinger's crime-fighting tenure. And a newspaper article fantasised by Jameson in "Trick or Treachery" has a November 2, 1967 date. That episode coming rather late in Spiderman's battles against evil-doers. Peter begins his Spiderman experience while being a high school student (he refers to school a number of times in the early second season episodes) with a foothold in college, attending the occasional course there. He is totally enrolled in university in September, 1963 and is undeniably in a college setting in "The Evil Sorcerer", in which some foliage in background is autumnal. "Trouble With Snow" is the only Spidey television series entry clearly transpiring in the winter. As many first season episodes occur with ample green foliage on trees, they must occur between late May and October at the very latest.
I have "sprinkled in" origin episodes for some of the villains.
"To Cage a Spider" logically follows "The Menace of Mysterio" if one infers that Spidey's audiotape-recording of Mysterio's confession is ruled inadmissible, Jameson retracts nothing in his news coverage of Spidey, Mysterio is freed, and Spidey remains under suspicion as being the perpetrator of the crime committed by Mysterio in Spidey's guise. Spidey's attitude in "To Cage a Spider" and the hostility of the New York populace toward him in that episode, makes perfect sense in this context. From then onward, Spidey is wary of the police, whose top officers (other than Captain Stacy) are operating against Spidey's interests on Jameson's insistence. The mayors of New York, however, are content to believe in Spidey's innocence (he did, after all, defeat Blotto and prevent New York's destruction, which impressed the mayor of that time) and to seek his assistance on occasion. Specific amnesia following his fall in "To Cage a Spider" is the reason why Spidey does not remember the Conner family, how to spell the Conner name, and where that family lives when he visits the Conners again in "Conner's Reptiles". Dr. Vespasian dies from unexpected physical complications of his use of his invisibility serum. Which explains why Spidey later says that Dr. Noah Boddy is the only man who could enter a prison without being seen; Dr. Vespasian is dead by then. It is also reasonable to assume that the Robinson laboratories' invisibility serum referenced in "Criminals in the Clouds" meets with a similar snag in their development of a serum-based invisibility. Which would be why Jameson scoffs at Dr. Noah Boddy's theory of invisibility, as invisibility has been proved in government-sanctioned laboratories to be unworkable. The death of Dr. Vespasian attracts one of his evil colleagues, Calvin Zabo, alter-ego Mr. Hyde, and Hyde's associate, the Cobra, to New York City, in pursuit of some stolen fortune that Vespasian ensconced somewhere in Manhattan.
"The Origin of Spiderman" (September, 1962)
"King Pinned" (September, 1962)
"Swing City" (October, 1962)
"Criminals in the Clouds" (November, 1962)
"False Implication" (February, 1963) (Kingpin) (first time that Spidey is accused of being a criminal)
"Menace From the Bottom of the World" (March, 1963)
"Diamond Dust" (June, 1963)
"Wrath of the Vulture" (June, 1963) (Adrian Toomes/Vulture, and Kingpin) (Vulture's origin)
"Helium Heist" (July, 1963) (Dr. Dumpty)
"Multi-Armed and Dangerous" (August, 1963) (Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus) (Doctor Octopus' origin)
"Spiderman Battles the Molemen" (August, 1963)
"Phantom From the Depths of Time" (August, 1963)
"Origin of the Green Goblin" (September, 1963) (Norman Osborn/Green Goblin)
"The Evil Sorcerer" (September, 1963)
"Vine" (September, 1963)
"Pardo Presents" (September, 1963)
"Cloud City of Gold" (September-October, 1963)
"Neptune's Nose Cone" (October, 1963)
"Home" (October, 1963)
"Blotto" (October, 1963)
"Thunder Rumble" (October, 1963)
"Spiderman Meets Skyboy" (November, 1963)
"Revenge of the Green Goblin" (December, 1963) (Norman Osborn/Green Goblin)
"Cold Storage" (May, 1964)
"The Power of Doctor Octopus" (June, 1964)
"Sub-Zero For Spidey" (June, 1964)
"Where Crawls the Lizard" (June, 1964)
"Electro the Human Lightning Bolt" (June, 1964)
"The Menace of Mysterio" (July, 1964)
"To Cage a Spider" (August, 1964)
"A Strange Case of Amnesia" (September, 1964)
"Horn of the Rhino" (September, 1964)
"Kilowatt Kaper" (October, 1964)
"The Peril of Parafino" (October, 1964)
"The Winged Thing" (October, 1964)
"Conner's Reptiles" (October, 1964)
"Trouble With Snow" (December, 1964)
"Spiderman Vs. Desperado" (April, 1965)
"Return of the Flying Dutchman" (May, 1965)
"Farewell Performance" (June, 1965)
"The Golden Rhino" (June, 1965)
"Blueprint For Crime" (June, 1965)
"Sky Harbor" (July, 1965)
"The Big Brainwasher" (July, 1965)
"The Vanishing Doctor Vespasian" (July, 1965)
"Scourge of the Scarf" (July, 1965)
"Super Swami" (July, 1965)
"The Birth of Micro Man" (August, 1965)
"Knight Must Fall" (August, 1965)
"The Devious Dr. Dumpty" (August, 1965)
"Up From Nowhere" (September, 1965)
"Rollarama" (September, 1965)
"Revolt in the Fifth Dimension" (September, 1965)
"Specialists and Slaves" (September, 1965)
"Down to Earth" (September, 1965)
"Trip to Tomorrow" (September, 1965)
"The Sky is Falling" (September, 1965)
"Captured By J. Jonah Jameson" (September, 1965)
"Never Step On a Scorpion" (October, 1965)
"Sands of Crime" (October, 1965)
"Diet of Destruction" (October, 1965)
"The Witching Hour" (October, 1965)
"The Spider and the Fly" (October, 1965)
"The Slippery Dr. Von Schlick" (November, 1965)
"The Death of Doctor Vespasian" (December, 1965)
"Hyde in Plain Sight" (January, 1966) (Calvin Zabo/Mr. Hyde, Cobra)
"Rhino" (April, 1966)
"The Madness of Mysterio" (May, 1966)
"The One-Eyed Idol" (June, 1966)
"Fifth Avenue Phantom" (June, 1966)
"Revenge of Dr. Magneto" (June, 1966)
"The Sinister Prime Minister" (July, 1966)
"The Night of the Villains" (August, 1967)
"Here Comes Trubble" (August, 1967)
"Spiderman Meets Dr. Noah Boddy" (August, 1967)
"The Fantastic Fakir" (August, 1967)
"The Vulture's Prey" (August, 1967)
"The Dark Terrors" (September, 1967)
"The Terrible Triumph of Doctor Octopus" (September, 1967)
"Magic Malice" (September, 1967)
"Sting of the Scorpion" (October, 1967)
"Trick or Treachery" (October-November, 1967)
"To Catch a Spider" (November, 1967)
"Double Identity" (May, 1968)
"Fountain of Terror" (May, 1968)
"Fiddler On the Loose" (June, 1968)
I need to do further viewings of the episodes before I can settle conclusively on this sequence. And I lack the desire now to do frame-grabbing work from Spiderman episodes for images to go with the chronology's text.
Spiderman was a huge component to my life in 1982, whilst Space: 1999 was elusive, so very elusive, on broadcast television and home video media. I often contemplated episode orders for Spiderman, in those days as I was experiencing an uptick in the quality of my social life. My solitary hours then often were filled with consideration of Spiderman. Whilst the collecting of videotape-recordings of Spiderman was keenly undertaken by me in 1982 through most of 1983. Assembling a collection on videotape of the James Bond was also very much absorbing for me as a pursuit in my early months as a videocassette collector. Space: 1999 was out of reach then, and would continue to be until that awesome day in August of 1983. Here is a mix of images representative of all three entertainments that I sought to have in 1982 and 1983.
And this is all for today.
Okay. Another day, another patently spurious assault upon the second season of Space: 1999. Today, it is "The Exiles" that receives centre stage for a throwing of rancid tomatoes.
"The one thing that drove me nuts was that Helena causes the one exile to age by basically scratching his protective layer. I was OK with that, but then Koenig asks, 'How did you know that would work,' and Helena replies, 'I'll tell you later,' and we heard nothing else on the subject. I was OK with the episode up to then but that was kinda pathectic"
What? I have seen "The Exiles" on several broadcasts, on laser videodisc, on DVD, and on Blu-Ray. I have never seen a scene wherein this dialogue occurs. So, are the fans now resorting to inventing scenes and dialogue to use as brickbats?
And spelling of the word, pathetic, is the latest to be incorrect. Something is pathetic, all right. But it is not "The Exiles".
And the response on the "thread" of discussion to this concocted scene and dialogue?
"Well I'm afraid that pretty well sums up Season 2. Many of the episodes were slap dash, cobbled together in a make shift manner. This one was fairly watchable though."
The only thing cobbled together in a makeshift (it is one word, not two) manner is the fans' justifications for belittling Season 2. And sure, go on contending that the newly conjured lines of dialogue are there in the episode as it has existed since 1976. Do not correct anybody on their blatant falsification. Just add to it.
As to the scene of Helena piercing Cantar's protective membrane. Helena detected the membrane when she first examined Cantar and said to John that part of the answer to the aliens' ability to suspend animation was in that membrane. It was an inference on her part that piercing the membrane might weaken or incapacitate Cantar. And she proceeded to act against Cantar by digging her fingernails into the membrane on his face. And shortly thereafter, she saw that Cantar was showing signs of ageing and then reasoned that the breaking of the membrane was going to cause him to go through three hundred years of decay of his body. And she started informing Cantar of that.
It makes sense to me. It did when I was ten years-old.
And as to how the protective membrane, combined with deep freezing, made suspended animation possible, and why the membrane must be permanently intact to preserve the suspended-animation subject's youth. That would fall under "economy of detail".
And then there is this delightful statement.
"Indeed 90% of series 2 episodes were utter shite, but this one is above average."
The fact that not a single person challenged it indicates how far gone the fan movement now is toward total, abject group-think blinkeredness. An association of people completely devoid of any capacity for enlightenment. Fan movement? To use the vernacular of it in its current state, it is akin to a bowel movement. Long, tedious, painful. And it stinks. It reeks. As rank as the foulest smell imaginable.
My disgust for these people is at an all-time high.
On some happier notes, I have added more images to my Web pages for The Littlest Hobo and Star Blazers, my Mr. Hyde and Bugs Bunny vinyl toy figures are a day or two away from my door, and I am hopeful of adopting a purebred Himalayan kitten sometime within the next three to four weeks.
All for today. May 9, 2018.
Today is Tuesday, May 15, 2018.
Firstly for today, I will report further additions to my autobiography, to Era 3 specifically.
Secondly, I will share the good news that my Bugs Bunny and Mr. Hyde vinyl figures have arrived and have a position of prominence on one of my shelves.
Thirdly, my quest for a new kitten his met with a deep disappointment. The expectant mother was not as fertile as I had hoped that she was, and I was not first in the queue of hopeful adopters of feline. Hope. Hope was a comedian who lived to be one hundred years-old. That is all that hope really ought to be for me. When I entertain it as a vehicle of optimism, it is quashed. This has been true for my life for almost thirty years now. With very rare exceptions.
I await the release of the second Blu-Ray of Pink Panther cartoons. It plus The Martian Chronicles and first Tom Baker season of Doctor Who Blu-Rays. All of those Blu-Rays are being released within the same week in late June.
Recently, I purchased the German DVD release of The New Avengers and am disappointed with the variable quality of the episodes' film-to-video transfers. Many of the second season episodes have "washed-out" colours, with a colour timing tending toward a sickly yellow. The episode, "Trap", is blurry and almost unwatchable. Some of the episodes, "To Catch a Rat" most especially, suffer from film wear damage in the form of black, vertical lines. Resolution is still vastly superior to that of New Video Group's 2002 and 2003 DVD releases of The New Avengers, and there is an audio commentary for "The Eagle's Nest" (one of the better-looking episodes in the DVD box set) by Gareth Hunt and Brian Clemens. But alas, a top-quality release of The New Avengers on DVD or Blu-Ray remains elusive. From what I understand, the original film elements for The New Avengers cannot be found.
All right. The Space: 1999 Facebook groups have been mounting a barrage of increasingly populated attack "threads" of discussion upon the second season of Space: 1999, its episodes, its producer. One of them has trotted out an old article to which I have already responded, an article concerning changes between seasons of science fiction/fantasy television series. The others are just dumping heaping amounts of negativity, some of it vulgar, upon the beleaguered Space: 1999 season as pictured in photographs. It is assuredly becoming worse and worse with each passing day and with the addition of more and more quasi-intellectual, Johnny-come-lately, repeat-the-prevailing-prejudice people of stunted imagination and no reasonable consequence. People of no humility, no self-awareness. Just declaiming to the choir for said choir's hearty approval and upward-extended Facebook thumbs.
I am tired and cannot be bothered responding to most of the bile being flung in Season 2's direction of late. It is garble from people of limited imagination, blinkered mindset, an arrogant attitude founded on wilful ignorance, and the confirmation bias of an "echo chamber" that in growing in numbers of individuals is becoming more and more and more removed from fair and reasoned judgement and outlook.
That more people are joining the congregation and iterating the same hostile-to-Season 2 contentions and sentiments in a "circle-jerking" unison, does not make their bearing any more persuasive as true intellectualism or as the definitive "word" on artistic quantity within the Space: 1999 oeuvre. Not to anyone with an open and considered mind, that is. It just makes them look all the more arrogant and insufferable in their confounded expanding group-think.
I will, however, respond to this criticism of "The Immunity Syndrome". It is articulated in a fairly rational way, without the usual bilious rancour of conceited closed-mindedness amongst an approving crowd.
"It was never explained how Tony survived when everyone else exposed to the creature died shortly after they became lucid. Did the creature somehow cure him or did he just need some routine medical attention on Alpha? I assumed the reason they couldn't stay was because they needed to get Tony back to Alpha in order to save him. It was never stated that way but it would answer both questions."
Yes, the articulation is rational in its wording, but it is indicative of an inability to "fill in blanks" with the most sensible inferences based on given information. Yes, Tony recovers. And it is implicit that the creature did intercede into Tony's terminal condition and somehow reverse it. For a creature that can alter the atmosphere composition and the chemical properties of vegetation of a planet, arresting and reversing a brain cell expansion in a human body ought not to be particularly difficult, after Koenig, following a reference to it having earlier caused deaths, asked it for its help and its reply to John was in the affirmative. It could not resurrect the dead. It could not bring Lustig and the other dead Alphans back to life. Or Zoran and his people. The creature's abilities only extend to being able to effect change to life and biosphere conditions in the present. As to why the Alphans cannot enact Operation Exodus, the person doing the criticising is either not paying attention to all dialogue or is not interpreting dialogue correctly. Fraser clearly states that there is not much time for the landing party and rescue party to return to Alpha, that the Moon is moving out of range. Ergo, there is no time for an Exodus.
And I will respond to this.
"In that the second season was already an obvious ripoff of Star Trek, but to give one of the episodes the same name as one of the better Original Trek episodes is just inexcusable."
Good God, people! The harsh and damning language just does not "let up", does it? Not even after more than four decades.
Is it really inexcusable? It is any less excusable than "War Games" bearing a title used previously for a Doctor Who serial? Or "This Side of Paradise" being reiterated in "Guardian of Piri"? It is excusable if it aptly pertains to what happens in the episode? A planet's immune system yielding a syndrome of sicknesses and deaths and deadly circumstances. Yes, if it has an artistic purpose in calling attention to the Gaia principle, it is excusable. Also, I am not really sure that "The Immunity Syndrome" was one of Star Trek's better episodes. I find it to be boring. And I do not find it to be obvious that Space: 1999's second season is a Star Trek "rip-off". "The Rules of Luton" is based on the same premise as "Arena" of Star Trek, yes. But that is one episode. And it has some its own flourishes that set it apart from "Arena". Maya is a "resident alien" like Spock but very different from him in personality and in her transformation powers. All in all, Season 2 of Space: 1999 differs from Star Trek more than it resembles Star Trek. Most cogently, it differs in how the heroes approach the phenomena that they encounter. They have no Federation of Planets for "back-up" and must be concerned, ultimately, for their survival as they are reconnoitring worlds. And they are doing that for survival purposes, not mere fact-finding. The Alphans are not seeking to bring alien worlds into a Federation. Nor are they invested in upholding a non-interventionist ideal (Star Trek's vaunted Prime Directive). They will intercede in an alien society's politics if doing so is necessary for their survival. They are not going to planets on missions on orders from an agency. They are their own agency.
The beauty in Season 2 is in its concepts, in their symbolisms, and in how the episodes and their subject matter are "patterned" within the given chronology as stated in Dr. Russell's Moonbase Alpha Status Reports. I am privy to such. It exists. The evidence for it, once presented comprehensibly to me, was- and still is- undeniable. And I extrapolated observations of my own and a symbological "thread" for one episode. As much as I wish that my former associate would just write his book outlining and elucidating the beauteous nature of Season 2, he has not done so and seems to be content to only share his findings with select individuals. Given the tendency of fandom to be the swine that slobbers and defecates all over one's pearls, I suppose that his chosen way of disseminating his work has some sense to it, though it is not helping Season 2's cause in the wider world, in which the asinine opinions of the fan collective are regarded, unjustly, as definitive.
It should go without saying that fans of Space: 1999 are among my least favourite inhabitants of this planet. I cannot abide the thought of ever again being in the same room with them. And every day, I am given further impetus to flinch fitfully at the notion of ever again having to endure their presence.
All for today. God, I miss my cat, Sammy! Below is a photograph of him a few weeks before his death.
May 17, 2018.
Another day, more sorties against Season 2 of Space: 1999 on that paragon of high-mindedness, the Facebook Space: 1999 group.
Here is a fan's commentary on the character, Tony Verdeschi.
"I did think Tony was a liability. Every time he was on screen the tension and mood seemed to drain out of a scene. He was such a sterotypical, cardboard character that he turned the series into a soap opera. The ill conceived effort to turn him into an action hero fell flat. He became security chief as well as second in command so he could run around and look dynamic. This was in contrast to Paul who rarely ventured out of main mission doomed to be an over the top melodramatic figure of fun rather than the low key but more rounded, credible and cerebral Paul."
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the typical attitude of the Space: 1999 fan. "I did think..." "I felt that..." Always clinging to their initial negative reactions, being unwilling to budge on them. And none of this tirade is supported with cogent examples to give to it even the slightest degree of credible objectivity. And everything said can be questioned and challenged from a rational viewpoint. How is the effort to make Tony an action hero ill-conceived? I had a friend who liked him. He was my friend's favourite character. My friend liked Tony because Tony was an appealingly assertive character. A man of action, sometimes. Sometimes, he was a barker of orders to others. Either way, he has to be what he is. He is in charge of Security. He has to respond to threats to the security of the Moonbase and its people. Wherever on Moonbase those threats may be. To defend the Moonbase most promptly and efficiently. He cannot just limit himself to a Command Centre desk, especially at a time when most Security guards are incapacitated, as in "The Beta Cloud". He has to be "on the move". And "hands-on". His men would not respect him if he were not so. And when in command of Alpha, he is authoritative and under some circumstances humane. He is effective in responding to Patrick Osgood's accusations about Koenig with a measured mix of disapproving indignation and humane sympathy for his friend Osgood's troubled and volatile state of mind. He is rightly angry at Sahala for Sahala's incapacitating of Maya and suspicious of her as a result, but is at the same time willing, with reluctance, to listen to Alan, his trusted associate, who is giving to Sahala benefit of the doubt.
The tension was sustained in the scene in "Catacombs of the Moon" between Tony and Osgood. It was not in any way drained. It built to the fight that happened when Tony tried to persuade Osgood to talk to Helena about his visions.
How is he stereotypical? How is he cardboard? A man of action who has a hobby. An alcoholic beverage hobby. And is not particularly adept at that hobby. How is this stereotypical? Stereotypical men of action are usually not shown to have hobbies, and those of them who are will tend to excel at the hobby, the perfect specimens of male heroes that they are. A Security Chief on a Moonbase falling in love with a resident alien. Not something that is seen in next to every opus of the space science fiction/fantasy genre. And therefore not a stereotype. And that scene in "The Beta Cloud" wherein he puts aside all pretenses of romantic indifference (which is common to we humans afraid to commit to someone for fear of being rebuffed or of appearing sentimental and vulnerable and weak) and confesses his love for Maya always has impressed me. Tony Anholt did a most effective job of enacting it. I like the Psychon-is-my-favourite-planet way that he chooses to segue into the love admission. Stereotypical? I have never seen another character in a science fiction/fantasy work pivot toward expressing love with that sort of comment. And then later when Tony attempts to "dial back" his expressed love for Maya and return to the old, reticent, playfully noncommittal modes of interaction with her with which he is more comfortable, he is believable, the invulnerable man of Security that he is, that he must be. Believable, too, is his private smile of pleasure at knowing that Maya is "really crazy" about him. What is cardboard about this? And just because some behaviour is believably common to we humans, does not mean that it is stereotypical. It is humanity, for crying out loud. How is humanity stereotypical? Humanity, the very thing that fans claim that they want to see. His reaction in "The Bringers of Wonder" to seeing his brother, Guido, on the video screen is a perfect mix of shock, incredulity, and surge of hope for relieved longing. It is not a stereotype for a person to act in a so believable, so human a way under fantastically far-fetched circumstances. A television show has to have believable character reactions to events. And Tony Verdeschi as played by Tony Anholt offered that. Which, given that Anholt did not like science fiction and was not enamoured with what he was doing in Space: 1999, is remarkable.
I think that Tony Anholt consistently delivered a competent performance as a man unaccustomed to tenderness and in charge of Security, a man needing the dis-inhibiting effect of beer to "unwind" from the mental stresses of his job. A Security man whose instincts about a person, like Carolyn Powell, are honed to precision. And yet believably doubts himself when he questions the mental competence of his seeming leader, an impostor of the man whom he trusts with his life. I almost always found Verdeschi to be believable, whether as a man who is desperate to find his friends lost in time or as a hobbyist who has to good-naturedly endure the slights of his peers with regard to his hobby. Or as a man not practised in gently and sensitively turning away the unrequited affection of an infatuated young woman (Shermeen). Or as a man furious at the prospect of alien Dorcons turning his beloved lady into a living husk and in their having the effrontery to want the Alphans to be a willing party to that obscenity. Anholt is particularly effective as the crazed Tony in "The Immunity Syndrome", very menacing indeed with his gun set to kill John, and later as the lucid, near-death Tony telling to John what happened with Lustig. Tony's fury with the actions of the mutinous Sanderson is believable. And also credible is his reluctant and strained and sad compliance with Koenig's order to destroy Psychon and everyone thereon in "The Metamorph".
The only quibble that I would have with Anholt's performance would be in "The Exiles". Tony's objections to Koenig's caution regarding Cantar's people joining Alpha. One would expect that Tony, being man of Security and having the instincts that he has about potential threats to security, would side with John. I do not find Tony to be credible in that instance. It is more due to writing than Anholt's acting, granted. But Anholt does not help the cause any with his very loud "Have you gone mad?!" proclaiming when Koenig stuns Cantar. It is rather "over-the-top". That may have been his first scene filmed with both Landau and Bain (it probably was), and he misjudged and overplayed his performance. It can happen.
On the other hand, Tony is credible in "One Moment of Humanity" when he and Helena discover they they are alone on what seems to be Alpha. His strained-to-be-controlled upset feeling is sympathetic. And he is naturally dubious of Helena's claim that they could wish their way back to planet Vega, but he is willing against his feelings of incredulity to try it. His anger at Taybor's deception in "The Taybor" is credible, too. Taybor is trying to abscond with the woman for whom Tony has affection. Tony's frustration in "Journey to Where" with Dr. Logan, demanding a thorough explanation for the gone-awry transference of John, Helena, and Alan, is competently conveyed. As is his suspicion of the lying Pasc in "The Mark of Archanon".
Really, fans do not like Tony Verdeschi because he was not in "Year 1" and because he replaced a character that was in "Year 1". A character for whom fans had a liking. That is the essential truth. Their attempt to buttress their dislike by portraying Tony Verdeschi and the actor, Tony Anholt, as a complete and utter misfire on the part of production, is not credible and is downright ludicrous.
How, exactly, is Paul "more rounded, credible, and cerebral"? He plays the guitar (Tony brews beer). He loves Sandra (Tony loves Maya). But though he loves Sandra, he is not demonstrably jealous when Alan suddenly has "a thing" for Sandra in "The Full Circle". He lost a parent, his father, to the Queller Drive, but how did that loss of a father figure impact his personality? No noticeable sign of any effect. I am not going to "diss" Prentis Hancock's performance. I have always liked the Paul character. But, really, Hancock was not given more to do with his character than Anholt was given with Tony Verdeschi. Both conveyed madness effectively in episodes wherein that was scripted. Both were effective leaders of Alpha on occasion, giving to the assigned job an authoritative presence. Paul may have known Bible passages that Tony did not. But is that knowledge necessarily being cerebral, or being intellectual, or just the result of a capacity for recitation by rote of something learnt in childhood.
I have given examples to support my position. The fan berating Tony Verdeschi gave none to support his.
May 18, 2018.
It has come to my attention that using Firefox as Internet browser and accessing through Google my Website using the www. prefix to the URL will result in images not being visible on the Web pages. The solutions to this are typing kevinmccorrytv.ca into the Website address space, using an Internet browser other than Firefox, or utilising something other than Google as search engine.
I have come upon on YouTube the first minutes (with advertisements) of some of the STARS OF SPACE JAM videocassettes of late 1996. An enjoyable trek down Memory Lane. Here is one of these YouTube videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuFzd_dpVgY
I had all five of those videocassettes. Those were the days! When Warner Brothers would open the vaults, dependably those of post-1948, to commercially release newly remastered cartoons on a routine basis. Days long-gone now.
May 20, 2018.
Kino Lorber has provided to its customers a listing of planned Blu-Ray titles for the remainder of this year. Volumes 3, 4, and 5 of the Pink Panther cartoons are in the list, but all clustered within the year's final four months. I believe that the plan is to release six volumes, and the sixth and final volume has evidently been pushed into 2019.
But with that final volume, all of the DePatie-Freleng theatrical cartoons will have been released on Blu-Ray. And that, I must say, is a most remarkable "sell-through video" breakthrough for cartoons. Especially for cartoons from so late in the history of hand-drawn cartoon animation. Much as I may quibble with Kino Lorber's quality control. It still vexes me that the original title music for two Inspector cartoons cannot be heard accompanying high-definition visuals and that audio for the Ant and Aardvark cartoon, "Technology, Phooey", is out of synchronisation with the video.
Still, nevertheless, my hat is off to the people at Kino Lorber for so comprehensive a release of cartoons on Blu-Ray. If only Warner Brothers would be willing to "licence out" the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons to Kino Lorber or to a similar company!
Okay. So, what are my favourite people, the high-minded populace of on-Facebook discussions Space: 1999, "up to" now?
Beneath a picture of Sandra (Zienia Merton) screaming at the sight of one of the "Bringers of Wonder" aliens (of the Season 2 episode, "The Bringers of Wonder") is this delightful Facebook string of comments.
"I'm amazed she had time to scream before fainting. Didn't all the women on Moonbase Alpha faint every time something happened? Loved the show but hated the incredibly sexist fainting spells of the women."
"...and the men always have this strange death grip on the women. The photo of Martin with his arm across Barbra is crazy. I can never tell if he is protecting her or restraining her."
"Ziena Merton tells a very interesting tale of one of the directors on Season 1 saying just that and that these women would be intelligent scientists and not likely to pass out at the slightest thing! Sadly, this idea seamed to be reversed by 'Year 2'."
Zienia, not Ziena.
Seamed?
Anyway, here we go. What is being said by these ever so astute, ever so infallible Space: 1999 fans is that in Season 1, women on Moonbase Alpha were intelligent scientists and did not faint. And that in Season 2, they did. Routinely.
Other than Annette Fraser in "The Metamorph", which healthy female Alphans in Season 2 fainted? I cannot think of any.
Sandra fainted in Season 1 in "Black Sun". She did not faint in Season 2.
"ANOTHER S2 ALIEN MONSTER OF THE WEEK .... I CAN'T TAKE IT ANY MORE ...... AGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
That again. I have already debunked that generalisation. Putting it all in capital letters does not make this person's remark any more persuasive.
Back to how women were portrayed in Space: 1999. I can put together a list of instances of women screaming, fainting, panicking, becoming hysterical. It is not difficult to do this. My late mother had an intolerance of hysterical, screeching, or screaming women (she hated Laverne and Shirley for this reason). She tended more, much more, to complain about hysterics and screaming on the part of women in Space: 1999's first season than in that television show's Season 2.
Onward I go.
"Black Sun". When Mike Ryan's Eagle is caught in the crushing gravitational forces of the black sun and explodes with Ryan inside of it, a grief-stricken Sandra (who had "a thing" for Ryan) faints onto the Main Mission floor.
"Another Time, Another Place". Regina Kesslann becomes hysterical after she embraces Alan only to realise that in her mind he is dead. Her hysterics are as melodramatic as melodrama can be imagined. Earth Sandra screams twice at the sight of Helena in the window of the Earth Alphans' settlement structure.
"Guardian of Piri". After the Guardian of Piri explodes and there is an urgent return by Alphans to Eagles to return to Moonbase Alpha, female Alphans are screeching and screaming in a panicky fluster.
"Alpha Child". Cynthia Crawford (or Sue Crawford, or whatever her name is) screams most loudly from the very bottom of her lungs three times as her infant Jackie grows explosively into a five-year-old.
"Collision Course". As the time for initiation of the shockwave is nearing, a woman in Main Mission becomes hysterical and needs to be comforted by Prof. Bergman.
"The Full Circle". Sandra stupidly opens the Eagle door. And a Stone Age man enters the spaceship and abducts her, as she shrieks, screams, and squeals ear-shatteringly. She later screams in the cave as caveman Koenig and cave-woman Helena both sit in front of her, looking at her. And again as Spearman tries to unclothe her. And she screams and screams as cave-woman Helena threatens to kill her.
"End of Eternity". Female operative screams after Balor touches her. Women in corridor are panicking and screaming and falling to floor at the sight of Balor. Woman in Main Mission faints and has to be pulled by Alan to standing as Balor struts into the Alpha control centre.
"War Games". Cornered against a cubicle by the two aliens, Helena screams at length from the bottom of her lungs.
"Space Brain". Flustered women need to be guided by level-headed men out of the foam in the corridors.
News-flash, people. These are all "Year 1" episodes. Mind, I have not listed the death scream of Laura Adams in "The Troubled Spirit" and the screams of the certain victims of the monster in "Dragon's Domain", as screaming in those circumstances is the only reasonable thing that should be expected. And the men in the same mortal circumstances in those episodes scream, too. All told, though, women fare poorly in Season 1 with regard to being calm and composed in urgent or upsetting situations. And they fare poorly in not resorting to screaming.
Now, let us examine "Year 2". Does Alibe scream or faint? No. Does the much-maligned Yasko? No. Does Sandra? She screams only once. She screams when she suddenly discovers, to her shock, that what she thought for some time was her fiance, Peter, is a horrible, repulsive monster. And that Command Centre is replete with such monsters. I think that in that sudden instant, screaming is a natural reaction to the sight before one's eyes. It is the only time in Season 2 when Sandra screams. Who else screams? Sally Martin does as she is dying in agony in "The Lambda Factor". But like the screams of Laura Adams and the monster's victims, it ought to be an admissible screaming under lethal circumstances. Does Eva in "The Seance Spectre" scream? No. Nor does Cranston in "Seed of Destruction". In "A Matter of Balance", Shermeen neither faints nor screams when Vindrus appears to her. She does not scream, nor does she faint, when she sees Thaed. She is understandably distraught when she is "taken down" by Vindrus' people and needs some comfort from Maya after she is brought back to the matter universe (with her helping Maya to operate the switches on the conversion machine). But does she scream? Does she faint? No.
Karen in "The Taybor" does scream (but not to the bottom of her lungs). She does so after she is hit by a blinding light ray. A natural reaction to sudden physical harm. Oh, yes, Zamara in "One Moment of Humanity" screams most loudly- but she is an alien android, not an Alphan, and she is screaming in death. Michelle Osgood has a serious heart condition. So, her fainting should be admissible. Carolyn Powell does become maniacal and is hysterical in one scene with Tony, but she is under the influence of the Lambda variant. Helena screams briefly at the abrupt, sudden death by disintegration of Lew Picard right in front of her in "The Metamorph". She then whimpers briefly before Koenig pulls her away from the death scene. I suppose that one may quibble with that. But it is scarcely comparable to Helena's protracted, all-out scream in "War Games". And to her defence, Helena maintains composure and reason as she is held captive by the rock in "All That Glisters". Maya screams when feverish, delirious, and nightmare-wracked in "Space Warp" and while she is being caused great pain, her brain being almost torn apart, by the Dorcon probe in "The Dorcons". At all other times, Maya does not scream. She is an emotionally strong woman. Even when she is trapped by the rock in "All That Glisters", she does not scream. Annette Fraser in "The Metamorph" is the only incontrovertible instance in Season 2 of a hysterical, fainting woman. She faints when her husband's Eagle is enveloped in light, and she becomes hysterical when Tony orders her husband's death in the destruction of Psychon. Whether her behaviour is passable under the circumstances is for an individual to arbitrate, I suppose. But generally, women on Alpha in Season 2 are portrayed as calm and collected. Helena commands Alpha on one occasion. Sahn runs Medical Centre after Helena is overcome by the sickness in "The Beta Cloud". Alibe is rational and assertive while meeting Elizia in "Devil's Planet". She cries understandably at believing that Koenig is dead. But her crying is restrained. Not melodramatic.
But leaving aside my defences of Season 2 and concentrating on the numerous instances in Season 1 of women fainting, screaming, being hysterical, the fact that these fans so clearly fail to acknowledge the recurrent presence in their vaunted Season 1 of women acting in the way that they claim is ubiquitous in Season 2, is a further indictment of their tendency, deliberate or no, toward falsification, or at the very least intellectual dishonesty. Their attempt to mis-characterise Season 2 as a damnable departure from Season 1's perfect portrayals of professional females, falls flat with a thud. And yet I am the only articulating person to respond to it. They will contend Season 1's superiority over Season 2 on shaky footing, and do so with confounded degree of supreme confidence, slurring Season 2 with daily derogatory comment. In their bid to prevent fair regard for Season 2 and to perpetuate the cliches that keep Season 2 mired in pejoratives and sweeping denunciations and its beleaguered pundits like myself derided, ostracised, forever lumbered with bad reputation. These people have been shown by me in this Weblog to be wrong about Season 2 time and time and time again. Yet, their point of view is the only one that ever is acknowledged as definitive.
Now, having said all of this, it did not and does not concern me much how either Season 1 or Season 2 portrayed female reactions to situations. Both seasons were products of the years in which they were made and should be assessed as such. I have no interest in deconstructing forty-year-old television series on the basis of gender studies, gender roles, gender stereotypes, and present-day sensibilities on those subjects. I am not on the political Left. Identity politics do not interest me. They never have. If women are portrayed as admirably strong in a production, I will laud it for such, with sincere appreciation. But I can have many reasons for venerating a production. And presentment of gender roles has never been of paramount consideration for me. I did not initially watch Space: 1999 or Star Trek or Doctor Who because I wanted to see strong female role models. I watched those television shows because I liked to see otherworldly phenomena and imagined encounters of our technological civilisation with such. Being a boy and not a girl, I naturally found identification as a male with the heroic men. And I chose to play them when friends and I played Space: 1999. I did, however, enjoy Catherine Schell as Maya. It was a bravura achievement in characterisation of an alien heroine. And to this, I would add that The Bionic Woman was one of my favourite television shows of my youth. The quality of the writing was excellent, I thought. And combined with that was Lindsay Wagner's compelling performance as Jaime Sommers. Wagner had more of a presence on screen, by my reckoning, than Lee Majors as Jaime's bionic counterpart, Steve Austin. And her emotional responses to difficulties in adjusting to and managing her bionic powers and in confronting opposing forces and daunting situations were believable as those of a woman. She had a gravitas because of that. And she prevailed against her antagonists in just about every episode. If a female leading character is compelling, I will watch the television show or movie with her in prominence in it. But a science fiction/fantasy opus like Space: 1999 has an imagination-based and aesthetic appeal to me that goes beyond considerations of strength of the women in it. And it does not hamper my enjoyment of it for a woman to scream or faint on occasion. Though I do still wince with my conditioned-over-the-years expectation that my mother will make some disapproving comment, and perhaps insist that I turn the audio volume down (to reduce the sound of the screaming).
Another ever so impressive undertaking by the good people at the Facebook groups for Space: 1999 is the capture of video frame of a character briefly shouting with their mouth wide open and their eyebrows highly raised, or of a Maya transformation of a few seconds into a monster, and putting the captured images together in a montage to attempt to portray all of Season 2 as an undignified, non-beautiful, constant deluge of shouting, gurning, overwrought characters and rubber-suited monsters. And then, the fans "have at it" with more venomous denunciations of it and Mr. Freiberger (or some distortion of the proper spelling of his name). Anybody can try to capture the most extreme actor expressions possible in a selected scene and maybe some cheap-looking visualisation and patch together a "hit piece". It could be done for Season 1. A video frame of Koenig shouting with his mouth wide-open. Another video frame of a cardboard Eagle. A video frame of a gurning Anton Zoref. And a screaming Cynthia Crawford. Cave-woman Helena screaming. Stone Age men looking befuddled. Kano grimacing as he is being connected to Computer. Et cetera. It could be done for just about anything. The question is, why do it?
No need for me to answer. Regular readers of my Weblog will anticipate the answer with precision.
There is just no relenting of late in the barrages against Season 2 of Space: 1999. On Facebook and elsewhere. The Roobarb's Forum is "at it" again now, too. Every so often, the Roobarb's Forum discussion "thread" on Network Distributing's Blu-Ray and DVD releases of Space: 1999 shows some activity, invariably pivoting toward slurring of the second season of said television programme, by the usual cluster of persons convinced in their "hive mind" of their individual cleverness and sophistication. Sophistry. That is what I would describe them as purveying. At best.
I had my last tussle with the Roobarbians on the subject of Space: 1999 in 2005. I was "wolf-packed", descended-upon by all of the Roobarb's Forum's foremost personalities and ridiculed and provoked to react and then ridiculed for my reaction. The usual behaviour of groups of school yard verbal bullies. One thing that was established was that my interview with Fred Freiberger was "fanboyish". And another was that I am a whimpering emotional moron rightly exiled from Space: 1999 fandom and deserving for all time of a bad reputation for being sensitive to the slights on Season 2 and comparisons of it to foul bodily emissions. Nobody sided with me or even expressed any empathy for me. Of course not. That was in fact the last time I ever engaged in any exchange of communication with detractors of Season 2. Strange. I should have learnt my lesson in my most disagreeable series of encounters with the people on the Space: 1999 Mailing List in my first few years on the Internet, pre-2000.
I stay with the Roobarb's Forum because it can be a valuable source of information on DVD and Blu-Ray releases of science fiction/fantasy genre television- though outside of Doctor Who there is not much of interest to me lately on that subject. Members of the Doctor Who Restoration Team post comments routinely to the Roobarb Forum, and that is always of good value where I am concerned, collector of Doctor Who DVDs and Blu-Rays that I am. Yes, I do intend to buy whatever Doctor Who serials that the BBC chooses to release on Blu-Ray in the coming years. But the regularly communicative rank-and-file Roobarbians are a generally haughty cluster of sophistic people, smug and comfortable in their own quasi-intellectual community and their sense of belonging therein. They are for the most part a more intelligent, more grammatically proficient group than are the people populating the Space: 1999 Facebook communities. But this is not really saying much, as the Space: 1999 fans in the Facebook "echo chambers" do tend to be rather low on the scale of true intellectualism and writing ability. And maturity.
I am not going to quote people verbatim this time. The general "thrust" on the Roobarbian attacks of late upon Season 2 of Space: 1999 has been focused on the differences between it and Season 1 (big yawn) and on the alien costume designs, the look of alien creatures, the general aesthetic of the second season's episodes. Okay. To begin, Season 2 ought to be judged, first and foremost, on its own merits, and not solely or primarily on how much that it follows Season 1 in style and retention or no of certain characters. Those of us who saw Season 2 first were not lumbered with prejudices against it for it not "carrying over" certain elements of the first season. We assessed it on what it had to offer in and of itself. And that is as unclouded and reasonable a judgement as one could desire. Distinct dissimilarity with Season 1 was a requisite of Lew Grade to resume producing the television series, and the decision was made to not throw at the viewers set-in-stone explanations for characters not being there, to leave such explanations to the option or the discretion of the viewer. Not unlike a decision made for production block two of Gerry Anderson's UFO. Where were Freeman, Ellis, Bradley, Ford, and Waterman? It was left to the imagination of the viewer to "fill in" those "blanks".
And as far as the look of the episodes and their aliens go, this is not an objective angle of attack. Appreciation or lack thereof of the look of the second season is ultimately a matter of personal taste. Such is what it "boils down to". And that, people, is sheer subjectivity. And the opinion of a majority is still subjective. And majorities can be wrong. The majority of the people pre-1492 thought the Earth to be flat. A majority of people used to believe the Earth to be the centre of the Solar System. So, throwing numbers of closed-minded people at me in defence of the anti-Season 2 position, is not a victory. It is a presumption that numbers of people thinking a certain blinkered way equals fact. Poppycock. There is no written law of the universe that says that alien dress sense must follow a certain, specific track of design comparable to what is commonplace on present-day Earth. Aliens could evolve a culture wherein a set of garments like the shorts, boots, and cape worn by Vindrus of Sunim in "A Matter of Balance" is quite acceptable. Even a standard sartorial comportment. Besides, for credible functionality of story, Vindrus had to be garbed in a way as to be both alien and physically attractive to Shermeen. Shermeen's attraction to Vindrus would not be believable if Vindrus were garbed in flowing robes from neck to toe, his particular physical endowments obscured. The production design of Space: 1999 with regards to aliens and alien garments always was in the direction of the strange or the eccentric. This goes for both seasons. Aliens did not dress in blandly coloured military fatigues. Dione certainly did not dress that way in Season 1's "The Last Enemy". I say eccentric in regards to experimenting with extrapolations of ancient, Classical civilisations and their styles of garment. Oftentimes melding such with 1970s clothing design, or some of the more unusual flourishes thereof. A traceable aesthetic from Space: 1999 (e.g. the cape, the boots, and the loin-covering shorts, in the case of Vindrus) through to what warriors of ancient times wore, may be said to exist and be worthy of aesthetic appreciation. There is also not a law that states that alien creatures must all look a certain way. That they must all evolve humanoid forms. That none should ever look like Thaed in "A Matter of Balance". The creatures of Season 2 are outlandishly alien in their appearance. That was the intention, aptly following the worlds-beyond-belief tag-line to the television series. This said, I can concede that criticism of the use of the same monster head three times in episodes produced within the same three-week time period, does have a validity. It does betray a lack of time and/or money and a cutting of corners, made evident in a most ostentatious display in a costume design that already had a potential to "off-put" some segments of the audience. But one of those iterations of the monster head was the result of a delirious Maya's nightmare. In Maya's delirium, she might have assumed a hybridised form of the monster encountered in a previous episode. And the people of one world could have based their robot design of a seemingly alive creature on some of the physical characteristics of a creature on a neighbouring solar system's planet. It is not unbelievable. One might say that there is a certain logic to it. It certainly is not a thoroughly, for all of Season 2, damning act of repetition. There was also a degree of concerted effort to re-dress the head from episode to episode.
Concentrating on only the most superficial aspects of a work and using subjective slighting of such as a basis for despising the work as a whole and advocating suppression of it in the Zeitgeist and berating of persons having a different regard for it, is a shaky proposition at best for a real intellectual. And I do not brand these people as intellectuals. Much better though they may be at writing the Queen's English than are the denizens of Facebook's Space: 1999 communities.
On a Buck Rogers in the 25th Century Roobarb's discussion "thread", someone says that, with regard to Season 2 of Buck Rogers, he cannot think of another example of a television programme so comprehensively revamped in its second production block as to remove everything that had made it appealing. And oh, yes. Oh, yes! To this, inevitably somebody has to come along with a reply of Space: 1999. With a question mark. And accompanied with a big-smile emoticon, of course. Right. So, the only things appealing about Space: 1999 were Victor Bergman, Paul and Sandra, Kano, philosophising, horror in a few episodes, and metaphysical interventions by a mysterious force. Not the Eagles. Not reconnaissances to alien planets. Not Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. Not space battles. Not the stun guns and commlock communicators. Not the Greco-Roman motifs. Not the visual aesthetic of space and the aural aesthetic of alien cultures. Not the vivid imagination. Not anything of what Season 2 did "carry over" from Season 1. Just Victor, some supporting characters, overt philosophical commentary, some occasional horror, and a deux ex machina. That was all that Space: 1999 was about. Its only appealing components. Right. People, young people as we all were, did not care about the Eagles, the guns, the communicators, and so forth. Right.
And someone "trots out" the old Season 2 of Space: 1999 being campy and silly refrain. Camp, people, is intentional satire, with sometimes homosexual undertones. Wilfully "making fun" or "sending up" of a genre. Camp is defined as such. Camp is Batman. Camp is Lost in Space. Camp is The Brady Bunch Movie (which "sends up" the television show, The Brady Bunch, and its tropes). Doctor Who sometimes dabbled in it in its Tom Baker years. Anyone who cannot see that Season 2 of Space: 1999 was rendering its genre seriously with occasional nod to some non-satirical humour (humour largely stemming from characters and their foibles, heterosexual romance, or hobby), cannot rightly be said to have acuity of observation. Obviously the subtle "touches" of Season 2's episodes and its chronology are lost on them. Best they "stick" to being told what episode A and episode B are about by Victor and John in conversation. And silly is, again, a word for people lacking in imagination.
All right. This is my spiel for today, May 23, 2018.
On Victoria Day, I went to New Brunswick's Miramichi River region and spent a few hours there in the former town of Newcastle and the former village of Douglastown, the two Miramichi River area places wherein I resided in my life eras one and two. The past few years have seen a huge amount of, for me, unfavourable change there in my old habitats, and on my latest visit back to there, my eyes were assaulted by another change. The mobile home in which my parents and I lived in my pre-school years is now gone from the trailer park in Newcastle. It used to be at back of Reid Street, with train tracks behind it. It was the mobile home with which my parents and I moved from Rivers, Manitoba to the Miramichi region of New Brunswick when I was three years-old.
Until as recently as last year, it was dependably situated where it had been since we parked it in the trailer park back in 1970. I could look upon it and its surrounding territories and experience surges of memories of my pre-school life. Now, that avenue of pleasure has been removed from me. As already had been the ability to gaze upon my old elementary school in Douglastown and revisit memories of being in and around that. The home of a friend in Douglastown has been torn down, and another friend's house has been radically altered by its new owners. And my old Douglastown dwelling has been renovated extensively. And all of this has happened in the space of a few short years.
The mobile home in Newcastle now being gone, just about every trace of the McCorry presence in the region Miramichi in the 1970s has been wiped. In that trailer, I saw "Hyde and Hare" for the first time and experienced my first disturbing and fascinating impressions of it. Also therein, I saw "Hyde and Go Tweet" for the first time. And "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide". And The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour and its many distinctive characteristics. Along with several of its cartoons.
I had my first glimpses of Spiderman there in the trailer, and therein I also regularly watched Batman, Rocky and His Friends, Walt Disney, Adventures in Rainbow Country, and Sesame Street. I for the first time saw the "Sad Flower Song" of Sesame Street while in that mobile home with my mother one memorable weekday. And I saw the Dig television special made by John and Faith Hubley one Sunday evening in the trailer living room. My interest in recorded media had its origins inside that trailer. That trailer, the surroundings of it, and my sitter's place just outside the trailer court constituted my world prior to our move to the house in Douglastown in July, 1972. It and the entertainments that I saw. The sad day has come for me to report its disappearance. Either it was torn down, or it was moved to somewhere else. Perhaps some place in the western regions of my country. Whatever happened to it, I will never see it again in the niche of the world in which I lived in my life's earliest era.
Here are some photographs of it and of sections of the trailer court in which it was located. The photographs are from 2011 and 2012.
Moving onward.
CBC Television in the late 1970s and very early 1980s produced a television series called Beyond Reason, which involved a panel of three occultists, each of them competing with one another to pinpoint the identity or the expertise of a guest hidden from them but visible to and identified for the audience. The three occultists usually consisted of an astrologer, a graphologist, and a clairvoyant. Sometimes, a palmist would replace the graphologist. It was a bizarre but always entertaining television programme. I now think that it was intuition and the collective unconscious that had the most to do with the panelists' sometimes accurate and occasionally precise determinations on the professions or identities of the guests. And less so the occult arts. Back in the day, I was more inclined than now to believe in supernatural forces, especially astrology. I have to credit Carl Sagan for planting doubt in my mind about what he called the pseudo-science of astrology. But when I watched Beyond Reason, I used to "root for" the astrologer, Geof Gray-Cobb, and I was annoyed at graphologist Marilyn as she was very fast and aggressive in her questioning of the guests and usually won "the rounds".
Such was the case when Stan Lee of Marvel Comics was a guest on Beyond Reason in 1980. I cannot recall whether I saw that particular episode or not. And really I should, because it was a most remarkable circumstance, for the television show's host/moderator at that time was Paul Soles, the voice of Spiderman in the 1967-70 Spiderman television series. So, the voice of Spiderman was host of a television programme episode in which Spidey's creator was guest. "Cool", no? All three panelists were convinced that Mr. Lee was a publisher or writer of some kind. Gray-Cobb thought that Lee was Hugh Heffner. Funnily enough, Gray-Cobb determined from his astrological charts that Mr. Lee was interested in what atomic science was doing to "us" at the moment. The best part of the Stan Lee Beyond Reason episode segment was when Mr. Lee reminded Mr. Soles of Mr. Soles' connection to the super-heroic web-spinner, and Mr. Soles reprised his Spidey voice.
And here is the entire Stan Lee guest appearance on CBC's Beyond Reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJOdRLChhw8
Some fun material to be savoured there. Not much fun to be had these days on the world political stage. There are things happening now that worry me deeply. I fear for the future of Western civilisation and Western liberal democracy more with every day that passes. Scary times.
My concentration in recent months upon the blinkered fans of Space: 1999 has kept me distracted somewhat from the worrisome trends and events in world politics. The world was closer to World War Three in April than it had ever before been in my lifetime (yes, even during the Cold War). Thank goodness that Putin "stood down" and thank the maker that Russian forces were not hit. Yes, I am referring to the crisis in Syria and Trump's decision to do a military strike against Syrian targets. The world may not be as fortunate the next time.
On the subject of Space: 1999, of course the daily sorties against Season 2 continue with ever more smug airs of assurance. The big discussion of recent days has circled around the episode, "All That Glisters", and one oh, so intrepid fan's report that he has finally, after 40 years, "made it through" that oh, so abominable and devoid-of-any-quality episode. The glib and slick responses by other oh, so clever fans in their expected conceited closed-minded arrogance came gushing forth thereafter. Hey, brainy ones, I sat through "All That Glisters" with captivated wonder when I first saw it in French on December 11, 1976. It was an episode not yet shown in English, and I was fascinated with the look of it (the alien sands of a desert world; this was before Tatooine of Star Wars) and the central concept (a rock as an alien quantity, "the other", possessing the ability to seize control of the heroes' Eagle and impose its strange and initially mysterious will upon the heroes). And when I saw it in English on February 5, 1977, I loved every minute of it (apart from the two minutes or so that the CBC cut out of the episode for advertising time). The Alphans on a palpably alien world trying to understand and to overcome a very alien life-form. The pulsations of the rock and its many different colours were beautiful and compelling in the impressions that I was receiving from its role in development of the episode's story. Impressions that I had yet to fully comprehend.
Much as I respect Martin Landau as an actor, I think that he was wrong about "All That Glisters". His imagination evidently was not as broad in scope as it ought to have been for the pulp science fiction/fantasy material in which he was the starring leading man. Of course the fans do sling the late and much-missed Landau for use against "All That Glisters" in their sorties. The man was wrong. He did not see the merit in the concept. The Gaia principle. A sentient ecosystem, or a sentient component part of an ecosystem. One iteration thereof in the fantastic future and worlds beyond belief of Space: 1999. Lauding oneself for having contemptuously struggled one's way through "All That Glisters" is a fatuous, lame, cliched articulation of pride in being of closed mind toward a beautiful episode in one's purported favourite television series, and "playing to" a crowd of approving goats braying in unison.
The same fan pledges to venture forth oh, so valiantly with further previously eschewed Season 2 episodes in a similar manner. And to this, I shout at my computer screen, "Why?!!!! You don't like it!! So, why are you watching it?!!!! And why must you keep reminding us of your dislike as you report on your struggles with every episode?!!" What valuable contribution to the enlightened knowledge of humanity can be made by this person's stated cliched disdain for the episodes of Season 2 of Space: 1999? None. It is just a "venting" exercise in approval-seeking and confirmation bias. If I have already established that I do not like something on a conceptual level, so be it. I will watch something else. And why would I waste my time writing over and over and over and over again that I do not like it? I have an intense dislike of the movie, Strange Days. I hated it the first time that I saw it. I hated its concept and its concept's gratuitously smutty and violent dramatisation. But apart from now, only once in the past twenty-three years have I written my negativity toward the movie. Even if I were not to have better, more constructive things to do, I would rather count cracks in the ceiling than to reiterate ad nauseam my hatred for that movie and its dystopian ideas and depictions. And I promise that I have done so here for the last time.
All for today, May 28, 2018.
May 29, 2018.
Continuing on the subject of Space: 1999 and the attitude of its fans.
I recently watched the Space: 1999 first season's episode, "Guardian of Piri". A quite beautiful episode in production design. But it has not been an engaging and enjoyable episode for people with whom I have associated. Horses for courses, I guess, as such people in my life have rarely been enamoured enough with Space: 1999 to be absorbed into the "goings-on" in all episodes. I do tend to find it to be rather distant and distancing, difficult to "warm to", un-absorbing, and slow, with long periods of time with no dialogue. And what dialogue there is, mostly concerns computers. Not my favourite subject. It is not a favourite episode of mine, even though Koenig is very much the hero of it.
Do the Season 1 pundits ever remark on how convienient and how facile is the resolution of the story of "Guardian of Piri"? On planet Piri, the Servant of the Guardian commands the Alphans to destroy Koenig, who, the Servant says, threatens their peace and happiness. And they do not attack him en masse. Mathias and Carter stalk him and Helena but are stunned unconscious by Koenig. If time is suspended, as is said to be the case on Piri, how do guns fire? Anyway...
Pete Irving motions to kill Koenig and is stunned from behind by Helena. The Alphans around Helena have not disarmed her. Why not? They can see that she is now in league with Koenig. Koenig fires his gun at the Servant of the Guardian, and the gun's stun beam (surely Koenig did not fire the kill ray; surely he would not "shoot to kill" because of the off-chance that the Servant is a living being) fries away the Servant's face and burns out of operation the electronics behind the face. And then the Guardian conveniently explodes. The Guardian, that super-computer that can suspend time, gain dominion over Alpha's computer, brainwash the Alpha population, and lock the Moon in orbit around Piri (if time on Piri is suspended, how is it that Piri rotates and through rotation has gravity?), can be destroyed just by the firing of an energy weapon at its Servant. Koenig has zero difficulty in convincing every Alphan on Piri that they had been under the Guardian's influence and had been seeing illusions of a livable existence on a planet with many forms of life. Then, it is a hurried evacuation of the full Alpha population from Piri and back to Alpha, the Pirian plateau in which they are situated being ravaged by further explosions and Alpha now drifting away from Piri, the explosion of the Guardian releasing the Moon from a locked orbit around Piri. Everyone returns in a rush to Alpha, no one left behind on Piri, ostensibly, in the scramble to embark the Eagles.
But what happened to Pete Irving? Helena stunned him seconds before Koenig destroyed the Servant of the Guardian and, seconds after that, the Guardian itself. Surely he did not recover from the stun effect that quickly. Helena stunned him at rather a close range. It is unlikely enough for Alan and Mathias to quickly recover from the full-body-stun effect upon them. If Irving did not recover within the time frame of the dash back to the Eagles, he must have been carried to an Eagle, or left behind. The viewer is not told what became of Pete Irving. Were Season 2 to be so vague about the fate of a character, it would be called onto "the carpet" for it, for a most severe thrashing. Ah, but as "Guardian of Piri" is Season 1, no problem.
Ultimately, one just has to suspend disbelief and just accept that things happen because they do. That the viewer is not privy to every detail. But to be consistent and fair, this procedure must also apply to the episodes of Season 2. Of course, one can choose not to be consistent and fair, but if that is the case, then surely he or she should not be given reasonable credence as objective judge of the quality of a production. And the final and definitive word on the merit of either season should not be his or hers.
As a lark today, I have imagined a fourth LOONEY TUNES PLATINUM COLLECTION Blu-Ray set per my own particular desires for availability in High Definition of certain cartoons, and have listed the contents of that desired box set. Here is that list.
DISC ONE
"Beanstalk Bunny"
"Hare Trimmed"
"Hot Cross Bunny"
"Bugs' Bonnets"
"Hare Lift"
"Hare Brush"
"Water, Water Every Hare"
"Napoleon Bunny-Part"
"Rabbitson Crusoe"
"My Bunny Lies Over the Sea"
"Wild and Woolly Hare"
"Hip Hip- Hurry!"
"Fastest With the Mostest"
"Hopalong Casualty"
"Tweet and Sour"
"Muzzle Tough"
"Tweety's Circus"
"Scent-imental Romeo"
"The Leghorn Blows at Midnight"
"Plop Goes the Weasel!"
"Cracked Quack"
"Daffy Dilly"
"Holiday For Drumsticks"
"A Kiddies Kitty"
"Here Today, Gone Tamale"
DISC TWO
The Complete Egghead Jr.
"Little Boy Boo"
"Feather Dusted"
"Crockett-Doodle-Do"
Friz Freleng Jekyll-and-Hyde
"Dr. Jerkyl's Hide"
"Hyde and Hare"
"Hyde and Go Tweet"
The Complete Charlie Dog
"Little Orphan Airedale"
"The Awful Orphan"
"Often an Orphan"
"Dog Gone South"
"A Hound For Trouble"
"Dog Tales"
The Complete Goofy Gophers
"The Goofy Gophers"
"Two Gophers From Texas"
"A Ham in a Role"
"A Bone For a Bone"
"I Gopher You"
"Pests For Guests"
"Lumber Jerks"
"Gopher Broke"
"Tease For Two"
The Complete Bugs and Wile E. Coyote
"Operation: Rabbit"
"To Hare is Human"
"Rabbit's Feat"
"Compressed Hare"
"Hare-Breadth Hurry"
BONUS CARTOONS: "The Case of the Stuttering Pig", "The Impatient Patient", "Porky's Pooch", "Gopher Goofy"
DISC THREE
A Connecticut Rabbit in King Arthur's Court
Bugs Bunny Creature Features
Bugs Bunny Superstar
Last Daze: The Final Years of Looney Tunes
"Cats and Bruises"
"Rushing Roulette"
"Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner"
"Daffy's Diner"
"Norman Normal"
"Chimp and Zee"
"Bugged By a Bee"
May 30, 2018.
Today on planet Facebook, Space: 1999's isle with the "echo chamber".
"Ok guys subject for discussion with all the prequels going around just now how's about 'Space 1988' or thereabouts. Stories of the base being built & all of the missions into space that happened (and subsequently failed as told in Space 1999 storyline?) the building of the space station & the Hawk squadron. Thoughts anyone?"
"I'd say, lose the year 2 stuff-- otherwise their has to be a world War III"
And I would say, not lose the "Year 2" "stuff". So, there. I say there as in there. I at least know the difference in meaning between the words, there and their.
Ever so intelligent, as always. Are they not? Again, these are the people whose assessments of and opinions on Space: 1999 are sacrosanct.
World War Three was obviously a limited war, as it did not make Earth uninhabitable and end humanity. Why would it be so difficult to include it in a Space: 1999 "prequel".
Oh, sure. There could be a "prequel" for Space: 1999. There could also be a fourth LOONEY TUNES PLATINUM COLLECTION volume to the specifications that I proposed yesterday. But there will not be. Actually, the chances of there being a fourth volume of THE LOONEY TUNES PLATINUM COLLECTION and of it precisely following my specifications, are better, I reckon, than there are of there being any new production of Space: 1999. But a "pipe dream" is what both of these things are.
Ah, but fans sure do love to imagine their beloved Space: 1999 being revived. Without anything to do with the universally despised (ah, yes) "Year 2", of course. To be very plain with them, I will say that if Season 2 is "retconned" out of existence in the Space: 1999 universe, spitefully ignored, "de-canonised" to please the fans, I will not accept anything that is made to revive Space: 1999. Not that such has a snowball's chance in hell of happening, mind. And if saying this makes me look like I have succumbed to asininity, then all I can say is, asininity breeds asininity. The first people to be asinine in Space: 1999's following were not devotees of Season 2.
On "Brian the Brain".
"Disliked this whole episode. Brian had the same shtick 'robots' had in American malls at this time. Referring to Command Center scene. I could not take this one seriously."
"Robots" in malls? With shtick? I had to "Google" this to see what such things are. I went to malls in the 1970s. There were no "robots" there, shtick-proclaiming or otherwise. Just some sit-in toy vehicles for the children. Maybe a booth for viewing a short cartoon. And the occasional instant-photograph booth. And some coin-operated dispensers for jelly beans, gumballs, or peanuts. That is all that I remember. Not being an American, I guess that I "missed out" on some ostentatious items in shopping malls.
Brian is a robot of modular design, physically connectable to the Swift spacecraft drive system and believable within the modular technology schema of Space: 1999. He would not be believable if he were obviously beyond the technological development of twentieth century Earth. And the maker, the "father", Captain Michael, may have been somewhat eccentric in fashioning the robot's head and in programming its voice. How is that unbelievable?
So, this person disliked a whole episode because of one humorous scene in Command Centre. Brian was supposed to be funny in that scene. It was an amusing affectation not revealing of his sinister purpose and not indicative of his past lethal actions on Planet D. A robot of funny impression that has mass-murdered. Irony, people. A storytelling quality that is lost on these proudly posturing quasi-intellectuals.
"I seem to remember liking it as a kid, but now it is unwatchable."
Maybe this person had better taste as a child. And probably more imagination. Unwatchable. How? How is it unwatchable? Because of Bernard Cribbins' Brian voice? I think that it looks quite fetching in High Definition on Blu-Ray. An "unwatchable" production on Blu-Ray. Really? If it were really so bad as to be unwatchable, it would never have been repeated on television, much less be mastered in High Definition and released on Blu-Ray.
I continue to search for a kitten. Oh, Fredericton, ever the city of unavailing and ignorant people. Nobody in this place believes in answering Kijiji correspondence.
May 31, 2018.
The usual garbage. This time with a difference. Someone actually writes an intelligent reply to it.
First, the garbage. It pertains to Maya. Maya of Space: 1999- Season 2.
"How could her mass shape shift in to a smaller mass, especially the cock roach that could crawl under airtight doors as she did in that one episode. Grrrrr, have I ever mentioned how much better and more believable season 1 was?!!
I know she might have been. 'Hot' for her day (I didn't think so), but Catherine Schell ruined/destroyed an otherwise awe inspiring and thought provoking show, at least for a ST fan teenager.
I would rather of had Victor Bergman back in S2 In drag if need be."
I am sure that my former friend, Tony, would have had no end of fun in ridiculing Victor for that. Anyway...
"Would rather of". Ah, yes. The requisite grammatical mistake.
Punctuation mistake in a lack of question mark at end of a question.
And a spelling error. Cockroach is one word.
Missing hyphens in awe-inspiring and thought-provoking.
And the usual factual error. Maya turned into a cockroach to move underneath a force field barrier in "One Moment of Humanity". Not a door. Airtight or otherwise.
I am as usual overwhelmed by the fans' precision in following the rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation and their ever so exacting knowledge of the proceedings of Season 2 episodes as they attack Season 2 for alleged faults.
So, Season 2 cannot provoke thought or inspire awe? It does so for me on both counts. It did for a former associate of mine.
How in bloody hell does one "jobbing actress" doing an acting part and delivering a more than decent performance (even most of Season 2's most vitriolic critics tend to concede that much) in that part ruin or destroy a television show all by herself? She was doing a job, and doing it competently and professionally.
"At least for a ST fan teenager." What? Does this person mean to say, teenage fan of Star Trek? Why not just say so? Okay. In what way is being a teenage fan of Star Trek germane to having a sufficiently considered disdain for Catherine Schell as Maya? I do not know. This person makes no cogent effort to articulate the association between his fandom for Star Trek and his dislike of Season 2 of Space: 1999 and its "resident alien" character.
Her mass can change because of the special life-force that Psychons have. It can store life energy and discharge life energy. For God's sake, people. Stop applying Earth standard to alien beings. These are aliens! Aliens that can teleport themselves or teleport Alphans. Aliens that can mutate a baby into an adult and change its clothes. Aliens that can give to the Moon atmosphere and Earth gravity.
Every time that anything photographic from Season 2 is posted onto the Facebook Space: 1999 groups, the negativity, the hostility, the erroneously founded cavils, the use-Season-1-against-Season-2 tactic, and the imagination-stunted assaults are to be expected as a matter of course within the first couple of posted comments. Day in, day out. Day in, day out. Day in, day out. Day in, day out. Day in, day out.
But at last, someone responds to it with a balanced statement.
"Let's face it, even Season 1 was more science fantasy than science fiction. Just based on the number of explosions of nuclear material, they should all be dead from the radiation. You either have to accept the junk science and enjoy it, or watch something else more realistic.
I missed Space 1999 when it was first released. I was born in 1960 and lived in South Florida from 1965 to 2016. It is entertaining and has good if not superb acting. I notice some story similarities to Star Trek but I'm not sure if that's coincidence or who may have copied whom.
Shape shifting pretty much requires alteration at the subatomic level because the molecular composition of one creature is completely different from another. So, it isn't too far of a stretch to assume mass and energy can change, or perhaps transition between adjacent dimensions. Science is just a way to explain what we observe. When we observe new things we have to develop science to explain them.
I'm a computer programmer and I have to turn off my programmer brain whenever I watch any movie or video that has computers or AI. Just comparing the computers in Space 1999 to the real computers in 1999 is striking. Why do their computers spit out paper cards? What are all those damn lights for? And how come all equipment catches fire but never creates smoke?"
Bravo. I tip my hat. A coherent argument. And almost completely devoid of any mistakes. Spelling, grammar, observations. Almost impeccable. It ought to be clear who the smarter person is in this exchange of writings.
I nominate the responder to be my hero of the year for 2018. I need not say anything more. His comments are effective as a reasoned reply in its own right.
He wrote the response two days ago. The attacker upon Season 2, Maya, and Catherine Schell has said nothing further. Why does that not surprise me? Oh, he will simply "double-down" and return at a later date to the Facebook group's discussions to repeat his opinion with ever more acidity and absurd self-confidence. Probably after someone else "lets loose" with a barrage of slurs against some episode's concept and an avowed hatred of Freiberger, the late man's name ridiculed for the millionth time.
June 4, 2018.
Warner Brothers has yet again repackaged its first few DVD sets of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, those under the LOONEY TUNES SPOTLIGHT COLLECTION banner, and is selling them through retailers. Yes, those same old 2003, 2004, 2005 DVDs. The codec on them is very inferior to the codec of DVD today, and there are still those 2010 DVDs with cropped-to-widescreen cartoons that could be reissued with correct aspect ratio. But Warner Brothers is averse, evidently, to spending any money on new glass masters for any new DVD release. Yes, even if some cartoons are already remastered and require no further restoration work. Sad times. And I can see no end in sight to them.
Recently, among the daily assaults upon Season 2 of Space: 1999 at the Facebook group for that television show, was a bemoaning of Fred Freiberger not watching all twenty-four first season episodes before commencing work on Season 2. The contention being that he ought to have watched all twenty-four episodes of Season 1 in order to craft second season episodes having an intricate continuity with what had transpired in first season.
To this I say (per what is printed in the late Tim Heald's book, The Making of Space: 1999) that it was recommended that Freiberger watch eight Season 1 episodes, and he did so. He probably was expected upon his appointment to producer to just "get on with it", to ring the changes that he and Gerry Anderson "pitched" to Lew Grade to persuade Grade to commission a Season 2. He probably was expected to not "dwell" very much on what had been done in Season 1. The first season was regarded as having failed. Failed to achieve placement on an American television network, despite the sums of money spent on employing Landau and Bain by Grade. Failed to win favour with established fandom for televised science fiction/fantasy, such as Star Trek. ITC had spent some considerable money on advertising Space: 1999 to individual television stations, and "curiosity viewing" in the initial weeks of broadcast had abated by mid-autumn. "Year 1" of Space: 1999 had been cancelled. Having Space: 1999 revived by Lew Grade for a renewed Season 2 meant changes. Significant changes. If Gerry Anderson had been more "gung ho" about continuity with Season 1, he could have been insistent upon it. Freiberger was working for him. He was the Executive Producer. But he was not insistent upon continuity with Season 1. Not during conception of the Season 2 style. Not during the writing of the scripts. Not during filming of the episodes. Episodes of first season were not referenced in those of Season 2. There were statements in "The Metamorph" to the effect that the Alphans had been betrayed in past history. Not much else was said beyond that. The intention was for viewers to be engaged in what was happening in Season 2, not to encumber scripts with past episode references. References to episodes of which viewers on a given week may have no knowledge. Space: 1999 was being made for the general viewing public. Not for fans. Oh, I know how difficult that it is for fans to accept this fact, but all feelings aside, it is a fact that has to be acknowledged by a rational mind.
The two seasons do still have many things in common (runaway Moon concept, the struggle for survival in space, Eagles, reconnaissances to alien planets, encounters with Greco-Roman-styled alien civilisations, planets with feminine coding and subtle references to Gaia, Koenig and Russell and their relationship, the heroism of Alan Carter), and imagination on the part of viewer can reconcile them to the same continuity. The date in "Dragon's Domain" excepted, there really is nothing in Season 1 that cannot be coopted into an overall Space: 1999 continuity, if one accepts that something may have happened to cause Alphan outlook to alter. There is no outright contradiction in situation or depicted empirical fact that makes reconciliation utterly impossible. Yes, Earth civilisation still exists in Season 2's "Journey to Where" but had perished on the Earth seen in Season 1's "Another Time, Another Place", but it is not stated when "Another Time, Another Place" occurs in the epochs of the Earth. It could be far in the future or, as Bergman posits, far in the past. There is no irreconcilable difference.
Much as the fans refuse to accept it, Space: 1999 is one television series. It was distributed as such in syndication in North America. It was on DVD and is on Blu-Ray as such. It is one television series as Spiderman, with its different Grantray-Lawrence and Ralph Bakshi styles, is one television series. If after more than forty years fans are unwilling to accept this fact and appreciate what Space: 1999 as one television series had to offer aesthetically, philosophically, entertainingly, this is their problem. And their closed-mindedness and incessant maligning of Season 2 is their pathology.
Freiberger watched those eight episodes and gave his assessment of what he had seen to Abe Mandell. Anderson could have talked to Freiberger about what Season 1's strengths were and urged him, or ordered him, to watch more episodes. But that was not the case. I am not sure that Anderson even recognised those strengths, beyond the obvious technical production achievements. Anderson and Freiberger were embarking on a new season with new style, new characters, new adventures for the Alphan characters. To use the post-modern vernacular, they were "going forward".
All right. The latest deluge of anti-Season 2 arsenic concentrates upon costuming. First posted comment in the Facebook "thread" says that the "overdressing" in Season 2 is detestable. And out pour such ever so erudite statements as:
"Like everything else in Season 2, ott."
"The ID badges they wore in season 2 were just dumb."
"Amnesia was becoming a problem on Alpha. 300 people to keep track of were just too many after all that time."
The last of these is from someone whose only contributions to the group are venomous attacks on Season 2 and "like clicking" of other people's anti-Season 2 rants. Seriously.
"Over-the-top". Everything? Really? And nothing ever, ever was "over-the-top" in Season 1? Not even Regina Kesslann's fit of hysteria? I had a friend who thought Jack Tanner in "Death's Other Dominion" to be laughably exaggerated in his mania at times. Not that I necessarily agree with that, mind. But an argument could be made, I suppose.
Look, since when is having a full range of human emotion an exaggeration? Wilful exaggeration or not. Nobody in Season 2 twirls a moustache and laughs like the Joker in Batman. Indeed, there is an admirable amount of subtle acting in Season 2. There are some theatrical performances, to be sure. Gerry Sundquist as Malic in "The Dorcons", for instance. But it is still measured to the particular import of a scene and gives a Shakespearean quality to the dialogue delivery. How anybody can brand the conversation between Koenig and Maya on the Luton hilltop as laughably exaggerated is beyond me. Koenig and Maya are talking about their pasts and the pain experienced by loss of a loved one. News flash, people. It is natural to cry over the remembered loss of a beloved wife.
Sanderson is obsessed and irrational. Of course, he rants and raves. Carolyn Powell is losing her mental stability. So, of course she has fits of hysteria along with sullen and menacing contemplation. Koenig, having been incapacitated for some time, has suddenly discovered hideous aliens having infiltrated the Command Centre, and all of his people think that they are friends. That would be enough to send any normal person into an extremely agitated state. And this said, there is admirable subtlety in Landau's acting as John first walks into Command Centre with Helena and Vincent and sees for the first time what is therein. The viewer can discern that something is clearly wrong from Koenig's perspective, and wonders for some seconds what it is. Koenig's emotion builds as it becomes all too evident that he is the only person who sees what is really there in Command Centre and he becomes cognisant of the menace in the situation (clearly all of his people are being deceived in an elaborate and probably sinister scheme of aliens, the end to which not yet known). The refusal of his people to see what is really there or to at least give to him benefit of doubt is what makes him bellow and "lash out". And he may also have an idiosyncratic aversion to the look of the aliens.
But I am digressing. I was intending to address the attacks upon costumes. Specifically, the Alphan dress. The first season Alpha uniforms could, from another point of view, be said to be drab and unflattering to the physique of some actors. I have always liked the jackets of Season 2. That many of the characters have at least two jackets that they wear alternately episode to episode gives to each episode a look somewhat different and distinguishable from that of the others. What is wrong with wearing a jacket, or a blazer, to work? I do so much of the time. I am required to do so. The Alphan jackets have a sartorial purpose, in that they can conceal the degree to which an actor possesses a paunch. And they have pockets, which can be convenient if a person has objects (e.g. scanning equipment) that he or she needs to carry while at the same time he or she prefers to have free use of his or hands. With planetary reconnaissances, the jackets are practical in this sense, with small analysis gear needing to be carried. In addition to providing additional comfort in conditions lacking in climate control (not every planet that the Alphans reconnoitre is going to have a perfect twenty-degrees-Celsius temperature and little or no wind).
I like the fact that jackets change on some Alphans as Season 2 progresses. Alan's jacket is red in early episodes and green in the later ones. The men wear jackets increasingly toward the end of the second season. And there is an aesthetic quality to the jackets also. In "Devil's Planet", every Alphan besides Koenig is wearing red. Red in jackets and in some cases red in tunic sleeve and collar. A curious correspondence to what Koenig will find on Entra, Elizia and her minions all dressed in red. Oh, of course we know that the fans despise the very idea that there could be anything aesthetically interesting about Season 2. So, naturally they are averse to the jackets and the possible aesthetic value of them.
The I.D. badges are not dumb. They have a purpose. Alpha receives visits from aliens. Is it not sensible for Alphans to wear badges of identification for aliens to know who they are and what their area of specialisation is? In case an alien wants to put a question to them? The I.D. badges as a concept may be said to hail from a pre-"Breakaway" Alpha on which new people were joining Alpha on a regular basis, and when it was practical for each Alphan to be identifiable to every other Alphan. See? Not dumb.
As to the jacket badges, they indicate the particular achievements and the expertise of individual Alphans, while also representing that Alphans wearing the same badges share a similar professional background. On a Moonbase that is trying to become less depersonalising and more congenial to long-term habitation by a psychologically balanced populace of individuals sharing some commonalities within a collective, opting for the wearing of badges has a certain sense to it.
And I will add that Koenig, Bergman, and Cellini in all have I.D. badges in Season 1's "Dragon's Domain". And that the jackets that they wear (yes, jackets) have on them some of the badges seen in Season 2. So, the jackets and the badges had their beginning in "Year 1".
Someone has also lambasted Season 2 for it no longer portraying the commlock as granting limited access of Alphans to the sections of Moonbase, i.e. as restricting entry to certain sections to Alphans authorised to be in them. In Season 2, doors open to all Alphans at push of a button on a wall panel. And some open automatically. To this, I will say that post-"Breakaway", Alpha is a community with very little addition to its complement, and everyone on Alpha soon has a proven dedication to a common cause. Everyone on Alpha is working toward the same end. Survival. Naturally, Alpha would be "tighter-knit" as a community. With the sections of Alpha having to collaborate to a greater degree for the purpose of survival, would it not make more sense for Alphans to be able to come and go throughout Alpha with as little restriction as possible? To deliver equipment, reports, whatever, to one another. Of course, if there should arise a situation in which Koenig or Verdeschi may decide to restrict movement through the Moonbase or in one section of it, the coming and going of personnel could be limited, and Alphans would require commlocks again to gain entry to the sections to which they have particular access. So, the commlock would still have a purpose outside of its function as a communication device.
The damning of Season 2 on these grounds is unfounded. It can be rationally argued that the jackets, the I.D. badges, and the changes to the applications of the commlock follow the ethos and the motivations of the Moonbase as it adjusts to changing circumstances.
All for today, June 7, 2018.
It is Tuesday, June 19, 2018.
I have a kitten. A totally black one by the name of Nero (chosen by the people at the pet adoption agency or by the people supplying him thereto). Nero is the Italian word for black, which is rather apt as a name for a black cat. Nero was also the Roman Emperor who played the fiddle while Rome burned and who fed Christians to Colosseum lions, but I trust my little kitten does not share that nature with his namesake. He is a little terror, though. Very much so. He has attacked me several times and is slowly subjecting the household furniture and curtains to shredding by tooth and claw. He will not allow me to eat without his presence beside my plate, poised to grab at the food thereon. Sleep at nights can be problematical, too. He is particularly jealous of my attention and will not permit me to type anything at length. As things are, I am writing this Weblog entry while at work on a slow afternoon.
I expect that my Weblog entries will be few and far between for awhile. Because of the attention that I have to concentrate upon little Nero. And also because HostPapa has informed me that I have exceeded the Website limit for automatic back-up. Web space is starting to become a concern, and in response to that concern, I propose to reduce my ruminations and my responses to the attacks of other people upon my esteemed favourite works.
I do not wish to waste valuable Web space responding more to the incessant, repeated slurring of Season 2 of Space: 1999. I have defended that quite adroitly and impressively, if I must say so myself, over the past few years. With what Web space that I have left in my current plan with HostPapa, I want to restore my Era 6 and Era 7 memoirs. And I promise that this coming summer (which is almost upon us) I will do precisely that. Image content will be sparse for those eras, as I do not retain much photography for them, outside of my 1995 trek across North America. And that is largely an odyssey that I would prefer not to remember. I certainly do not remember it fondly.
Before I "leave aside" my defences of Season 2 of Space: 1999, one final hurrah, as I "deal with" some of the more recent remarks by the denizens of the Space: 1999 Facebook community.
Nothing major. Just the following.
"First season was excellent, second season was not."
Oh, how considered! Oh, how eloquent! Oh, how observant of every potential interpretation of subject matter! Where aesthetic appreciation of an imaginative work is concerned, a work that is the result of collaboration between so many talented people, nothing can be so absolutely judged. Not by someone with an iota of intellectual acuity. This is the breadth of intellectual discourse offered by the average Space: 1999 fan. At least there is no vulgar language. One can be grateful for that mercy.
"'Year 1' was nearly flawless. And the use of monsters was minimal - as it should be.
The ridiculous monsters of 'Year 2' makes one cringe and sadly made the show look really retarded."
Why should it be minimal? Where is the guidebook for science fiction/fantasy production wherein it is cited as absolute truth that monsters are "bad" science fiction/fantasy? They certainly are popular in Star Wars and in Doctor Who. Both highly acclaimed opuses.
I am not the person who usually argues in zealous favour of political correctness, but the word, retarded, is offencive to the intelligence of anyone to whom it is directed, by extension in this case anyone who happens to fancy what the commenter here brands as looking retarded. What is ridiculous about the monsters of "Year 2"? They are aliens with rubbery skin. So, what? Such aliens appear in other works. Works that are popular and acclaimed. How about specifying exactly what is ridiculous about them? And proving that they are any less effective than the Gorn of Star Trek or the Ice Warriors of Doctor Who or some of the Cantina creatures of Star Wars? And as I have said before, the monsters in the majority of Season 2 episodes in which monsters appear, are not on screen for very long. A dozen or half-dozen seconds in a number of cases.
The discussion that I am citing here pertains to the usual fan refrain about "Dragon's Domain" being virtually perfect (it really is not) and a using of "Dragon's Domain" against Season 2 much like Victor Bergman is routinely used to attack Season 2.
There are plenty of things wrong with "Dragon's Domain". It is a very effective opus of science fiction/horror with its monster scenes. But it can often be questionable in its storytelling logistics. Why is a "suppressed hysteric" like Cellini allowed to have axes and spears in his living quarters? Why does Cellini not wait for restored communications with Alpha to report contact with the spaceships and then request instructions? Why does he send all three of his crew members into the spaceship when it would be prudent to first send one, in case there are dangers not detected by sensors? Two poor command decisions there, rather validating Cellini's critics' assessment of him as an overconfident and deficient leader. I think the intention was to portray Cellini as a man unfairly maligned and to show Koenig as being incontrovertibly right to believe in Cellini's integrity of character and infallibility of leadership. If so, the script does not support it. Why are there not sufficient provisions for even one Ultra Probe crew member to make a return journey in the Ultra Probeship's command module without returning in a near-death state? A planned manned landing on Ultra with no wings, vertical thrusters, and landing gear on the Probeship's component sections? Really? Dixon and Bergman maintain that the contacts recorded on the Black Box were not specified as being spaceships, but Koenig says that the Black Box recorded a breathable atmosphere on an alien spaceship with an intact docking seal. Contradictory, no? Why no video cameras on the Probeship recording moving images of the alien spaceships for the Black Box as the Probeship approached them? Cellini overpowers Carter and dumps him in the passenger module and evades capture by Koenig and company way too easily. The "Space News" announcer gives the wrong date for his newscast. Helena ought to say that the Moon is between solar systems, not galaxies; Koenig says that there is nothing for billions of miles, which is a description of an interstellar void, not an intergalactic one. The Ultra Probeship is shown, shorn of its command module, already atop the monster's spaceship as the Ultra Probeship is approaching the monster's spaceship and Cellini and Darwin King are talking about the "graveyard". The nose cone of Cellini's Eagle has both a Stewardess Section and the Pilot Section. No. That is wrong. The same sort of mistake was made in Season 1's "Missing Link". Koenig's Eagle in exterior view clearly is not shown docking with the Ultra Probeship at its port side, which is the way whereby Koenig and company enter the Probeship in the interior view. The Ultra Probeship multiple-exposes with the Space Dock as it launches. Jets are not coming out of the Eagle nozzles but from what looks like piping as Cellini does a lift-off of the Eagle minus its passenger module.
Yes, there is plenty wrong with it. Yet, the fans matter-of-factly proclaim its perfection. "Dragon's Domain" was my favourite episode for many years, and I am rather fond of it to this day. But it is not something to be used as a supreme brickbat against episodes of Season 2. Not by a rational person.
"What happened? a Serial Killer came on board, namely Fred Freiberger..."
Pah! That is all that this cliched and ignorant comment really warrants. Besides, I have answered it before, so very many times before.
"The second series chased the same thing current cinema is chasing which is lowest common denominator popularity with no real concern for substance."
Rubbish. Current cinema does have substance. It is just not the sort of substance that is to my liking. The substance is political Leftist messaging. Identity politics. Subverting, debasing, and "killing off" the traditional white male hero. Oh, there is substance, all right. Plenty of concern for it. The substance that could ultimately destroy all pride in Western civilisation and its myriad accomplishments.
And Season 2 has substance, by the way. Whether there was concern for substance or not, it is there. It is just not along the lines of overt philosophical commentary. It is aesthetic. It is referential of Jungian psychology and archetypes thereof. It invokes literature like "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". It can appeal to the action-craving lowest common denominator mentality (though I hate the invoking of that terminology with regard to anything imaginative in the space science fiction/fantasy field of entertainment; a person watching a work of the imaginative space science fiction/fantasy genre is already not part of that lowest common denominator that is at home in the watching of something Earth-grounded and largely unimaginative like The Dukes of Hazzard) and be refined and thought-provoking in its motifs at the same time. Action and meaningful content are not mutually exclusive things.
"Haven't posted here before, but I remember watching episodes in the mid 70s here in Alberta, and being captivated by the Eagles and of course some of the toys that came out when I was a youngster. Just got through Season 1, and was pleasantly surprised how it held up. I might not be saying that much longer though.. on my 2nd episode of Season 2. Please tell me that it can't get any worse. I had read some things that a few characters were changed, but why such a dramatic shift in storyline, etc? Did whoever was making it just want it out of it's misery?"
It's. I laugh.
But it does distress me to see people in my own country, to whom the CBC served Space: 1999's second season in a way that really did it justice, be so pigheadedly dismissive about Season 2. As is very usual for the Season 2 detractor, he does not qualify his statements about it "getting worse" upon having viewed, I presume, "The Metamorph" and "The Exiles". And the fact that after forty-two years someone has to ask the questions that he does just shows an unmitigated ignorance. And a decades-spanning laziness for doing research.
As to something "holding up", what does that mean, anyway? "Hold up" to what? To the ever so definitively absolute standards of today? As if today's standards are by necessity the ultimate in superiority. Standards of what? Imagination? Production value? Set design? Visual effects? Season 1 has computers that output paper read-outs and lack monitor screens. That "holds up"? Open-reel magnetic tape inside computers. That "holds up"? Cardboard Eagle "cut-outs". That "holds up"? Jump-cuts as spaceships explode, most especially in "Alpha Child". That "holds up"? Luke Ferro's camera. That "holds up"? Just prattling a vacuous and lame comment like this on the expectation that like-minded people will accept it as gospel, ought to be just a fatuous exercise and a waste of any rational person's time. It is, as far as I am concerned.
Par for the course for these people.
Back to my kitty.
Brief Weblog entry for today, Sunday, June 24, 2018.
It is my friend Joey's birthday today. I will not say how old he is.
Joey, my best friend of my life's fourth era. He was more like a brother to me than anyone I have ever known.
This past week, I was seized with a sudden inspiration. I have at last reconciled the given date in "Dragon's Domain" of Space: 1999- Season 1 with the chronology of Space: 1999's Season 2, without the shaky contrivance of advancing the Alphan calendar to 887 days since leaving Earth orbit and reversing it back to before 342 days after leaving Earth orbit. In a way, "Dragon's Domain" does happen at 887 days after Moon departing Earth orbit and does occur while Alpha is in the midst of the 42-day-long space storm cited by Helena in "The Rules of Luton". How is this possible? Look at my chronology for Space: 1999 and the entry for "Stormy Passage". For John and Helena, "Dragon's Domain" happens twice. Once in actuality at 271 days since leaving Earth orbit, and once during disorientation in the climax of the Moon's passage through the space storm, in a kind of repetition. Koenig and Russell's most turbulent time in their developing relationship.
After "Dragon's Domain" happens originally, at 271 days after Moon leaving Earth orbit, Helena four days later says in her preamble to the typewritten Cellini story that it was 271 days since the Moon left Earth when Cellini began to believe that he was, "...closing for a second time with his mortal enemy." And Koenig states that it is years (an unspecified number of years) since the Ultra Probe and not five years. So, as events are shown in the episode as filmed, the viewer is experiencing "Dragon's Domain" from the relived version of it experienced by John and Helena during the space storm. And as a result of their disorientation, incorrect depictions of the Ultra Probeship in the spaceship graveyard and of Eagle docking with the Probeship, are explainable. As, too, is the incorrect date on the "Space News" report.
And one might envisage Koenig and Helena speculating on the possibility that there may have been an intelligence in the space storm. An intelligence that wanted to know about human relationships and the challenges to the continuance of them and that plucked the memory of John and Helena's quarrel over Tony Cellini out of their minds and had them relive it and the circumstances surrounding it. And they were prevented from realising that they were reliving the experiences so as for their reprise of them to be unimpaired by doubt on their part as to the reality of any of the reiterated circumstances and events.
So, "Dragon's Domain" is at 271 days after Moon leaves Earth and is reprised as an experience for John and Helena at 877 days since Moon went out of Earth orbit, whilst Alpha is going through a disorienting space storm. There it is.
Kino Lorber's second Blu-Ray of Pink Panther cartoons is expected to be released this week. I should have it within the next ten days. I certainly hope that Kino Lorber quality control has improved for this Blu-Ray release. Time will tell if this is the case.
July 3, 2018.
I am still waiting for the delivery of the second Pink Panther cartoons Blu-Ray disc and The Martian Chronicles Blu-Ray. The Doctor Who Season 12 Blu-Ray set is now en route to me also, but reports of flaws with it are hampering my enthusiasm.
I am not aware as yet of any problems with the second Pink Panther cartoons Blu-Ray. Reviews of it have been curiously non-existent. But given Kino Lorber's "track record", it would be most premature to expect a faultless Blu-Ray disc.
The Trudeau Day (oops, I mean, Canada Day) holiday has slowed the national mail system somewhat. I would not expect to see any of the shipments coming my way for another couple of days at least.
Yes, Canada is fixated on the Trudeau family. I have no hope of ever being free of that family's hold on the reins of our country. Canada was never really happy in the years between 1984 and 2015 during which a Trudeau was not the Prime Minister of our country. All that it wants is for a charismatic (or so my fellow country-persons claim him to be) person with the Trudeau surname hailing from Quebec to be its "sugar daddy" provider of unlimited "free" goodies. No malfeasance or abject far-political-Leftist-ideological goofiness that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commits ever seems to harm him in the eyes of the people of my country. Why not just rename the country Trudeau and be done with it?
I have to admit to feeling some satisfaction at the tribulations now besetting the Star Wars "franchise". The latest movie, Solo, has lost money, is not profitable. And The Last Jedi finally awoke a majority percentage of Star Wars fandom to the fact that all is not copacetic with the writers, directors, and producer of all things Disney Social Justice Star Wars. I am happy to report that I have not contributed a thin dime to the "franchise" as it currently exists. I have not paid to see any Star Wars movie from The Force Awakens onward. The hiring of J.J. Abrams to direct and to write was all that I needed to know as regards the wisdom, or lack thereof, fuelling the Disney iteration of the George Lucas opus.
Many a YouTube video exists that asks if Star Wars can be saved. I say, no. Not unless a Bobby Ewing in the shower sort of scenario can be concocted. And even then, why bother? Star Wars is a spent concept. It was a spent concept after The Empire Strikes Back. It has just been regurgitating the same old tropes ever since. Quick. We have to "blow up" the Death Star again. We need to find some missing item or rescue some captured person. We must defeat the evil Sith Lord in yet another sabre duel. We must try to keep someone in the family from succumbing to the Dark Side. Yawn. Lucasfilm should have quit when its ideas were still fresh. Or at least after Return of the Jedi. That was a logical place to end the saga, however perfunctory was the conception and execution of that third Star Wars movie.
All for today.
July 4, 2018.
The second Blu-Ray disc of Pink Panther cartoons came unto me yesterday. I watched its cartoons and listened to some of the audio commentaries. So, what is my verdict?
First of all, "Pink Outs" still looks very worn. It has looked distinctly not pristine in all of its prior DVD releases. There are several black vertical lines indicative of film wear. Technology is now able to remove such lines (and it ought to be especially easy to do so with a cartoon like those of the Pink Panther). But apparently there is no budget for film restoration at either MGM or Kino Lorber.
The music in "Pink Panic" has a "hollowed-out" and narrow sound to it. A pity, as that is one of my favourite Pink Panther cartoons, and music is one of the key reasons as to why this is so. There is something distinctly "sour" or "off" about the music at the start of "Pinknic". And the audio to "Congratulations! It's Pink" sounds by times like it is being rendered in a cardboard tube. I do not know why it is so, but audio always seems to be a weak area for a Kino Lorber Blu-Ray release.
On a positive note, "Psychedelic Pink" is finally presented again without laugh track, for the first time in a home video release since the PINK PANTHER ANIMATION ARCHIVE laser videodisc. And it has had its title music restored to include the bongo music passages as the cartoon title appears and as credits are transitioned. Bravo for that. But it, alas, does not compensate for the loss of unique title music on two Inspector cartoons on the Blu-Ray release of those some two years ago.
The audio commentaries that I heard are appreciative of the work that went into the cartoons and do not verge into the "snarky" negativity that blights audio commentaries on the post-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons. And for this, I am grateful.
It feels so good to actually have some Blu-Rays to buy as it had been, for me, a mostly fallow year for that prior to late last month. Apart from some additional Kino Lorber Blu-Ray releases (of more Pink Panther cartoons, The Day After, and the two Kolchak television movies) and maybe some more Doctor Who, the remainder of 2018 is going to be "easy on my wallet". I think that a fact has to be faced, it being that little else of what I currently hold on DVD is going to be released on Blu-Ray.
And that is, I suppose, an agreeable arrangement as I am loathe to give any of my money to the major studios these days. Political reasons. The "culture war" of late that is being waged against my particular demographic. It seems that, for the political Leftist posturing of today, my demographic is the new bourgeoisie that must be subverted, de-platformed, disenfranchised, and (I pray that such is never permitted to happen) dispossessed and removed from existence.
I must have missed how I am so privileged, so high-status. So deserving of being knocked off of a pedestal. My parents worked under the yoke of other people for all of their working lives, and worked laboriously and stressfully for what they had. My mother in particular sacrificed a tremendous amount of time with me and my father, for her career. A career as a nurse. Someone who helps people, cares for people. My father was working class. Blue collar. He was an enlisted man in the military and then a bus custodian for Fredericton Transit. Their combined incomes and the fact that they had only one child enabled them and I to live comfortably in middle class. Back in the prosperous times that were the 1970s and 1980s. Just. I was an outcast at school. Definitely not a privileged or prestigious figure there. In my working life in adulthood, nothing was handed to me. I had to struggle for whatever advancements I achieved. I did janitorial work. I mowed grass. Over the course of ten years, I worked up a ladder from volunteer to freelance Production Assistant to Associate Producer to Producer. And with my promotion to Associate Producer, I was on the receiving end of flak and wilful uncooperativeness from colleagues. Friendship in adulthood has been difficult for me to find and to maintain. And of course, everyone who reads my Weblog knows how outcast I am in the communities of followers of my favourite entertainments. I bristle at any attempt to portray what I have achieved as unearned and a result of privilege. My parents if they were alive today would be even more nettled at a portrayal of the results of their labours as being somehow undeserved.
I am "holding firm" to my principles. I have bought nothing Star Wars since the Blu-Ray box set of the movies back in 2011. Nothing more of twenty-first century manufacture. Nothing first-hand. I have bought some second-hand books from the 1970s and early 1980s. But the money for those purchases does not go to the coffers of present-day Lucasfilm and Disney. I vowed never again to pay for movie tickets for the Star Trek "franchise" after seeing what J.J. Abrams was doing to it. I have not supported Space: 1999 fandom with any of my money since I quit Alpha League in 1995. At the very least, one ought to respect me for the steadfastness of my convictions in these regards.
I have rambled enough for today, I suppose.
July 7, 2018.
I have updated my Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour Page to now have "Wild Over You" and not "Don't Axe Me" as the second cartoon of instalment three. I am not absolutely certain which of the two cartoons was in fact the third instalment's second cartoon, but I seem to be more confident now in saying that it was "Wild Over You" than I had been in favouring "Don't Axe Me" for that placement. I have been having flashes of memory of seeing the initial scenes of the cartoon (the ones in the Parisian Exposition of 1900) in our house in Douglastown in the 1970s. Of course, I do acknowledge that the memory can be inventive, especially after so long a time has elapsed since that which is seeming to be remembered. And I do not recall anything further of seeing that cartoon back then. But I do not remember seeing "Don't Axe Me" back then either.
Hence, I had better just follow what little memory I do have and go with "Wild Over You". I have also removed the title card for "Don't Axe Me" from the supplemental image gallery for The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour Page.
I never thought that the day would ever come when Dairy Queen stops selling hot dogs, chili dogs, et cetera. But it has. At least in Fredericton. I went to the Prospect Street Dairy Queen and tried to order a chili cheese dog, to be told that hot dogs are no longer available there. I fear that this is also the case at the Dairy Queen in Newcastle. If it is, it is a humongous loss to me. And why? Why are companies making asinine decisions to constrict their range of offered items?
Earlier this year, Hamburger Helper removed all of the taste from every one of its varieties of hamburger meal. Varieties that had already shrunk in number over the past ten years. And now none of them have any taste to them. First that and now the demise of the Dairy Queen hot dog. Is 2018 not a monumentally excellent year so far?
I now have The Martian Chronicles on Blu-Ray, and am happy to report that the Kino Lorber curse has not touched it. An excellent release. The Blu-Ray disc's picture quality far surpasses that of the DVD release of 2004. And the audio is flawless.
July 8, 2018.
I know that I said that I would desist from responding to the smugly rancorous garbage at the Space: 1999 Facebook groups. But I came upon this little gem, and I just could not resist the urge to write a response to it.
"Had to block the 'Damn Year 1 Snobs' guy to have any chance of enjoying this group. Damn, he's a pathetic whiner."
Oh, yes. Must not have anyone with an alternate point of view on Season-1-versus-Season-2. Block him. The group must be a thoroughly sealed "echo chamber".
What is the matter? Is that person's statement about snobbery on the part of the Season 1 pundits hitting a bit too close to home? Striking a sensitive area, is it? Too close to the truth, perhaps?
And of course, their sensitivities must always be of the utmost consideration. Oh, they just perpetually call Season 2 trash, excrement, fit only for children or for abjectly and wretchedly unsophisticated minds, and allege that anyone who fancies Season 2 is stupid or mentally deficient. But oh, no. There is no snobbery in that. Or any effrontery. Of course not. Season 2 has nothing in it that is the least bit laudable. And anyone who perceives otherwise must be delusional. Only stupid people could like it. Oh, but no offence. "Awww. What's the matter, Season 2 lover, can't take a joke?" But oh, no. There is no snobbery at all in this. Oh, no, no, no, no.
"Fundamentalist" fans of Space: 1999- Season 1 are snobs. They are the epitome of snobbery. Of superciliousness. Of condescension. They mentally subsist on snobbery, on the sharing of it with each other and the expected garnering of hearty, "circle-jerking" approval. Anyone who does not stroke their group-associating egos is beneath their contempt.
I am quite sure that the "pathetic whiner" denunciation would be applied to me in the same brush stroke, for my deliberations on this Weblog about the group's attitude. Hm-m-m-m. I suddenly feel an urge to respond to such by singing, "It's my Weblog, and I'll whine if I want to. Whine if I want to. Whine if I want to."
But seriously. Ought not the assertion that somebody is a "pathetic whiner" be more aptly applied to people who for 42 years (and counting) closed-mindedly bemoan the changes for Season 2 of Space: 1999? Day after day after day after day after day. Who for 42 years lament the appointment to producer role of Fred Freiberger. Who reiterate for the hundred-thousandth time that they missed Barry Morse in Season 2. Should not the pathetic whining be that of the fans who after four decades will not accept Space: 1999 for what it is and appreciate what both seasons have to offer? Might not this "pathetic whiner" tag be a case of psychological projection?
Still, perhaps I do have cause to pause. Oh, not for their sake. Their sake is damnable. Their not allowing a dead man to rest in peace and "making fun" of him is attestation to that. It is for my sake. Why waste my time writing entries for this Weblog on the subject of Space: 1999 and its fandom? I have no hope of changing anything. The rancour is just going to worsen. And more and more, these awful people are going to be given credence and authority on the subject of Space: 1999. Fewer and fewer people are going to be willing to look upon Season 2 open-mindedly. Almost all that I ever read from people who did like Season 2 when it first aired is that they have rejected it and are now "with" the Season 1 "camp". Or that they consider it a "guilty pleasure". Dean did say that what he called a conspiracy would not ever relent. That man has a frustrating tendency for being right.
I remarked this week on my own Facebook that fandom is one big cliche. Everything that it says is cliche. And I, too, have become a cliche in responding to the slurring of Season 2 and of Fred Freiberger. What a tiresome bunch of moaners! And I suppose that this does include me. See? I have self-awareness. I can self-criticise. They utterly lack self-awareness and will never self-criticise. Anything that might give them pause has to be blocked. Stick fingers in ears and chant, "I can't hear you." So much for the enlightened ones.
This whole thing brings absurdity to a level that a quarter-century ago I would never have thought possible. But there is a whopping amount of absurdity in the world today. National politics is rife with it. Ah, but I am not going to go there. Not today.
No more pathetic whining from me today. I am going to enjoy the sun and the company of my little cat.
July 15, 2018.
Just a short Weblog entry for this morning. I am on my vacation. Vacation from work. Vacation from contending with Fredericton drivers and traffic patterns. Vacation from responding to the asininity of people who have nothing better to do than to slur and smear a decades-old work of the imagination that I happen to fancy, for the amusement and approval of hive-minded, echo-chambered doltish louts who think themselves to be high-minded sophisticates.
But I will pose a question. Or a series of connected questions. If a man really detests and holds in contempt some production, why does he possess copies of it? And why does he watch said copies? Why does he sit down on his sofa and dedicate an hour of his life's ever-lessening hours of time to the viewing of something that he cannot abide and from which he is closed-mindedly incapable of gleaning any salient insight? And then march over to his keyboard and waste further minutes of time in the typewriting of a "hit piece" on it to share with people of the same persuasion who have said the same things and read the same things time and time again before?
It is patently ridiculous, is it not? To anybody possessing a rational mind and hailing from an upbringing rooted in common sense? It is an irrational behaviour that is indicative of some individual and collective disorder. A group of people each one of them so desperate to be validated in his or her negativity toward some work that he or she feels compelled to watch that work, myopically faultfind with it, and share with the approving herd more and more reiterated confirmation-biased attacks upon it. And then they, in their cosy circle of a few hundred (or perhaps a few thousand) wretchedly blinkered for decades wastes of highly evolved brain matter, feel superior to anyone who likes it, and declare themselves to be absolutely so through force of their numbers. And from that each one of them derives some sense of personal worth.
Of course, this is in reference to the Facebook group for Space: 1999. It is another usual day there. People approving one another's skewed hostile perspective on episodes of a season of their favourite television series that even forty-two years after its production they are unwilling to entertain any constructive aesthetic commentary thereupon. The episodes, "One Moment of Humanity" and "Brian the Brain", are receiving the intractable and relentless venom and wilful misinterpretation of premise and story (and denial of any suspension of disbelief, artistic licence, or "economy of detail") today. That and the ever-so-creative slights against Fred Freiberger and his work on the final seasons of a few television series, two of which were due to be cancelled whatever was done with them. Par for the course. And only people holding the same point of view are responsive in discussion "windows". Quislings that they are, fans of Season 2 are saying nothing, them probably being in tacit accord with the "thrust" of the impaling swords of the legions of Freiberger haters. Or what few of them who are steadfast to their tastes and appreciations departed the group some time ago. It is such a horrible travesty that an imaginative television series of beauty and aesthetic calibre should be lumbered with a fandom such as this.
Somehow, my conflict in the past with the fans of Bob Clampett's cartoons does not seem to be very bothersome anymore. At least in cartoon fandom, outside of a circle of self-professed iconoclasts, there is a significant number of vocal appreciators of the works of Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng. I made some mistakes. Mistakes in how I responded to the Clampett pundits. And being self-aware and self-critical as I am, I was in a position of weakness in their company in the group whose discussion forum I helped to create. I conceded error and apologised to people totally lacking in self-awareness and self-criticism. And that is an invitation to be eaten for breakfast. One must never, ever mea culpa to such people.
Anyway. So much for my intended-to-be-short Weblog entry for today. But such is life in a world wherein asininity is confoundedly commonplace. One should not, one cannot, be brief in reacting to it. Not if one is to have integrity.
July 16, 2018. Forty years ago to this day, CHSJ-TV ran a videotape-delayed-from-CBC's-May-telecast Space: 1999- "Dragon's Domain" in lieu of Walt Disney. I remember that vividly. And my friend, Mike J., saying to me the next day, "Hey, Kevin. Space: 1999 was on Walt Disney last night." Ah, the "good, old days" when people watched the same television stations and had televisual subjects for conversation.
It is so difficult to adjust to the notion that forty years have elapsed since then. Oh, it was a long time ago. But forty years just seems to be an excessive amount of time to separate those experiences with my today's awareness of them.
I wish to return to my commentary yesterday about self-awareness and self-criticism.
Both of those are essential for intellectual growth. One requires them for self-correction and for adaptation to new modes of thought, and new ways for looking at things. Where they are lacking, a person remains fixed on old viewpoints and old interpretations of events. New data that contradicts them and that "calls for" an adjustment of perspective and accepted fact, is not "taken up", is rejected. A person's growth in mind and knowledge is stunted.
This Website is a prime example of the value of self-awareness and self-criticism. I have updated the Website many times over the past twenty years. In the case of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour Page, I have made updates numerous times in the past two decades because new awareness and sudden memory flashes have prompted me to change data on which cartoons are in an episode. Such new awareness and flashes of memory have necessitated rethinking on the content of the instalments. Rejection of old reportages of data and replacing of them with the products of new insight. I became suddenly aware of similarities between "Wild Over You" and "Mouse-Taken Identity", began thinking about the possibility that "Wild Over You" was cartoon two of Show 3 and not "Don't Axe Me" as had previously been supposed (if only because it was the only cartoon on The Road Runner Show as that television programme known to me in 1997, that seemed to fit into The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour's first season in its early batch of episodes). I later, in 2009, learnt that "Wild Over You" was in The Road Runner Show's cartoon package. In 2015, I had my sudden insight into the similarities between it and "Mouse-Taken Identity" and the apparent fit of the knight's armour motif with other cartoons in Show 3 and Show 4. And then, the flashes of memory of seeing the opening scene to "Wild Over You" while in our house in Douglastown. And fairly early then. 1973. Or 1974. Based on all of this, I had to change my cartoon listing for the episode. Self-criticism made that possible. Had I lacked self-criticism, I would just have said that as I am always right, I had to be correct back in 1997, "Don't Axe Me" therefore has to be cartoon two of Show 3, and new indications to the contrary should be rejected. Self-correction that ought to go with cataloguing of vintage material from memory alone, is essential to the integrity of one's work in that field of endeavour.
It is also self-correction based on self-criticism that has prompted me to reject old ideas and favour new ones for my Space: 1999 chronology that has changed numerous times in the past thirty years. I may indeed someday replace what I currently have with something quite different as new and better ideas come to light for chronicling the subject matter in a coherent way that is respectful toward given data.
If I were lacking in self-criticism, I would not have given consideration to the self-improvement books that I read in the early 1990s. I would not have grown mentally and become aware of different angles for looking upon my childhood experiences and for better understanding my friends' actions toward me.
What my oh, so favourite people in Space: 1999 fandom routinely say is, "I felt that..." Or, "I thought that..." Always citing their past, initial reaction to something, some episode, some character, some concept, some performance, as set in stone, immutable, the sacrosanct product of some unquestionable orthodoxy. And they are never wrong. They cannot ever be wrong. Any contradictory observations or insights are rejected outright, and these men and women congregate into groups of people whose outlook on the television show matches theirs precisely and who in unison "slap down" anyone who possesses cogent insights that might compel a reasoning, open-minded individual to reassess an episode, a season, or whatever.
Oh, they accepted David Hirsch's observations about the "Mysterious Unknown Force". Of course, they did. Because those observations buttressed their established preference for "Year 1". Indeed, they coopted them fully and have become rabidly dogmatic in proclaiming them, and in rejecting the season that opted to veer away from them. No matter what insights may be had from that other season. People seeing merit in it are heretics. Delusional "flakes" who are "one can short of a six-pack". Who must be pilloried in the court of opinion.
Derangement syndromes can be the ultimate outcome within groups of "echo-chambered" people lacking in self-awareness. When questioning of accepted norms within the group has become unthinkable, when rather than adapting to changing circumstances or facts that point to a different conclusion, people become deeply entrenched in their established outlooks and base their biases rigidly upon those outlooks, scapegoating of an outlier or of outliers and routine attacks upon him, her, or them becomes standard practice. And this is where a derangement syndrome "kicks in". Some deranged groups are congregations of losers. Others, if they have political power to some degree or some established control over the dissemination of thought outside of their bubble, can be quite dangerous. There are all too many minds that are attracted to ideologies that demand unquestioning obedience to an idea or course of action. And history has shown to where that may lead.
Problem is that people lacking self-awareness and self-criticism cannot be reasoned-with. And to them one should not ever show weakness. They tend to be attracted to positions of authority and political power, and when they achieve that, people possessing self-awareness and self-criticism must be exceedingly guarded in how they proceed with their enlightened processes of thought. Self-aware people cannot afford to show self-doubt, and any mistake (all humans make mistakes) will be used by the authority person or persons to nullify them in the eye of the hoi polloi. And, yes, I am alluding to my experience in 1995 with a certain fan club president. I learnt too late what sort of person I was dealing with in the early-to-mid-1990s. Him, plus the the rank-and-file, hive-minded crucifiers of the person whose thoughts do not belong in the vaunted group.
I really must go back to work on restoring my Era 6 memoirs. I keep losing my initiative, as it is not a time period of my life for which I have any large amount of affection. Apart from the fact that my parents were alive then. Indeed, that is the one undeniable merit of that life era, and it was a merit of every life era prior to their deaths. The better eras preceding 1987. Them, also.
July 17, 2018.
Something I routinely do when on vacation is to revisit my old high school, Fredericton High School. The outside of it. Most specifically the driveway, curbside, and entryway of the academic C-Wing of the school, where the school buses that I rode each day deposited and collected students. And the doors of which I passed through during lunchtimes when I walked to either Wendy's or Burger King, going to the latter via the high school fields, and passing the old Plaza Cinemas and K-Mart Plaza while en route to the Home of the Whopper. During a school bus drivers' labour dispute in spring of 1982, I would walk to the K-Mart Plaza to meet my father, who would transport me to home in his car at the end of the school day. I also joined my parents there on May 2, 1983 before we began our travel to Ottawa that afternoon. Gazing out from the pillars to the entryway to C-Wing, I look at the driveway where I "caught" the afternoon school bus in Grades 10, 11, 12. Where in Grade 12 I boarded Bus 93, joined by Tony as we talked about WVII's autumn of 1983 weekday showings of Star Trek, the bus then bringing us to our home neighbourhood in the afternoon sunshine and my father at home waiting to ask me how my day went. And I look at the old K-Mart Plaza (now, the Smythe Street Plaza, K-Mart having long ago discontinued operations) and the building that used to be the Plaza Cinemas many dozens of metres in the distance, past the soccer and football fields and a bushy incline as the frontiers of Fredericton High School give way to the rear driveway of the Plaza. And I direct my vision two o'clock to the right at Priestman Street, onto which was the first turn of a homeward-bound school bus, and which was the first street of my long treks to home after seeing a matinee performance of a science fiction/fantasy movie at Plaza Cinema 1 (e.g. Star Trek II- The Wrath of Khan in June of 1982 and Return of the Jedi in July, 1983).
What often crosses my mind now as I "take in" these sights and recall myself to the way that I was back then, and the way my world was, is how good it was to be young. To be un-jaded. To be seeing so many productions either for the first time ever or for the first time again after a passage of a number of years since some prior experience with them. To be with friends who were also young. Alike to me in that they were unmarried. Not interested in pursuing marriage or romantic relationships. Totally free to share with me the experience of being enamoured with and drawn into fanciful fictional worlds. In between fun games of baseball, badminton, et cetera. And to have my parents and my grandparents living, my life untouched by death apart from that of some pets in early-to-mid-second-life-era. My mind was not burdened with worries of loss due to death. Although school was a "drag" and commanded some of my attention, I was free to immerse myself with fervour in the colourful excursions of Spiderman (and to delight in my ever-increasing collection of videotaped episodes thereof). And post-summer-of-1983, in the fantastic future and spatial encounters of Moonbase Alpha in Space: 1999 via the most gratifying acquisitions of episodes of it on videotape from Nova Scotia. Plus Star Trek, returned to television in my area in the autumn of 1983 in a very big way, on two television stations for a combined total of six broadcasts per week. And Star Wars, with the release to theatres of its third produced movie in summer of 1983, continued to impress, even though it was starting to "flag" in the creativity department prior to the rather "pat" resolution of its storyline in Return of the Jedi. Everything still seemed quite fresh, and I would be excited to see a long-elusive episode of Spiderman again, or to receive a videotape of Space: 1999 episodes, impressed by the spaceship battles of Star Wars, desirous of having The Empire Strikes Back on videotape, and gratified to add another James Bond movie to my holdings of those. Everything, from Bond to the George Lucas opus to the revived Star Trek in movies, just seemed to be unstoppable in their quality of output. I will reiterate that I was un-jaded. Except, perhaps, where the Warner Brothers cartoons were concerned. But that was more to do with how they were being handled at the time by CBS than with diminished aesthetic appreciation on my part. They were being brutally film-spliced. With little to no variation from year to year in the truncated cartoons offered. And increasingly worn and faded film elements. And less and less dependable airing of them on WAGM- Presque Isle. Back then, I was more "into" the cosmic element. Deep-space adventure. The Warner Brothers cartoons, even the ones with Marvin Martian, seemed quaint by comparison. My interest in them would rebound by mid-decade (i.e. mid-1980s). I was not jaded with them in any permanent way.
I miss so much from back then the untrammelled sense of wonder that I had. There was still a "magic" to everything. Cynical, faultfinding fans did not contaminate my experience with any of my favourite entertainments. Oh, I knew of course about the errors in Bakshi's Spiderman episodes, but I did not "dwell upon" that, preferring to be swept into the awesome adventure being had by the intrepid web-swinger. And with regard to Space: 1999, it was virtually unassailable on matters of quality of technical production or story structure. I saw very few lapses of depiction or story in the episodes of either of the two seasons. I preferred Season 1 then (yes, my viewpoint is not set in stone; it changes, with new perspectives, new observations, new insights), but I was delighted to be reunited with Season 2 when episodes of it stared coming my way on videotape. Everything in life was just so "right". Apart from the medium that was VHS videotape. But it was all that I had then for building a collection (the RCA VideoDisc had been a cul-de-sac).
My exhilaration at gaining new videotape-recordings of favourite works was complemented by treasured friendship moments (especially with my buddy, Joey), winning decisions in neighbourhood baseball games, and a prosperous outlook for world economies and developments in technology. The Space Age still looked as though it might be upon us. This was before the Challenger disaster of 1986 and the Chernobyl disaster of that same year. Imagination was "fired" by the possibilities that seemed then to be boundless. And male heroes with whom I identified went on the awesome journeys to the array of strange new worlds.
And as I say, it seemed as though what is today called "franchises" could do no wrong. Or if they did, it was just a small anomaly. An untoward "blip" quickly rectified in the next outing.
Now, today, everything is a mess. Everything has been "done to death" and is being besmirched by people who do not understand, or wilfully overlook, the "ethos" of the subject matter that they have seen themselves fit to undertake in further and further and further production. After more than fifty years, Doctor Who has been "done to death". The well is hopelessly dry, and it is just serving the old tropes for the umpteenth time, the only new "thing" offered being heavy-handed sociopolitical commentary hewing to the increasingly divisive political Leftism, or neo-Marxism, that permeates media and academia of today. The so-called "culture war" that I have mentioned. Star Wars fans are railing against it. And good for them. I say that unironically. And without condecension. Even though I am of the opinion that Star Wars had been "done to death" already by the end of Return of the Jedi. That the well had dried after The Empire Strikes Back, and that, really, Return of the Jedi just "served up" the tropes of the first Star Wars, with a "dash" or two of the second. The only really novel thing was the Ewoks of Endor. And that is not very widely considered to be much of a mark of distinction. At the time, they were popular enough with children to lead to a "spin-off" pair of television movies. Plus the Ewoks/Droids cartoon television series. But whatever deficienies there may have been creatively with Return of the Jedi, Star Wars ought to have finished then while it was somewhat "ahead", and "called it a day" with the conclusion of its 1983 movie. For fifteen years, the aforementioned television movies and cartoon television series aside, Return of the Jedi had indeed been the end of the Star Wars saga. It was regarded and accepted as such. Though rather rushed and perfunctory in its "wrapping-up" of conflicts and storyline questions and arguably less than profuse in its creativity department, it did serve as an effective resolution to an overall story arc. Star Wars should have been left at that. The prequels were unneccessary and largely just returned to the old tropes and gave to them another "go". But there were some interesting new worlds depicted, and casting Christopher Lee as a villain was an inspired move. All in all, I can accept the prequels and the original trilogy as a cohesive and effective saga. Albeit an uneven one by times. But that is where the absolute end should have been.
And such is the representation of Star Wars in my Blu-Ray and DVD collection. I have the released-in-2011 COMPLETE SAGA Blu-Ray box set of the first three produced Star Wars movies, those of the 1970s and the 1980s, and their made-much-later three prequels. I am satisfied with this, Lucas' changes and all. I do not expect ever to buy those movies again.
Ah, but there is money to be made by putting derrieres into theatre seats. Because of its popularity passed from generation to generation, Star Wars could be a "cash cow" to be "milked". And "milked" often. Even annually. Or twice annually. Disney now has its hands on Star Wars and is intent on exploiting it for every profitable million dollars that it can yield. Disney was so confident that anything Star Wars would be successful, no matter how recycled the tired tropes, that it opted to use Star Wars to propagndise the hapless masses to the political Leftism of Democrat Hollywood, political Leftism that is apparently seeking to subvert traditional Americana and the values of Western civilisation, and bring a dystopian pan-global, uncultured, subsistence-level socialism. With an elite of oligarchs living in luxury. The first step would appear to be the denigration of traditional male heroism (a pillar of myths upon which much of Western culture is founded), hence the debasing and "killing off" of Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. And simultaneously offering a super-powered juggernaut of a female hero to replace them. What Doctor Who is currently doing is to follow a distinctly similar path, divesting its hero of his maleness. These "franchises", along with those of Star Trek and James Bond, have already been "done to death" and are only being kept alive by "franchise"-recognition, force of habit, misguided, erroneous nostalgia proclivity (trying to find nostalgia in modern rather than vintage material), and the "push" by political power brokers and monied interests to use culture to indoctrinate the citizenry to accept political Leftism as the new paradigm for centrist norms.
James Bond is still male, but he is not the character that Connery portrayed. He went through Skyfall failing, ultimately unsuccessful in his mission to keep M from being killed. He can survive a fall from a bridge (not even Max Zorin, genetic superman that he was, was that impervious to death) and can be underwater without oxygen supply for several minutes but cannot succeed in his mission. As to Star Trek, the stoic, deliberate heroism of "Alpha Male" Captain Kirk has been reduced to the puerile and reckless behaviour of an arrogant man-child. Chris Pine is no William Shatner. Not by the wildest stretch of the imagination. No, not even my imagination. I saw Star Trek (2009) once, and I have no desire to see it again. It was a thoroughly unpleasant experience. And Chris Pine's Kirk was an integral component of the unpleasantness. Parodies of Captain Kirk over the years were more satisfying than Chris Pine's effort. Give to me Frank Shuster's portrayal of the Enterprise's Captain any day over his.
Once all of the Ian Fleming books had been made into movies and Roger Moore had decided to leave the role of Bond, the James Bond movies ought to have ended. Cubby Broccoli had achieved what he had "set out" to do. Movies of the Ian Fleming books. By 1983's Octopussy, every Ian Fleming James Bond book had been made into a movie. Granted, Casino Royale (1967) was a spoof made by the man, Charles K. Feldman, who had the film rights to Fleming's Casino Royale and to it only. Still, every Fleming Bond book was a movie by 1983. That should have been sufficient, fond though I may be of The Living Daylights and Tomorrow Never Dies. I know that A View to a Kill and The Living Daylights had come out of a couple of Ian Fleming James Bond short stories. I suppose that an argument could be made in favour of the making of those. Perhaps combining those stories into one premise for Moore's and Bond's swan song. Yes, I think that Moore retiring from the role, and Bond going into retirement at that time, would have been consistent with the age of the Connery Bond in Dr. No as projeted some twenty years into future. The time would have been right to retire Bond. People respected the creative decisions to stop the Mary Tyler Moore and M*A*S*H television series. Those were not decisions based on popularity. Or on the monetary viability of and profit in further production. Ah, but in the case of the Bond movies, the profit motive persisted, and persists to this day. Just keep on "churning them out", and people will pay to see them. Generate the hype. Denigrate all the prior movies, tout the latest one as being the best one ever, and the masses go out to the movie houses and open wallets. I went to see Skyfall as something to do out of the house in the aftermath of my father's death. I knew as I was watching it that the "ethos" of Bond cinema had drifted very far, unpalatably far, from my viewpoint, from Cubby Broccoli's seminal renderings of Ian Fleming's works. Apart from that, it was a bland and unpleasant movie in every respect. Characters. Visualisations. Music. There really was not much action. James Bond movies of old usually climaxed with a huge battle of Bond and his allies with the villain's forces. And there was an exciting chase or skirmish every so often over the course of the average vintage Bond movie. The average vintage Bond movie helmed by Broccoli, or by Broccoli and Saltzman. Bond would prevail most of the time. Sometimes not. Sometimes he would be captured. But he would ultimately foil the villain's plans, sometimes dispatching the villain in some very apt way. I did not see Spectre, and I still have not to this day. I was able to sit through Casino Royale (2006) after several unsuccessful attempts to do so, when I viewed it on Blu-Ray in 2013 (it came in the box set; I did not buy it individually). I tried to give to it "a chance". It was after all based on Fleming's first James Bond book. I have not seen Quantum of Solace. The reboot in 2006 was unnecessary and disrespectful to the efforts of all of the tremendously talented people who brought the vintage Bond movies to the screen. Effectively nullifying them from consideration in the public mind as new movies are "trotted out" by people vainly thinking that they can better what was made when the essential Bond story material was fresher and more germane to world affairs of the day (i.e. the Cold War). Efforts to present Bond as a hero who does not have experience and wide-ranging expertise and who is subservient to an older female superior stern and scolding like a school teacher, and who routinely fails and is angsty about his failures, amount to a subversion of the "ethos" of the James Bond of Broccoli and Saltzman. And to try to "overwrite" the vintage films with this, I judge to be disrespectful. And besides this, the post-2006 Bond films are not colourful and beautiful films. They look "washed-out" and dreary.
As I say, the Bond films ought to have retired in the 1980s. Mission was accomplished. The Fleming books had all become successful movies. All that is being done now is to "milk" the "cash cow". Subversively.
As to Star Trek, it ought to have stopped with Roddenberry's death and the retiring of the original crew. I think there is a climate of opinion that Star Trek is a spent concept. That it was spent as a concept with the last of the Next Generation movies. Whether that climate of opinion is the prevailing one, I cannot say. These days, it is difficult to determine truth from fiction. The news media would have the common man believe that everything is "hunky dory" with every "franchise". I have to concede that J.J.'s movies always seem to have a widespread and enthusiastic following. As confounding as that may be to me.
But back when I was in my late teenage years, there was so much enjoyment to be had and wonder to be felt. Imagination was vivid and colourful. My male heroes went forth on their journeys and would ultimately "win the day" with flair and unabashed masculinity. And sometimes, sometimes, having to pay some price in their victory. Evil was clearly defined and defeated through the hero's efforts. And if it occasionally prevailed as it disturbingly could, that was an aberration that usually would be rectified in due course. And my adulation for Space: 1999 was untainted by antipathy or hostility on the part of condescending, preeminent sections of fandom. It was a different time. A better time. If only DVD and Blu-Ray were available then. Then, I would have had everything I could want. A vast collection of entertainment on top-quality media. Friends. My parents. My un-jaded youth.
I can dream. It is one of the few pleasures that I have left for my vacations.
July 19, 2018.
Returning to a few of the subjects of my Weblog entry of yesterday.
I have almost always leaned towards conservatism while also being stimulated in my imagination with 1960s and 1970s opuses having a humanist's liberal view of human advancement towards a Space Age. But the liberalism of the 1960s and the 1970s would be considered conservative today, as it did not embrace Marxism or socialism. The Star Trek episode, "Return of the Archons", among others, addressed the dangers of collectivism under the Communist model, and according to Marxist-Leninist thinkers, socialism is the first stage of a process toward Communism.
I am not usually fond of parables of Earth politics in science fiction, and "Return of the Archons" has never been one of my favourite Star Trek episodes for that and for other reasons. But the parable is there. Indicative of an anti-Communist stance on the part of Roddenberry and his script writers.
I would prefer my imaginative entertainment not to be mired in present-day political ideology. Political Left or political Right. But I judge the political Left to be particularly objectionable because it is not reverent of the heritage and values of the Western civilisation that yielded my favourite works and the treasured eras of my life. And of which my parents and their generation were consientious stewards in the years of my youth. The best years of my life.
My father was definitely conservative. My mother less so, but she had misgivings about the welfare state and did not approve of flaunted sexuality. I would say that she was a blue liberal. My father always made clear to me the disagreeable nature of socialism and Communism. And from that, I extrapolated the Marxist's defective view of human nature. Human nature is not malleable to voluntary, selfless adherence to the dictates of some collectivised state. Individual achievement and the right to private property are essential for maintaining a man's voluntary and productive engagement in a societal structure. Where the engagement is not voluntary, a state must utilise increasingly coercive measures, along with propaganda to dull the minds of a sufficient number of people made dependent on the state, for the more strong-minded libertarians of society (the people who are often the entrepreneurs in a capitalist system) to be outnumbered, easily segregated and identified for consignment to forced labour camps in some formidable locale. And even the people whose minds are dulled will eventually crave freedom, and increasingly oppressive measures will be "called for" by the oligarchs in control of the state. Orwell saw to what direction this would lead.
I am not sanguine about unregulated capitalism either. Something like nuclear power which poses a threat to public health, has to be outlawed. Capitalism should be free to generate productivity and wealth, but not when it endangers the health of the citizenry. Which is why some regulation is essential.
No system is perfect, but the best one that there is, is a liberal democracy with free enterprise. And with competition for profit (fuelling the urge to innovate) and occasional advantageous-to-everyone cooperation between capitalist establishments within sovereign states and between whole sovereign states. It was the free enterprise and liberal democracy and cooperation between multiple states model for human interaction and human development that Roddenberry envisioned as leading to a Space Age. His Federation of Planets is a salient galactic extrapolation of the cooperating sovereign states of Earth, Captain Kirk asserted the freedom of the individual to self-actualise, Kirk and company revered the American flag and the liberal-democratic and sovereign-nation values for which it stood, and the Starship of Star Trek was called Enterprise. And rugged individualism and the American frontier and pioneer spirit were very much in effect in the exploratory impulse of Captain Kirk and his crew in the individual-rewarding meritocracy in which they functioned.
Globalism and socialism will only lead to Orwell's dystopia. Not to Star Trek.
And I like my private property. Always have. Always will. The money that I spend on it helps to fuel the economy. And I have money in investments and do know that I can expect a higher return on my investments when government spending is curtailed, monetary deficits are avoided, there is consumer confidence, and capitalism is functioning.
I studied Marxism when I was in university, and it is an unrealistic ideology in its goals and despicable in its methods. The form of Marxism that exists today is setting groups within nations against one another, seeks to subvert the culture of the most successful nations of the past couple of centuries, and wishes to dis-empower the individual intellectual mind through constant indoctrination in news and entertainment. I see it at work in what is being done to the "franchises" that I mentioned yesterday. And that is "down to" Hollywood and the Democrat party for which Hollywood "shills", along with the news media. The same news media that sent the Fukushima disaster down a "memory hole" and that is trying to spur the President into war with Russia. We were dangerously close to that in April. Closer than we have been in my lifetime (and that includes the Cold War).
On the subject of James Bond. Back in 2012, while Skyfall was in theatres, a friend I had at the time was touting Skyfall to be the best James Bond movie ever made. I had a decidedly different opinion on Skyfall. And we "fell out". Yes, we "fell out" over a movie. The "falling out" was due to him not respecting me in my assessment of the movie and his patronising attitude over my disliking of the 2006 reboot, stupid old goat that I allegedly am. And me holding my ground, not budging an inch. He most confidently argued that the reboot was right, that all previous Bond movies, especially the ones of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, ought to be discounted because they were sexist. He cited the Pussy Galore character as particularly offencive in her name, and I reminded him that the Pussy Galore name was from Fleming's original Goldfinger novel. He "dissed" Moonraker utterly, laughing at my contentions that Moonraker was escapist fun from a time when such was what movie audiences wanted, in a Space Age vein following the success of Star Wars. I did fail to mention the portrayal of the love interest in that movie as a highly intelligent, professional woman. But somehow I think that he would have dismissed that by citing her succumbing to Bond's masculinity, especially in the final scene with the weightless love-making.
There were several intelligent and physically and emotionally strong women in the vintage Bond movies. They were strong while being quintessentially women. Diana Rigg's character in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, for instance. The Barbara Bach character in The Spy Who Loved Me. Even the maligned Pussy Galore of Goldfinger (indeed, her help was instrumental in enabling Bond to defeat Goldfinger). But all of this said, if the Bond movies of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s were sexist, I do not care. James Bond movies of those decades were men's movies. They were made by men for men (and boys). Women back then had their own movies. Family dramas. Romantic comedies. Historical epics. And men had theirs. James Bond movies and other movies of that ilk. War movies. Westerns. Men wanted dominant male heroes in their movies. James Bond is a twentieth century archetype of the male hero. His movies were produced by men, written by men, and directed by men. Men were the demographic being sought first and foremost for viewing of the Bond movies. And outcome "beared that out"; the majority of Bond aficionados and routine Bond movie ticket buyers were men. Some women enjoyed the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s Bond movies. But mostly because they fancied the actor playing Bond. Connery, Lazenby, Dalton. Moore, not quite to the same degree. But Moore kept returning to the role of Bond because because men (and boys) were going to the theatres to see the Moore Bond films.
There may be some women who appreciate James Bond for story, milieu, action. I do not reject that idea outright. But I suspect that most women who attended Bond movie screenings in the twentieth century were there to gaze at the handsome and attractive leading actor.
In 1987 when The Living Daylights was in theatres, I went to the Plaza Cinema 1 to see it one weekday evening. Seated behind me in the theatre was a group of college (or late high school) students. Some of them male. Some of them female. The young ladies were only commenting on the less sexually promiscuous than usual Bond and lamenting about that. They kept plaintively asking when Bond was going to have sex with some woman or with the love interest played by Maryam d'Abo. And that was the limit of their conversation. While the males in the group were remarking about the action scenes and the gadgets and the storyline. I remember them scoffing at Koskov surviving the collision between his jeep and an aeroplane. That was admittedly rather unbelievable. They were occasionally expressing bewilderment at the story and its development. But they were there for the story, for the intrigue, for the action. It was primarily them for whom the movie was made.
My problems with the twenty-first century Bond movies have nothing to do with how the ladies in them are written and portrayed. For me, the concerns are aesthetic and conceptual as regards the characterisation of Bond and the nature of the spy scenario in which he operates. And the diminishment of the fun factor in the Bond formula, with the tired tropes being all the more wearisome because of how bereft that they are of the fun that used to be an integral part of them. And the lack of necessity in making more Bond movies. They achieved their artistic zenith decades ago.
My friend refused to acknowledge any acuity in my assessment of Skyfall (despite the fact that many reviewers of the movie were of a mind similar to mine) and rejected all of the Bond movies with which I was raised on the basis of the "critical theory" of academia of today. Male dominance, even that of past decades, is taboo. Even in men's movies. Are the Bond movies of today in fact men's movies?
I mentioned preferring Season 1 of Space: 1999 in the early 1980s. Yes, I did. I started to find myself drawn more toward Season 2 episodes toward the end of the 1980s. And then I met Dean, whose observations and insights on patterns and symbolisms in Season 2 were all recognisable and verifiable. Etymologies and motifs and similarities between episodes cannot reasonably be denied once they are stated. They are factual. I changed my outlook on Space: 1999 then and have had no compelling reason to change it again. The loutish hostility and blinkered, dismissive attitude of bullying fans could not possibly have a prayer of making me reject Dean's astute findings, and my own. Not even my "falling out" with Dean could produce that outcome.
All for today.
July 28, 2018. Twenty-three years ago, in 1995, I was on an aeroplane, on my return to home from a Space: 1999 fan convention in Los Angeles and some unpleasantly-impacting-upon-me stays with two Canadian fellows of the fan following of that television series. More on that later in this Weblog entry.
My fears are confirmed. The Dairy Queen chili dog is an extinct beast in both Fredericton and Newcastle. I was at the Newcastle Dairy Queen yesterday, having gone north to the Miramichi region for a few hours. Though the menu no longer had hot dogs listed anywhere, the staff on duty let me have one, while saying that they were being "gotten rid of". This is a terrible time as one pleasure after another is being removed from my life.
I was not given an explanation for why hot dogs at Dairy Queen are going the way of the Do-Do. They have been a standard offering at all Dairy Queen restaurants since I first knew of those restaurants' existence in the early 1970s (way back when Dennis the Menace characters were on all of the restaurant's products), and now they are passing into the ether. Quietly. Without any uproar.
I have some theories about why this is happening. Frankfurters and all processed meats have been receiving negative press attention in recent years. Demand may have diminished. There is nothing wrong with eating hot dogs in moderation. One a month. But people in large numbers may have dropped them outright from their diet. Why the negative press attention? There is usually a reason for that beyond concern for the public welfare. There is these days always some agenda behind the media's attention toward anything. If the media was concerned about public health, the Fukushima disaster would never have been pushed into a "memory hole". It could just be some government agency busy-bodily flexing muscle to restrict the public's food choice, on the premise that it is trying to reduce diet-related disease. And the media being the government's propaganda arm, if it tells the people not to eat hot dogs, for health or for other reasons, people will not eat them. Government agencies love to flex muscle. It makes them look like they are doing something. And somehow, controlling every facet of people's lives appeals to some government persons. A more likely explanation is that Dairy Queen is streamlining its menu, to lessen the breadth of employees' food preparation tasks and their paid training time, and to reduce overhead paid to suppliers, to save money now that minimum wage has been increased.
Whatever the explanation for my latest loss, I had my final Newcastle Dairy Queen chili dog on Friday, and it was a most solemn occasion.
A third Pink Panther Blu-Ray disc from Kino Lorber is now announced for September. Twenty-two cartoons this time. Comprising the final batch of cartoons made before The Pink Panther Show premiered in 1969. I am looking forward to it, with fingers crossed that there are no audio issues with it.
In the past week to ten days, I have been remembering my trans-North-American odyssey of 1995. What good that there was in it (almost none at all), what bad there was, and what ugliness there was.
I have been remembering it to my friends on Facebook. Some of them expressed their sympathies with what adversity I had to endure. Others probably just regarded it with bemusement, wondering why I was in a fan club at all, much less trying to make some measure of difference in it on the matter of one-season-versus-the-other. Twenty-three years of hindsight do have me puzzling over what I was thinking in embarking upon that woeful misadventure.
Oh, I met Nick Tate. I went on the odyssey expecting to meet Martin Landau and Barbara Bain and Barry Morse and Nick Tate. They all were the guests listed in the Command Conference convention's advertisement. But only Mr. Tate was at the convention (and for only a couple of hours), stating his usual "talking points" oriented around his disliking for Season 2 and Fred Freiberger, to the whooping applause of everyone in the room but me. Mr. Tate did not seem to be very impressed with me as I introduced myself to him at the autograph signing and told him of where I lived. And I was much too tongue-tied at meeting someone from "the show" at last to have said anything really cogent.
An auctioneer commented that a photograph of Season 2's "The Metamorph" could be used as a dartboard. And everyone except me guffawed. And the only Space: 1999-related conversation from fans with whom I dined, was on which episodes of Season 2 they disliked the most.
Actually, though, the convention that I attended in Los Angeles was not the "low point" of the trans-continental travelling, though it was certainly a dispiriting experience for me. No, the nadir was in my return journey and my stay with the fan club president in Alberta and then in his and my visit in Saskatchewan with a fellow Space: 1999 fan and the then publisher of the club newsletter.
To say that I was the "odd one out" is to put it mildly. I came home defeated, completely "on the outs" (as my late father would say) with the Calgary, Alberta-based president of the fan club and soon to be excommunicated by a fellow in Saskatchewan who preferred the club president to me (on the latter outcome, with both of them being Season 1 adherents, how could I have expected anything else?). The club president had, unbeknown to me, been "itching" for an in-person confrontation with me and effected that as I was at a disadvantage not on my turf (or even neutral turf) but on his, thousands of miles from home and dependent on his hospitality.
The source of the latest, most immediate conflict between myself and the club president that marred that odyssey (or marred it the most; I cannot say that my attending the convention in Los Angeles was an edifying experience either, it, also, having been marred by some displeasing circumstances or events) was my most recent club newsletter column by which I, for the first time, called extensive attention to "nitpicks" with the first season's content, in response to years of slurring of Season 2 for anything and everything. To gain my support in the forming of the club, its self-appointed president had promised to me that both seasons would be respectfully treated, with intelligent appreciation of both of them being club policy. And as a gesture of good faith, I submitted content for the club's first three newsletters that was whole-heartedly complimentary of Season 1. I remember writing a lauding analysis of the first season episode, "Mission of the Darians". Within the first two years of the club's existence, a bias against the second season had become most clearly manifest in the submissions of fans approved for printing, in British magazine articles reprinted in the newsletter, and in the bearing of the president who in his telephone conversations with me and in the "Ultimate Guidebook" on which he and I had collaborated was routinely disparaging Season 2 from his position of presumed authority on the subject of the television series.
My handicap was that I am self-aware and self-critical by nature, and that I was with someone, and beholden as a guest, thousands of miles from home, to someone without a smidgen, without the tiniest trace, of self-awareness and self-criticism. Someone who is arrogantly convinced of his infallibility and who is determined for his point of view against what I venerate, to be supremely prevalent. And I had "gone after" his precious "Year 1", and he felt threatened by that. I was more astute, more intellectual (if I must say so myself), and better written than he. And my then associate, Dean, was especially so on all three counts. Dean was isolated from the group (him having left the club in its initial months, chafing from the president's anti-Season 2 bias that he perceived then) and silent. I had been conciliatory. I had thought that devotees of Season 1 first and foremost, could be worked-with in an environment of cooperation and mutual respect. Fool that I was. Fool that I also was to "nitpick" Season 1 in advance of a visit with this imperious person.
With my column, there I was, ostensibly (as he saw it) "taking the battle" toward him and his cosy "echo chamber" that he had grown in "his" club over the course of five years. As long as I was ever on the defencive, beleaguered with incessant reading of slights on Season 2 in the newsletter (or reprinted articles in the newsletter attacking Season 2, articles whose "wittiness" amused him, he intimated, prior to his shows of apparent rebuttal of them), and without vocal allies, coming, aggrieved, to the aid of the ever-put-upon second season in solitary response to routine sorties against it in the newsletter, I could be regarded as an obscure and ineffectual "dufus". But I had "crossed the line". And I had to be "slapped down" for it. Oh, he wanted for my column to continue, but in a neutered way, confining itself to "fluff pieces" like "this character is 'cool' in such and such an episode" when daring to address Season 2 at all. And after I had "taken my lumps" and been resoundingly vilified by other fans and by him in a "hit piece" on me in the newsletter.
If I had been in the company of a gentleman, he would have said, "I have a disagreement with your latest column. I don't want to spoil your trip or your stay with me by going into it here. We can hammer it out when you're home and we're both on our own ground." But, no, he "took advantage" of my being his house-guest at a late hour at which I was tired after a long day and upon which going to a hotel would not have been a viable option, to assert his authority over me as president and to try to force some huge capitulation on my part as regards my appreciation of Season 2 and my column's content henceforth. And when I would not utterly "cave" and abjectly capitulate to his dictates and spoke of just retiring the column outright and was soon also entertaining, to myself, thoughts of walking away completely from "his" club, I had to be character-assassinated. Which was what he undertook to do when we were with our mutual chum (soon to be his bosom buddy and my detractor) in the Saskatchewan capital city of Regina. Insinuations that I am a stupid rustic from an eastern province, with screws loose upstairs. Some as laughable as asserting that there is something wrong with me for my locking a car door with all of my travel belongings inside the vehicle. That pathetic attempt at invalidation should be laughable to any reasonable person. But these are not reasonable people, these Space: 1999 fans. It was the beginning of a campaign to discredit me totally in the fan movement, to bestow unto me a reputation so bad that nothing that I had ever said, or will say, could be seriously considered. And it was a successful campaign, as I am lumbered to this day with the reputation that he applied to me at what ought to have been my understandable leaving of "his" club. And any efforts by me to counter it dismissed as the paranoid drivel of a delusional crank.
He is very good, ultimately, at what he does. I will grant to him that compliment. Using people and then destroying them, their reputation, and smelling like a rose after having done that deed from his high horse of imperiousness as the president, as the "Ultimate Guidebook" writer, as the anointed one of the fan movement, the actors all favouring him, is his forte; he has it "down to a science". I was not the first person to leave his retinue. He had managed to "pooh-pooh" the others' departure and to present himself as without fault, as pure and noble. His portrayal of me as "Kevin the Destroyer", the non-team-player, the person who ruins everything that he touches, "flies in the face" of my team-player collaboration with him in the first releases of his "Guidebook", my good faith in helping in the starting of his club, my having "stuck with" the club and him for as long as I did, and my spearheading of the latter campaign that succeeded in bringing Space: 1999 to YTV for two years, from 1990 to 1992. Indeed it does, but he was successful in dismissing all of that as irrelevant.
Anyone with a modicum of empathy and rationality would have acknowledged that my inflammatory column "nitpicking" Season 1 was provoked. And it really was not very thorough. I further concede that it was far from being my best work. I acknowledged that at the time of my inquisition- but I should not have done so. One should never budge an inch in responding to the attacks of non-self-critical people. A reasonable person would not partake in a verbal lynching of me or a group's approval of such, over some provoked "nitpicks". A reasonable person would not judge me utterly and for all time and completely invalidate my past work in aid of the television show. But these are not reasonable people. I had to "find that out the hard way".
My huge mistake in 1995 was in planning that trek and scheduling overnight stays and a number of days in the close company of people whom I had not met. And with one of whom with whom I had had disagreement in the past. Though we had in recent months appeared to find an "entente cordiale", I believe his intention, upon hearing that I would like to meet him on my westward trek, was to try to force an understanding entirely on his "terms", and my latest, incendiary column had given to him a convenient brickbat with which to proclaim his differences with me in an accusatory manner, denying to me any quarter, any concession. Me being utterly "in the wrong", as he would argue. He said in a most cutting and condescending tone, "You know what this is going to do? Don't you?" And he answered the question before I could utter a sound. He said that I had only made things worse for my beloved Season 2. And that he was going to give to me quite a verbal thrashing in the next newsletter. Oh, not because I had unleashed the dogs of war in fans' expected retaliations and that Season 2 may suffer for it. He did not give a "flying flip" about Season 2 or my appreciation of it. His concern was that Season 1 had been violated. That was unacceptable. I therefore had to be "made an example of". And so, I would have to face a scorching reproval from him, together with what any other fans may say. The next newsletter would be an "open season" on Kevin McCorry the loser, and the president was going to relish it. Things might go easier for me if I was contrite and meekly "took my lumps". But it was clear that I would henceforth be the "village idiot".
In writing that column I had given to him ammunition for my destruction. And while we were in Regina, he kept insinuating to our mutual friend that I have screws loose somewhere. That would the basis for his assassination of my character. That plus my alleged inability to be a team player.
As for the column, it was nowhere near as thorough as it could have been. In this Weblog, I have delved into faultfinding vis-a-vis first season episodes much more comprehensively and articulately. I loved the first season so much that I could not then perceive many of the lapses in story or depiction that I now see. It was far from being a definitive "nitpicking" exercise. And I will say that it was by far the worst column that I had written. But it did expose the hypocrisy of the fans. They attack Season 2 relentlessly, and one is a precious "wuss" if one objects to that and should be laughed off of the proverbial stage as being an infantile crybaby, but to point to imperfection in Season 1 is to invite the most vicious of reactions by a hysterical "mob". "How dare you! HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!"
"Yes, Kevin the Destroyer, that's who you are!"
Oh, yes. Kevin who led the letter campaign to YTV to return Space: 1999 to television screens across Canada. The successful letter campaign. Kevin who, in 1994, "took on" Sci-Fi Universe magazine over a Chris Gore "hit piece" written about Space: 1999. Kevin who represented the fan club at the convention because the president was unable to attend it, gave copies of the newsletter to Nick Tate, and spoke positively about the club in a podium address to a crowd and may have brought to it some new members. Kevin who was one of the first contributors to the newsletter and who had suggested names (e.g. "Neutrino Transmissions From..." and "Taybor's Emporium") for a number of the newsletter sections and whose ideas had elevated the nomenclature of the newsletter from such banal, non-Space: 1999-specific titles as "Stuff and Nonsense". All wilfully overlooked by people who would have his head on a Fred Freiberger hater's brandished sword.
I had submitted a regular column in the newsletter urging a more considered perspective on Season 2 than was being adhered-to by the herd. I was trying to shed light on the beauteous and meaningful aspects of the second season. The club president had invited me to do so with a regular column, proclaiming that he wanted "shaking up" of the views of one's fellow fans with new approaches to regarding the subject matter. And now he suddenly was telling me that he did not like those particular columns and wanted me to limit myself to observations that did not challenge anyone to concede to Season 2 any merit beyond characterisation. The superiority of Season 1 to Season 2 must never be questioned. Anyone who favours Season 2 or respects both seasons in equal measure must be regarded as a wrong-thinking oaf of limited intellectual means. The "orthodoxy" of fan attitudes must be maintained. It still had to be, "Switch brain off while watching Season 2." And cheer when the actors express dislike for it.
He was obnoxious toward me on our journey to and stay in Regina. He was terse and short of words with me when we left Calgary in the morning. He ate cold chicken as we undertook our eastbound journey by highway, content that it would be sufficient nourishment for him for the morning and afternoon and caring not one whit about his guest, his passenger, as the lunch hour came and went. He kept pressing the accelerator pedal until I, famished, asked at around 3 o'clock if we could stop somewhere so that I could eat something. And although we did stop, he said in an haughty tone of voice that I (yes, I) was not being considerate. He said that we would be late arriving in Regina (we were not late; we had to wait awhile for our friend to join us) because of me. Upon our arrival in Regina, before and during our dinner with our mutual chum, he was purposefully disagreeing in a clipped manner with everything that I said, trying to goad me into a dispute. He did not give a rat's derriere how I felt about anything by then, for I was to be mortified, chastened, rendered wretchedly ineffectual in the club. He probably had expected that I would just "take it" and not quit. And if I were to quit, he would have the last word, anyway.
Oh, he did conduct me to some of Alberta's scenic locations during my stay with him, and had his own reasons for doing so. Probably to portray me as ungrateful if I was in any way critical of him for his tactics on the matter of my column. And his car-drive to Regina proved to benefit him in his acquiring there a Space: 1999 toy. That plus opportunity to invalidate me to the Reginan as many times as he could probably justified for him the time and expense of the Regina sojourn.
I quit his club and would need to be cast in the villain's role. But no matter what I did, I would be censured, vilified, tarred and feathered. All that I could do was to minimise my losses and leave the fray with some vestigial amount of dignity. Those losses included the fellow in Regina and other fans with whom I was corresponding. They would not believe anything that I said about my detrimental stay with the president (it was my word against his) and about how I was being character-assassinated, my every contribution to the cause of Space: 1999 dismissed.
My dues had expired after the newsletter with my inflammatory column, and there was no way in Hades' hole that I would pay money to read that next newsletter with me in the villain's role. I learnt of that newsletter some years later from someone who was in the club at that time. I learnt of what was said about me in it. I learnt of my former chum in Regina's disavowal of me and his agreement with the president. Just knowing of it second-hand, from another person, was distressing enough.
I would not pay any more money to that club and its president for all of the tea in China (if indeed I liked tea). I ought to have followed Dean out of its door years previous. But I was a fool. I thought that the "Year 1" "camp" could be worked-with and that some headway was possible in improving Season 2's standing. Pah! If anything, the state of affairs today on Facebook is indicative of the impossibility of such.
The club came to an end sometime after that "open season on Kevin McCorry" newsletter.
The fact that only one more newsletter was printed after I quit the club upon my return to home from my trek and before the club "folded", only reinforced the contention that I am "the Destroyer". Actually, the burgeoning Internet was, by mid-1996, seen as the ultimate platform for fandom, and the club ceased operations in favour of the World Wide Web. But I was pilloried in that final newsletter, and the Season 1 pundit rank and file (the sort of people whose comments on Facebook and elsewhere I have rebutted and grammatically dissected here in this Weblog) had me in mind as the individual to blame for whatever became of the fan club. Oh, it was quite a hatchet job. But perhaps I should wear my bad reputation with honour, as the people unfavourably judging me in perpetuity and ignoring the good that I did, are scarcely an agreeable and really intelligent assemblage of persons. Even if they are regarded as having the only legitimate opinion on the television series.
Still, what was I thinking in 1995 as I stepped onto the aeroplane at Fredericton YFC airport? It was the thinking of a gullible fool who was walking into the lion's den.
Twenty-three years hence, after losing my parents, and long after losing all vestiges of my former naivete, there is no possibility of me succumbing to that gullibility again.
I have not mentioned names in remembering my westward journey and ordeal in 1995. Though people have befouled my name, I will not stoop to the same level. Granted, anyone who was in Space: 1999 fandom at that time would know who these people are. But my bad reputation in fan circles having been cemented to me, none of those fans would give to me the time of day, much less seek me out on the Internet and read this Weblog. And even if any of them were to read this, they are all in their cosy bubble, in common cause to the hatred for Season 2, and would not think negative thoughts about anyone in their complement based on anything that I say. Nobody in that fan movement then or now would give to me any credence, nor any semblance of a sympathetic ear. I had that sympathetic ear from some of my Facebook friends, as I related the journey in every stage in detail that I had never before committed to written word. I especially remembered how happy I was to be stepping off of the Toronto-to-Fredericton aircraft and into the Fredericton YFC, where my parents were waiting for me. How I missed them in the two weeks of my odyssey. And oh, how I miss them today!
And I am content with this arrangement, as I do not want any of those Space: 1999 fans in my life today, not even as "lurkers" reading my Weblog. I am certainly not writing my Weblog or my Web pages for them. They are as lost a cause for me as my reputation is in their "echo chamber". The convention in 1995 was in itself as clear a message to me as one could ever be, of my not belonging among those people. And it has been magnified many, many, many times in the twenty-three years since then. Daily, in fact. Every time that someone slurs Season 2 to a hearty round of approval.
As an addition to my little rant last Weblog entry about my 1995 journey, I will note, to be fair (one must strive to be fair), that the club president did aim camera and press camera button for several photographs of me at locations in Alberta. But a total stranger would have done the same actions for me had I asked him or her to do such. I would do them for someone if I was asked. So would most people.
And, yes, I was at those locations courtesy of him. But as I have said, he had his strategic reasons for conveying me to those places. Along with opportunities to "show off" his spectacular province to the yokel from the nothing part of the country. As an extension of action from such, pushing a button on a camera would be a trifle.
God knows, I would prefer for the photographs to have been snapshot by someone else. Just about anyone else. But what is done is done. I do not think that I will ever go back to Alberta in my lifetime so that more pictures can be attained, to replace the ones that he snapshot. So, the photographs that came of his button-pressing will be my only visual record of my having been in those places. I accept that. I have no choice but to accept that. But any everlasting gratitude that I would be morally compelled to have is effectively erased by his behaviour toward me back at his abode and en route to and in Regina. And by his befouling of my reputation because I would not yield utterly to his bullying. And his convincing the Reginan, my purported friend, to side with him.
And in siding with him, the Reginan nullified the good hospitality that he had extended to me. That he had extended to me mostly on my outward portion of my journey. He had been a good host. A very good host. In fairness, I have to grant to him this commendation. But in the end, he was not a good friend. Not a friend at all. If he had been my friend, he would have believed my account of the president's demeanour and effort to force my capitulation, he would have bristled at the invalidating of me being done by the president while we three were together (he had always claimed to abhor bullying and invalidation, and the president was clearly doing that when we were a threesome), and he would not have gone on an "excursion" with the president two months after I returned home. An "excursion" by which the president persuaded him to throw me under the modern-proverbial bus. He never telephoned me again after that "excursion" or answered his telephone to me. And he did join my detractors in that final newsletter issue. He was a good host. I say that in all fairness. He would have been so to anyone, I would guess. Even to someone whom he did not consider to be a friend. In the final analysis, though, with everything said and done, does his hospitality "make up for" his later repudiation of me and his siding with the enemy? I reckon not. How could it?
But I try to be fair. And I acknowledged the amenable aspects of my stays with those two young men. I leave the unfairness to my detractors led by that person in Calgary. All of them belonging to the preeminent persuasion of fandom to which he and his buddy in Regina are very keen adherents.
And now, I propose to leave aside remembrance of the trek of 1995. Moving onward.
Of late, the favourite angle of attack on Season 2 of Space: 1999 at that television series' Facebook groups is to "caption" a posted photograph or video frame grab of someone looking startled, befuddled, perplexed, appalled, or quarrelsome, with some reference to Fred Freiberger or to one of the Freiberger-scripted episodes. They think that they are being good-humouredly funny when they are just showing their deficiency in couth, their wilful disrespect for a dead man, and their unending conceited asininity.
The degree to which I am sick and tired of these people is way off of the possible charts of measurement. With the ordeal through which I went in 1995, how could I not be bothered by these incessant reminders of the season bias and biliously condescending attitude of the people who wanted my guts, or failing that an eternally binding besmirching of my good name, for my submitting some provoked faultfinding and my leaving a club and a fan movement within which it was proved that there could be no respect and no place for me and my appreciation for Season 2?
Fans of Star Trek have actually "come around" to acknowledging that Fred Freiberger's Star Trek season had imagination and that the cancellation of Star Trek was not based on story-writing or production quality, or any lack thereof, of the television series in its third season. They have, for the most part, accepted that the cancellation was an inevitable decision by NBC that did not like Star Trek or Gene Roddenberry, and that the reduction in budget for the third season had come about because of changes in production company (from monetarily flexible Desilu to uncompromisingly pinchpenny Paramount). A book published in recent years, These Are the Voyages: TOS: Season 3, by Marc Cushman, has amply cultivated the field for the improving of Fred Freiberger's reputation in Star Trek circles. Season 3 of Star Trek has many laudable episodes. The imagination in it is strong. Much stronger than that in Star Trek Season 2. Production did what it could with the budget that it had, and managed to bring the Enterprise to many imaginative worlds. Yes, "Spock's Brain" should never have been commissioned (though I do find it to be far more watchable than the second season's "Friday's Child" and "A Private Little War"; life just is not long enough for me to allocate an hour of my time for the watching again of either of those). As a concept, it could have worked, had the production team opted for a different approach to it. If Spock, body and brain, had been abducted by the Eymorgs and connected to a vast mechanism for his brainwaves to power it, there could have been an admirable episode of import yielded by the concept. As it is, perhaps it might be viewed as a nightmare that Spock has while he is in a state of insanity after viewing the Kollos in "Is There in Truth No Beauty?". Or maybe it is a simple-minded Eymorg's conception of the episode (that had transpired differently in "reality") from the reading of a written account of Kirk's visit to their planet, that Kirk left with the Eymorgs after removing Spock from them, in an effort on Kirk's part to prevent them from opting to abduct another highly intelligent individual to power their mechanism. To show to them the value of the individual spirit and the essence of friendship.
Anyway, Star Trek fandom seems largely to have "moved on" from its Freiberger-blaming patterns of thinking, and fans of The Wild Wild West venerate Freiberger, while Space: 1999 fandom is mired for all time (or for as long as its loutish legions continue to draw oxygen) in quasi-intellectual hatred for the man, oblivious to any different points of view. And pridefully closed-minded toward any appreciative observation of the twenty-four episodes of Season 2. I have never been in Six Million Dollar Man fandom. Any ill will that it may harbour toward Fred Freiberger is outside of my scope of knowledge. But I doubt, I very much doubt, that it is as malignant and persistent as Space: 1999 fandom's unending fetish for Freiberger-reviling and smug, anti-Freiberger quipping.
Readers of my Website know that I interviewed Fred Freiberger many years ago. Early 1999, in fact. I had been given his address by someone who knew a contact of his. I wrote a lengthy letter to him, and he responded. I will never forget the night on which I came home late from a long day at my job to find his letter on the kitchen counter. He was very appreciative of my interest in his work and very thorough in answering the questions that I posed in my letter. We exchanged some further correspondence which, along with first exchange of letters, formulated the interview that, with his permission and indeed his gratitude, I put on my Website. It was noticed almost immediately by the Internet-based Space: 1999 fandom. There was a minority of Space: 1999 fans who expressed some appreciation of it. But the pejorative of "fanboyish" was applied to it by the usual movers and shakers, and that became the "tack" that the Season 1 pundits would use toward it if it were to be referenced in some discussion. The "fanboy" designation was being applied to me, presumably for how I worded my questions. The fact that I was asking questions to a man of nearly eighty years who had not met me nor ever heard of me before did mean prefacing my questions in a very respectful manner with very specific points of reference to facilitate his recall. He had had a stroke and was in recovery from it. He was nearly eighty years-old. And Space: 1999 was at that time more than two decades in his past. But as I so often say, Space: 1999 fans are not reasonable people.
However, convention organisers that year (1999) said that they liked the interview and because of it they wanted Fred Freiberger to attend their September 13, 1999 convention in Los Angeles. He had never before been approached, nor even considered, to be a guest at a Space: 1999 convention. He wrote to me and asked whether I thought his going to the convention would be advisable, knowing as he did, from me, how disdainful and hostile toward him that the fans were. So, I communicated with the convention organisers. Some of them I trusted more than others. Or mistrusted less than others. No, it would be unfair to say mistrust as an encompassing statement. There was among the organisers a lady who had been quite kind to me when I joined fandom in 1984. And there were two people I knew who would be at the convention, people who I trusted would watch over him, "have his back", as it were. Still, I had misgivings about the idea of him going to the convention. But it would probably be his only opportunity to appear before the fans and face them with his side of the story. To potentially "win them over" and to partake in a celebration of the television series whose second season he had worked to craft. And to see some of his colleagues again. Of course, I had my doubts. And for good reason. But I did not want for my bitterness toward the fans to negatively impact him. I therefore counseled that he go, that he find sympathetic persons there, and rely upon them if his reception became unpleasant.
He went to the convention, and he was superlative in his courage, resolutely seating himself before the fans in an auditorium, and fielding their questions. A man nearly eighty years-old, recovering from a stroke, and possessing a will of iron and a lifelong valour engendered in wartime combat. He answered all of their questions to the best of his memory and defended his decisions. My contacts who were with him said that he had "won the crowd over". I was not convinced of that. I later saw videotape-recordings of the convention and his appearance there. The fans were speaking to him in disrespectful, discordant tones of voice. The man of nearly eighty years had fought in World War Two for their freedoms. And he had done everything he could to preserve Space: 1999 for a second season. And he was there at that convention for their celebration of their favourite television show. And they were speaking to him as insolent high school students would address a supply teacher who they did not like. He "took it in stride". Johnny Byrne sat with him to help him to decipher questions whose intent or details of interest may have been unclear. Johnny Byrne was one of his most vocal detractors but was generously helpful in making the convention appearance experience a manageable undertaking for him.
After the convention, he wrote a letter to me, said that he enjoyed the convention, and thanked me for the advice that I had given to him on his going to it. He sent to me a signed copy of a script for "The Metamorph" and lauded the quality of friends I had at the time (my contacts who stayed close to him at the convention). And he sent a Christmas card to me that year. My contacts insisted that he had greatly impressed the convention-goers and that opinion would improve for him and for Season 2 in the fan movement. I was dubious. I did not expect any improvement at all. And as is known now, there was none. Quite the contrary. The rancour has become worse and worse in the years since that convention. And after Mr. Freiberger died in 2003, the fans could scarcely wait until his body was cold before they questioned whether they could still "make fun" of him. Which of course they do as regular, day-to-day practice. To this day, and evermore. But it will only be them. Star Trek fandom has "moved on". The Wild Wild West fandom never disliked him. And Six Million Dollar Man fandom is not renowned for looking for scapegoats for the cancellation of its fancied television programme.
All for today, August 1, 2018.
This past week, I "swapped out" "Don't Axe Me" for "Wild Over You" in my Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour reconstructions on DVD. The final step in making an "across-the-board" correction of the contents of Show 3. I am quite confident now that I have the correct contents for the twenty-six episodes of Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour- Season 1 as shown on CBC Television between 1969 and 1975.
A rather poor quality YouTube video has surfaced showing the introduction to Bunny et ses amis that was on Radio-Canada in 1975 and 1976. It fully refreshed my memory of it. Bugs and Daffy do sing "This is it" in French. The visuals are "flopped". And there is a spartan title card for the television series appearing before "This is it". The Other Television Shows Starring the Warner Brothers Cartoon Characters Web page has been updated accordingly. I have also added some cartoon title cards for the Merrie Melodies television show to same Web page.
To see the aforementioned YouTube video, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEqqGqxfN8M.
Last Weblog entry, I stated that Six Million Dollar Man fandom is not renowned for looking for scapegoats for the cancellation of its fancied television programme. On what do I base this statement? I have read the product reviews for the Six Million Dollar Man Time-Life DVDs. And reviews of The Six Million Dollar Man at the Internet Movie Database. If there was a tendency toward scapegoating on the part of fans of that television series, that would have bled into the reviews. I saw almost none of that. What blaming there may be is placed on television network policies for not allowing cross-over episodes for Steve Austin and Jaime Sommers and on a certain television network executive who cancelled The Bionic Woman twice, which boded poorly for the seminal bionics television series. But the blaming was not widespread among the reviewers. It was rare. And Fred Freiberger's name was invoked nowhere. If there is any ill will harboured toward him in the fan community for the bionics television series, it is not evident within my scope of knowledge. I believe that most fans of The Six Million Dollar Man are content with the five-season run of it on television. It "hit" all of its creative marks before the public taste "moved on" to wishing to see a Star Wars on television, hence Battlestar Galactica (The Six Million Dollar Man's replacement), and there are almost 100 episodes of it "in the can". That was a more than ample amount of episodes for syndication.
It is Space: 1999 fans who like to "harp" about it, because it would appear to buttress their stance against "show killer" Freiberger. And they are wrong. With The Six Million Dollar Man, Fred Freiberger happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, co-producing (with Richard Landau) a television series that had already run its course. Apart from Lee Majors shaving off his moustache and having longer, permed hair, and there being no cross-overs with The Bionic Woman, the episodes of the fifth Six Million Dollar Man season really are not particularly distinguishable from those of the fourth. The fourth season that, aside from outstanding Bigfoot, Fembot, and Venus probe episodes, was showing signs of fatigue in the television series' range of concepts. The fifth season's episodes' subject matter varied with investigation of mundane Earthly enemy machinations, foiling of mad scientists, some space exploration phenomena, and some aliens. As had Season 4's episodes. There are extraterrestrials in Seasons 2, 3, 4, and 5. So, it was not as though Fred Freiberger brought otherworldly unbelievability (unbelievability for persons refusing to a suspension of disbelief) into a previously "grounded" television programme. It had already ventured into the territory of the far-fetched.
I found this little gem at one of the Facebook groups for good old Space: 1999 this morning.
"Season 1, was definitely better, by bulk episodes. Then 'Myra' was brought in to resurrect season 2, but it never happened unfortunately. The episodes were inferior writings, somewhat muddled and clouded out by most often, psycodelic lighting and strange disco music, going on in the background."
Muddled writing, eh? Pot, meet kettle. Anyone who cannot correctly spell the name of the character played by Catherine Schell, forty-two years after the fact, should not possibly be regarded seriously. And the other comments, without any examples to give any substance to them, are just drivel. Poorly written drivel. These are the people for whom I am supposed to throw my impressions of and aesthetic appreciation for Season 2 to the wind and genuflect with abject apologies for how wrong I have been lo, these many years?
I should think not.
August 4, 2018.
August 7, 2018
It is my final day of vacation today, and I am in a plaintive frame of mind as a result of that.
Oh, dear! Does this mean that some "pathetic whining" is on my agenda for today? It depends, I guess, on what sort of "whining" is deemed to be pathetic.
I was on vacation this year for more than three weeks. During almost all of that time, it was either oppressively hot and humid, or it was raining. I went twice to the Miramichi region. Day visits only. First time, it was so hot that I could not walk around for more than five minutes before I needed cooling. Even in shaded areas. My second visit to the Miramichi area, this past Sunday, was on possibly the only day this summer when it was not scorchingly hot and not raining. I spent most of my Miramichi-region-situated time on that day in the former town of Chatham. There is not much remaining of my personal geography in the towns and villages along the river Miramichi. The past few years have been especially brutal in seeing my cherished places destroyed or drastically altered. I dare not say precisely where I go now, because that would most assuredly guarantee that those places will be next to be wiped away from the face of the Earth. But there are a couple of locations in Chatham that have remained more or less the same as they were when I lived in that region if New Brunswick.
I sat in contemplation for several minutes, longing for my life of yesteryear, when my parents were living, I was a youngster, and the world under my parents' generation's control, was largely governed by common sense, deficit financing was not as yet out of control, there was prosperity, and the future looked bright. People dared to dream, all things seemed possible, and my friends and I were children in the best time ever for being such. I long for, I ache for, a return to that world lost long ago. And I will, for the remainder of my days, yearn for such a return in every cell of my heart.
My late friend, Sandy, and I sat on his doorstep seven summers ago talking about how blessed we were to have been fanciful boys in the 1970s. I still believe that and will always believe that. Blu-Ray resolution aside, I hate living in today's world. And every day that comes gives to me more reason to feel that way.
This year, I have lost tasty Hamburger Helper and the Dairy Queen chili dog. Some Weblog entries ago, I speculated as to the cause of the latter's removal from my life. I want to qualify my speculations. Food regulation is a federal responsibility in Canada, not a provincial one. My job prohibits me from criticising government and politicians on a provincial level, and I need to make clear that what I said was specific to federal governance. Increases to minimum wage have been undertaken in jurisdictions throughout Canada (it was not solely a decision of New Brunswick's government, but was a coordinated one made across the country), and any decision made by Dairy Queen based on those wage increases was no doubt at a national level. I have been informed that chili dogs are no longer being offered at Dairy Queen franchises in Nova Scotia. So, this is not a development isolated to New Brunswick.
I did not stop at Dairy Queen in Newcastle to have lunch on my latest visit to the Miramichi region. I ate at Pizza Delight in Chatham. I doubt that I will be stopping at the Newcastle Dairy Queen on most of my occasions to be in the Miramichi area. That is a consequence of the decision made by that chain of restaurants. If I want a hamburger or chicken strips or a chicken wrap, I can go to any number of places for those. The chili dog was unique among fast food restaurant chains, to Dairy Queen. And now it is gone. And I will decide accordingly where I go to eat in future.
But enough about food.
I find myself questioning the purpose of maintaining this Weblog, and my Website. These past few years, I have dedicated the largest bulk of my Weblog's Web space to responding to attacks by a hive mind upon Season 2 of that now quite obscure 1970s television show, Space: 1999. Why? I have no hope of changing the outlook of any of those people in the fan movement of that television show, or of vindicating myself from the bad reputation with which I have been saddled for more than 23 years. No matter how many times that I show those people to be wrong in their anti-second-season statements (to say nothing of their poor writing skills), and regardless of any artistic flourishes that I may observe, Jekyll and Hyde symbolism in "Journey to Where" or whatever, their opinion will continue to be seen as the only one that is legitimate. By any publications that may opt to remember that television relic that is Space: 1999. And that opinion will be expressed daily in the smuggest ways possible on Internet discussion forums. I cannot hope to win. I will go to my grave the outsider deemed to be mentally deficient, while they will be octogenarian purveyors of the anti-Fred Freiberger, anti-Season 2 worded jab. All that I can really hope to do is to continue intelligently and eloquently replying to the sorties to satisfy myself that I have said everything that I can say, to try to counter the refrains of the "echo-chambered" herd. For my own peace of mind, I suppose.
I "hold out" no hope of Dean ever publishing his project on nuance, symbolism, and episode patterning in a season-encompassing "artistic storyline" (to use his words). Twenty-eight years ago in a house in Belledune, New Brunswick, he told to me that I needed to be patient, that I needed to wait until he is ready to being the whole project into the public arena of ideas. That day has not come, and I despair that it never will come. And even if it were to come in, say, 2022, the fans will reject it anyway, with the handy-dandy ad hominem of mental defectiveness. The general public will not care one way or the other. No, if I want vindication, if I want people to say, "Gee, Kevin was right after all," it is not going to be in this life. All I can do is to pray that my grandmother was right, that God and heaven are real, and that we do go to the Pearly Gates. And that the people who bore false witness against me will there have to account for themselves.
And in the meantime, for the remainder of my life, stay true to my veneration of the works that I fancy. Only though that can I maintain some degree of self-respect and perhaps the respect of the handful of people who read this Weblog.
Yes, a handful of people is all whose eyes into which this Weblog's words pass. Whether they be defending Season 2 of Space: 1999, lamenting the demise of DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the post-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons, addressing issues with Blu-Ray releases of DePatie-Freleng cartoons, or on rare occasion venturing an opinion on world or national politics of the day. The last of these, I shall be doing much less of, because I risk de-platforming in the putting forward of observations or ideas contrary to accepted current "narrative". To be conservative-minded, even if only slightly to the Right of political Centre, is to risk censure. I am an outcast from entertainment fandoms. That is enough. I propose to "leave it at that". I will quietly cast my vote for the political party most in tandem with my mindset on matters of politics and governance. That is all.
Do I envision anything other than a bleak future as regards the imaginative entertainments that I fancy and the world in general? Alas, no. Even if the Fukushima disaster is not an Extinction Level Event (E.L.E.), the Western civilisation some of whose works I admire, does seem to be in a suicidal death spiral. It is "on its way out". Star Trek is not going to happen.
It would be nice if humans would at least acknowledge the capacity of the collective unconscious to influence imaginative works. But that is not going to happen either.
I return to work tomorrow with a bleak outlook. I am sorry. I cannot help it.
Brief Weblog update today, August 9, 2018.
I wrote about Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour reconstructions. I have done them on DVD-R. They exist solely for viewing in my home, and for a visual record in my collection of DVD and Blu-Ray of that television series' existence. I do not sell copies or trade for them. Nor will I give away copies. To do so would be illegal.
I have a YouTube channel, but I have "lost track of it". I only ever posted one video on it. About 5 years ago. Just the closing credits of Sylvester and Tweety from 1976, and only because that particular video kept being removed from other people's YouTube channels. I do not have the software for making YouTube-capable video transfers of videotaped material, and I no longer possess any videotaped material apart from the VHS videotape that accompanied Friz Freleng's book. I do routinely peruse YouTube, Dailymotion, et cetera, for vintage video content from television broadcasts and post Hyperlinks to some of that either here at my Weblog or at my Facebook. The videos themselves were posted on YouTube, et cetera, by persons other than me. And all too often, those videos are removed, along with the YouTube user, because of copyright violations.
But as regards Facebook, its star has fallen in the past ten years in which I have been a regular Facebook user. Un-friendings, ostracising, and plain rude treatment from friends (such as "singling me out" for non-thank-yous) oblivious to how I feel, have all "taken a toll" on my enthusiasm for social media. And I have misgivings now about an ever-narrowing range of acceptability of political opinion on social media. This is all that I dare say on that matter.
Oh, Facebook still has uses. I still like to post links to YouTube videos. But I find that an increasing number of my Facebook friends are opting out of using that social medium. There is an undeniable paucity of comment from my Facebook friends on what I post to my Facebook. And this has been a trend that has been growing for some time. Now, it is very manifest.
I had some response from friends to my remembering of my 1995 trek. Response with sympathetic words most appreciated by me. But responses by friends to what I post to Facebook are otherwise few and far between. I share my interest in imaginative entertainment with friends on Facebook (and I have done so since 2008), but seldom now do I receive any comment or "like-clicks". I have tried a number of times to walk away from Facebook, but since my parents' deaths, and because I lack a robust in-person social life with friends and am without siblings, Facebook has been exceedingly difficult to expunge from my day-to-day existence. It is my tether for staying connected with the people for whom I have past association and affection. But as I say, its star has fallen over the past ten years.
Oh, I see that the Facebook Space: 1999 fans have returned to their annual practice (they last did it a year ago this month) of invoking Season 1's "The Full Circle" to use against Season 2. Rather than "owning" the somewhat ostentatious "nits" of "The Full Circle", they opt to brandish it against Season 2, asserting that it, with its flaws, belongs there. No, it does not. It is a Season 1 episode. It has Season 1's deliberate style. "Atmosphere" as opposed to much dialogue. Mysterious force acting through the mist. Cave people motif "borrowed" from that illustrious and unassailable 2001. And some of them are even saying, with correction from no one, that it is a Season 2 episode. This is how far gone that these people are. And they call me delusional. But yet again, these are the people whose opinion matters, whose opinion is everything. Mine is nothing. I am nothing. Garbage. Trash. Rubbish. Yes, that is me, as far as they are concerned.
Yet another day in La-La Land.
August 12, 2018.
It is known to most of my fellow Canadians that the city in which I live had an incident of gunfire and multiple death on Friday last. What the readers of this Weblog, all twelve of them, may not know is that the incident occurred some seven city blocks from my front door, along a stretch of road that I routinely travel for groceries. I have also walked that road many a time over the past decades. It was downright surreal to see that road on the national television news. And frightening, with all of Northside Fredericton having to lock doors and stay away from windows.
Nothing really ought to shock me anymore. And I should not be shocked by this. With a recent gun-shooting spree in Toronto, the people of Fredericton, including myself, would be justified in thinking that the same sort of mass-killing was happening here. Information was lacking for almost a day.
The killer was in this case a Canadian of European extraction (at least, I presume that to be so, from the man's name). But the fact remains that the streets of my surroundings have been covered in the spilt blood of multiple murder. This is not an occurrence of the Fredericton in which I have lived since 1977. This city has changed. Its population is almost double what it was in the 1970s. The bigger the city, the higher the probability of a "mass-shooting" incident. There is a fraction of any population that has a proclivity to criminality and violence. The larger the population, the larger that fraction, the more that criminal elements are prone to organise and metastasise, and an increased likelihood of violence erupting on a wider scale than just between two people. And there is another factor that I will not address. One that I am sure is on most people's minds. Why has the Fredericton population increased so much while New Brunswick as a whole is constantly being said to be seeing steady population decline? I would note that although Fredericton population has nearly doubled, the city still only has one hospital. Now, there is reasoned, sensible planning. Not! The one hospital in Fredericton is horrible. My father's protracted stay there was a contributing factor in his eventual death.
It is known that I am no fan of Fredericton. The place has not been "my oyster", socially. Apart from a brief fling with some degree of popularity in the early-to-mid-1980s, I have never prospered here as a social being. It is a very snobby city. And even today, with me at the age of 52, I am still jeered-at by passers-by in automobiles while I am walking. As trying as some of these conditions are, at least I was always able to say that Fredericton was a mainly quiet and quite safe city. One of the safest ones on the planet. I can say that no more. I can no longer walk the sidewalks, streets, walking trails in broad daylight with any confidence that I will not be a mortal victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This city therefore has nothing "going for it" at all now. The powers-that-be have made it too big, and they keep allowing further and further development, further and further to the north. And the problems that plague other big cities will become commonplace here. It is a matter of human nature. Human nature is not just suddenly different when one lives in a Canadian province outside of the hustle and bustle of the Toronto heartland.
I am disturbed over what happened. I am sad for the people killed and their families. But I am also angry. Angry that this violence has claimed lives. Angry that it occurred within city blocks of my home. Angry that it has removed yet another pleasure of life from me and others. The pleasure of walking in reasonable assuredness of safety. And I am angry that the news media keeps refusing to acknowledge the existence of the human emotion of anger in reporting on incidents such as the one here in Fredericton. Anger in and of itself does not lead to "the Dark Side" (sorry, Star Wars). Ever heard of righteous indignation? If it is managed properly and used correctly, anger can be a constructive emotion. It can, for instance, spur people to think more prudently about how, or whether, to grow their city. And it is part of the grieving process. If I were to lose a loved one in an act of violence, damned right that I am going to be angry. Acknowledge that people have a right to be angry when something as awful as this occurs. Expression (non-aggressive) of anger is essential for a balanced mind.
I do not really have anything else to say today beyond this.
August 16, 2018.
Here is one of the recent discussions at the Facebook group for that television series that I, woe is me, had the misfortune to see and enjoy and be imaginatively and aesthetically stimulated-by in my impressionable years of youth.
"Hi guys, new here, recently finished the show. I liked the second season more, simply because i felt it became more Star Trek-ish. My question here, what would your thoughts be on a reboot? and IF THEY WERE to reboot, would not having Alpha on the moon, but rather an Asteroid (Which to me makes more sense) be a deal breaker for you?"
Oh, boys. Here we go. I knew that this would poke the hornet's nest. The person may like Season 2 more, but his quality of writing is scarcely any better than that of the Season 1 pundits. And then there is the good old, "I felt..."
And the responses. Cue the "talking points". Cue the Freiberger-phobia.
"The fact that it became more like Star Trek was the reason that so many people hated season 2"
In the immortal words of Yoda, "So certain are you?"
Really? Know that for a fact? There seem to be many issues that people, i.e. Space: 1999 fans of hopelessly blinkered mindset, have with Season 2. I very much doubt that being more like Star Trek is the (with emphasis on the) reason for the hostility. And I do not really believe that the similarities to Star Trek "run as deep" as these ever so enlightened people would assert. And besides, there is (cough, cough) "Guardian of Piri"/"This Side of Paradise" to consider. That is being like Star Trek. For the uninitiated, "Guardian of Piri" is Season 1.
"Im trekkie so.."
Must admit that I quite like the pithy comeback. Even if I could quibble with spelling, punctuation, et cetera.
"There's a reason why season 2 of Space: 1999 and season 3 of Star Trek are disliked so much by fans"
Yes. They are blinkered. They lack a broad scope of imagination. They are selective in suspension of disbelief. They are intellectually stunted and proud of it. They reject out of hand any positive point of view on those television show seasons. They are spiteful dolts. These, if anything, are the reasons.
"well i like both"
Good pithy comeback again.
"Ah, yes. Fred 'The Serial Killer' Freiberger"
I knew that it was coming. T'was not too long to wait. Calling all fans of The Wild Wild West, please. Rebuttal required. And for that matter Marc Cushman's book on Star Trek- Season 3.
Pavlov's dogs, people. Pavlov's dogs. Out comes the conditioned, unthinking response of forty-plus years on impulse.
"I agree about S2 of 1999. However, I'm one of those weird Star Trek fans who liked S3 better than S2, and almost as much as S1."
This is something, I suppose. Cannot say that I appreciate his agreement with the hostility toward Season 2 of Space: 1999, and my appreciation for his words of defence for Star Trek's third season is hampered in consequence.
"As a Star Trek fan myself, I'd say that Season 1 is more similar to Seasons 1 and 2 of ST: TOS, while Season 2 is more similar to Season 3 of ST: TOS and a bit of early ST: TNG."
How so? Explain.
Okay, yes, "This Side of Paradise" is Season 1 Star Trek, and "Guardian of Piri" is Season 1 Space: 1999. But "The Rules of Luton" of Season 2 Space: 1999 aligns in story essentials with "Arena" of Season 1 Star Trek. And "Missing Link" of Season 1 Space: 1999 has distinct similarities to "The Mark of Gideon" of Season 3 Star Trek (i.e. the heroic leader on a deserted duplicate of his place of command and encountering therein the daughter of an alien scientist, and him being a valuable item for the research of that alien scientist). Really, though, this is such silliness! The two television series (with all of their seasons) have between them different motivations or objectives for their characters. Need I state them again? Even at the age of ten and eleven, I could tell the difference. Even the similarities between Maya and Spock end at the most basic "resident alien scientist" level of concept. The two characters have very different backgrounds and personalities. As to Star Trek: The Next Generation, it, in most (if not all) of its seasons, used many of the tropes of both Season 1 and Season 2 of Space: 1999. Back in the day, back when I favoured less eloquent turns of phrase, I called them "rip-offs".
From here, the discussion pivots toward the subject of reboot, which thankfully turns the venom tap off for awhile as regards Season 2 and my late friend, Fred Freiberger. But elsewhere is a picture of Fred Freiberger and Gerry Anderson, and allusions to Freiberger being Satan, among such smugly ignorant concoctions as the following.
"'How to destroy a television series in three easy steps' First ..."
"Freddy the series slayer..."
"The curse of the Freiberger"
"'So, Gerry, whad ya think of the new series?'
'Well Fred I think it’s a load of shite as it stands!'"
"Never has a more unnecessary and destructive managerial decision been forced onto such an excellent series as when the F took over our Beloved Space: 1999."
"Creator and Destroyer in one photograph"
"GET OUT OF MY OFFICE.!!!!! (important things that were never said.)"
Need I respond to any of this arrogant rot from this band of blinkered losers? Or the "circle-jerk" of approving "like-clicks".
These people are wrong. They were not in the 1990s and today still are not willing to entertain any evidence to the contrary of their vaunted, decades-old opinions. I am so sorry for Mr. Freiberger going to that convention to absolutely no avail. I should not have advised him to go.
The managerial decision was necessary because Sir Lew Grade was unwilling to commission a second season in the "Year 1" format. It was either ring the changes or no Season 2. If a second season of the "Year 1" format had been green-lit, what would have been done with it? What would its 24 episodes have broached as new-to-Space: 1999 concepts? Has anybody ever said? Did the first season's format have a further twenty-four episodes of material in it, without bringing back old antagonists?
And as to the destructiveness of the decision, that is a matter of opinion. A wilfully uninformed opinion. Twenty-four beautiful and aesthetically suggestive episodes were produced under Anderson and Freiberger, and then Grade opted to spend money elsewhere, on feature films and on Return of the Saint. And as it stands, Space: 1999 has 48 episodes, not 24.
There is no evidence for contending that a "Year 1"-formatted Space: 1999 would have endured beyond 1977 and Grade's decisions of that year. It did not endure beyond the 1975-6 television season. Syndication renewals were not a guarantee for a second season as ratings had declined. Changes were required for Grade to give the go-ahead on a second season.
And did anyone, anyone at all, come to the defence of the late Fred Freiberger in the discussion? No, of course not.
"I watched an interview with Martin Landau and he was not happy with the changes of year 2 and had arguments with Fred Freiburger and he said some battles he'd win and some no and he did things just for the script. I missed Victor Paul and Kano and Tanya. I feel the first year was overall just better."
Ah, the feels. The feels. Feelings, not thoughts. Feelings, not facts. Not symbolism. Not motif. Not patterning of episode contents. Not etymology. Okay. How about this? Someone sees Season 2 first and then Season 1 and misses Tony, Maya, Dr. Ben Vincent, and Bill Fraser. A valid feeling, no? And Landau was wrong about Season 2. The man was not perfect. Nobody is. Wherever he is now, he is enlightened about Season 2's beauteous qualities and accepts them. At least, that is what I believe, in accordance with the values with which I was raised.
And I have better things to do with my day than to answer to more of this redundant, cliched garble.
August 17, 2018.
Very bad attack of acid reflux last night in bed. I had another one a couple of days ago when I was standing (yes, standing). I thought that I had overcome the problem these past couple of years. I guess not. Something has caused this resurgence of the condition. I think it is having to adjust to the wild and uncompliant kitten that I have. He was neutered on Wednesday and has not cooperated at all with my carrying-out of veterinarian instructions. The neutering has not calmed him at all. I will have to see if I can have a replenishing done of my prescribed reflux medication at the local pharmacy. If not, I will need to see my doctor.
Mind, my latest attack could also have something to do with my agitation over the round of Freiberger-bashing at the hate group that is the Space: 1999 Facebook community. Yes, I was quite agitated yesterday.
I propose to broach an entirely different topic today. People may remember that a year ago Warner Archive released a DVD set of 101 Porky Pig cartoons called PORKY PIG 101. I supported the release by purchasing a set through a generous benefactor in the U.S.. I did so in good faith on the prospect of there being further releases, comprising presumably, hopefully, not exclusively pre-1948 cartoons. Word was that the consumer response to the release was impressive and that such did bode very favourably for further DVD (and possibly Blu-Ray) sets. Okay. So? It is a year later, and no announcement of a further set. There was no mention, so far as I know, of any further Warner Brothers cartoon box set "in the pipeline" in reports from San Diego Comic-Con. I have had a look at the discussion forums for the Warner Brothers cartoons. No mention of anything. So, that is it, then? That money spent on that Porky Pig cartoon set led to nothing further? The fans of the Porky cartoons of older vintage have their favourite cartoons released in a full set. Those of us who want a complete Bugs Bunny, Tweety and Sylvester, or Road Runner set can go and have a jump off of a short pier.
It is crazy. Of all of the cartoon characters to have all of his cartoons released on DVD, surely that ought to be Bugs Bunny. The most famous, the most beloved vintage cartoon character ever to exist. And Chuck Jones' Road Runner cartoons have long been regarded as quintessential cartoon classics. And what of the popularity of Tweety? All of those T-shirts. And the only Warner Brothers cartoon character to see an exhaustive assemblage of his cartoons is Porky Pig of very old. None of which were networked on Saturday morning over-the-air television.
To this day, I lack a comprehensive collection of the post-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons, having foolishly dispensed with my VHS videotapes bar my Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour reconstructions, on the expectation that a full DVD release of the cartoons was imminent. Reliable sources were saying so, and everything (including Spiderman and Rocket Robin Hood) was being made available on DVD. It seemed so certain. Sales of the first, admittedly paltry (with less than 60 cartoons), DVD set in 2003 were brisk. All signs were encouraging. With that first boxed set as an evident template, I certainly expected more than one set per year. As things transpired, the future of the DVD range was in trouble by the fifth volume of THE LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION, which was disappointing in its contents and its sales tallies.
I am not going to rehash the whole distressing history of the Warner Brothers cartoons on optical disc media. Conditions today are what they are because of it, though. It plus an engineered changing of the public taste away from physical media and from vintage entertainment. The bottom line is that another dead end has been reached in the latest effort to distribute the cartoons on digital videodisc, and aficionados of the post-1948 cartoons of Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Bob McKimson are back to where they were a year ago. No prospects of adding-to or completing their collection.
What I have is every cartoon in The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour- Season 1, plus every cartoon officially released on DVD from the first GOLDEN COLLECTION volume in 2003 to MARSUPIAL MAYHEM in 2013. Not counting cartoons released as bonus features on movie DVDs (I do have a few of those, though). I have a handful of others acquired on VHS videotape releases and transferred to DVD. I lack approximately 65 cartoons. In a future Weblog entry, I will provide a listing of them. I am not interested in cartoons marred by "bugs" or logos, or in cartoons with very apparent videotape playback problems. I know the chances of acquiring logo-free cartoons with unblemished video quality from collectors in this day and age. But this is where things stand for me.
All for today.
Saturday, August 18, 2018.
As regards my Weblog entry for yesterday and my promise to provide a list of the Warner Brothers cartoons that I lack in my stacks of optical disc media, below is the list of cartoons from 1948 to 1964 that I need to complete my collection of those.
"Hare Splitter"
"Holiday For Drumsticks"
"The Bee-Deviled Bruin"
"His Bitter Half"
"Stooge For a Mouse"
"Caveman Inki"
"A Bone For a Bone"
"A Hound For Trouble"
"Leghorn Swoggled"
"Sock-A-Doodle-Do"
"Hare Lift"
"A Mouse Divided"
"Upswept Hare"
"Muscle Tussle"
"There Auto Be a Law"
"Tom Tom Tomcat"
"Plop Goes the Weasel!"
"Easy Peckins"
"Yankee Doodle Bugs"
"Quack Shot"
"Sheep Ahoy"
"Feather Dusted"
"Pests For Guests"
"A Kiddies Kitty"
"Pappy's Puppy"
"Mixed Master"
"Rabbitson Crusoe"
"Half-Fare Hare"
"A Waggily Tale"
"Feather Bluster"
"To Itch His Own"
"Dog Tales"
"Hip Hip- Hurry!"
"China Jones"
"Hare-Abian Nights"
"Hot-Rod and Reel!"
"Backwoods Bunny"
"Unnatural History"
"Fastest With the Mostest"
"Ready, Woolen, and Able"
"The Mouse On 57th Street"
"D' Fightin' Ones"
"What's My Lion?"
"Quackodile Tears"
"Good Noose"
"I Was a Teenage Thumb"
"Devil's Feud Cake"
"Fast Buck Duck"
"Mexican Cat Dance"
"Aqua Duck"
"Dumb Patrol"
"Zip Zip Hooray!"
"Road Runner A-Go-Go"
I also desire these pre-1948 and post-1964 cartoons.
"Mexican Joyride"
"Two Gophers From Texas"
"Nothing But the Tooth"
"Bone Sweet Bone"
"A Hick, a Slick, and a Chick"
"Road to Andalay"
"Fistic Mystic"
"Rabbit Stew and Rabbits Too"
"Flying Circus"
"Bugged By a Bee"
I will again state that I want copies of these cartoons free of "bugs" or logos and without videotape tracking problems, copious dropout, or other picture-quality-compromising issues.
Some of them were on laser videodisc (and I had all of those but, again, foolishly dispensed with them on the belief that the cartoons on them were going to be released on DVD). Some of them were on commercial videotape. But the majority of them were limited to television for their post-theatrical distribution.
I had them all at one time, on either videotape or laser videodisc. All without logos. But I foolishly believed information sources proclaiming that Warner Brothers intended a comprehensive DVD release of its classic cartoon catalogue. Sigh.
Sunday, August 19, 2018.
The Space: 1999 episode, "Black Sun". I propose to contemplate about it this morning.
Not to any great extent. The virtues of the episode have been extolled and extolled and extolled and extolled enough already. And this is to state it most mildly.
I love "Black Sun". Much of that love is rooted in nostalgia, it has to be said. "Black Sun" was the first Season 1 Space: 1999 episode that both of my parents and I watched together. And that viewing, on Saturday, October 29, 1977 from 6 to 7 P.M., was also the first time that both of my parents watched Space: 1999 with me in our new Fredericton home. My father had watched "Alpha Child" with me two weeks previous; my mother was out somewhere (I do not remember where) that afternoon when "Alpha Child" aired at 4 P.M..
My parents are both dead now. Dead for several years. I treasure all of the memories of our watching television together as a family. We did far more of that in Douglastown between 1972 and 1977 than post-1977 in Fredericton. And in fact, as a family we watched most of the second season of Space: 1999 together in Douglastown in 1976-7, whereas in Fredericton the vast majority of my viewings of the episodes of Season 1 were solitary. Me alone. Sometimes because my parents were out visiting my mother's sister and her family. Or my grandparents. But usually they were at home but just did not have any interest in watching Space: 1999 in its first season style. I remember us watching "Earthbound" together on November 18, 1977. And "The Last Enemy" and "Voyager's Return" in January, 1978. "The Testament of Arkadia" in late February, 1978. And "The Troubled Spirit" in early March. During the repeat run of Season 1 in spring and summer of 1978, they almost never were in the living room with me for Space: 1999's hour. And if they were, they were not paying much attention to what was happening on screen.
My mother would complain that the first season was too remote and ethereal for her, and she hated the screaming of the women in it. My father liked Landau (they shared the same birth year) and would watch Space: 1999 with me if he had nothing else to do and if my mother was watching it. And in 1977-8, that was not the case very often. But "Black Sun" was an episode that they watched, engaged with, and enjoyed.
There are many moments in it that, watched today, recall me, with fondness, to that experience after supper on 29 October, 1977, the McCorry family sitting in the living room of a new home and viewing Alpha being gravitationally pulled into a black sun. Most especially striking of the chords of bittersweet nostalgia is the scene in the Eagle with Helena and Sandra talking about their childhood and Bergman saying, with regard to his cigar-smoking, "Oh, I don't think Dr. Russell will object," which, along with Koenig turning aside in his chair and thinking dolefully about the woman he fancies, gone supposedly forever, segued into the Eagle scene. The music that plays over all of this is evocative of the sad longing for a past condition, which is what nostalgia is. And it reminds me very strongly of being with my parents that crisp autumn evening so very long ago and enjoying my favourite television programme. Very tender and cherished memory. That particular piece of music also plays with one of my other favourite first season scenes, that in "War Games" as Bergman records his emotionally moving valedictory to Alpha before remaining assembled persons in Main Mission depart for a launching pad. It is a magnificent composition.
When the Moon was going through the black sun, my friend Michael telephoned me long-distance from Douglastown to invite me there for a Remembrance Day weekend stay. I was back in the living room for the reunion scene of the Alphans that brought the episode to a close. I adore that visualisation of the Alphans dispersing from the reception area and Bergman looking into camera and flicking ashes off of his cigar before walking into the distance to a freeze-frame. And the music that accompanies it.
My appreciation of "Black Sun" on that broadcast is rather more emotional than intellectual. I enjoyed the Alphans' jubilation at having not only survived the black sun but in being a full complement again, some kind of space-time eddy having teleported the survival Eagle and its six occupants into the same post-black-sun position in space as that of the runaway Moon. I liked how the characters interacted in the hours preceding the Moon's entry into the inky collapsar. It was a satisfying viewing experience. Now, though, I am aware of faults with the script. But the episode was pleasing to me at the time of my first viewing of it that October of 1977 evening and resonates with me today with nostalgic power. The CBC cut Bergman's statements about an intervening intelligence (i.e. God). And I, during my telephone conversation with Michael, did not see much of the experience of Koenig and Bergman in the black sun. I heard it in my audiotape-recording of the episode from that October broadcast, but lacked the visual stimuli for conveying to me most effectively what had happened. I later saw it on "Black Sun"'s later airing of April 29, 1978. And then I just regarded the Alpha-preserving actions of some omnipotent, metaphysical force as a "one-off" concept. Nothing more. I was blissfully unaware of story arc in the Space: 1999 first season until I read David Hirsch's column about the "Mysterious Unknown Force" in Starlog in, I think, 1979. And even then, I did not perch my appreciation of Space: 1999 solely or mainly upon that observation or interpretation. For me, Space: 1999 had been and still was a space adventure television series. Both seasons. Somewhat more deliberate in its first season, granted. But thoroughly an aesthetically fascinating and compelling opus of the imagination.
Much as I do love "Black Sun", the fan adulation for it, routinely expressed in conjunction with slurring of Season 2 for it being different from "Black Sun", I do not love. I am sick and tired of it. Actually, to say that I am sick and tired of it is a woefully insufficient description. It is beyond being tiresome, surpasses being merely irritating in its unending repetition by fan after fan after fan, has long ago assumed a loathsome, gallingly overweening proportion and become one of the biggest cliches associated with Space: 1999 and its group-think fandom. Fixation on the "Mysterious Unknown Force" has stunted the fans in intellectual development these past decades and kept them in their juvenile or teenage mindset, as they ignorantly wield it as their oh, so supreme brickbat against all other perspectives on and angles of appreciation for Space: 1999 and bullyingly proclaim their mental superiority over others for their having "gotten it" (after it was "pointed out" to them by Hirsch or by some of the pridefully observant fans pontificating in the first fandom newsletters) and venerating Space: 1999 because of it first and foremost or it exclusively. I imagine that to someone who did see scenes that the CBC cut, the "Mysterious Unknown Force" concept might have been more readily detectable than it had been to me and to persons following Space: 1999 with me. But it now being very evident, and sung and sung and sung by fans for decades, it is one of the least subtle artistic qualities of the television series. It is explicitly posited by Bergman and Koenig in "Black Sun" (in the scene that the CBC cut). There is more, so much more, to Space: 1999 than it. Much more subtle artistic "touches". Once identified, those "touches" should be recognisable to and appreciated by all people with an inclination toward Space: 1999 and the science fiction/fantasy genre. But alas, they are not. Because of the stunting of the fan mentality and the credence given to the fans and their "echo-chambered" banter. And the proud belittling of the "flakes" who perceive and dare to articulate something in Space: 1999 that the orthodox herd does not and will not see.
The Facebook group ostensibly dedicated to liking Season 2 now has a member who says this.
"Thanks for adding me. Here are my thoughts on the season:
I think the new look of Alpha's command centre was good (I have no problem imagining a past disaster destroying the previous one, forcing them to rebuild), the new uniforms looked better, and as for the new intro.. well, while not tinged with the nostalgia of the first season's, it was more than adequate, and actually really good. Also it was nice to see more emotional display between the characters, even though the forced gaiety that ended virtually every episode quickly got tired and cliched. But the robot-like sternness of season 1's total lack of emotions, save anger and fear, was very hard to swallow.
Worst addition: Maya! Now, this might be like swearing in church (I mean, she is sweet and lovable and all), but her ability to transform into anything allowed for way too many deux ex machina-type escapes, resulting in lazy writing (one reason 'Journey To Where' was so good was the absence of Maya as a central character; the perils of Koenig, Carter and Russel felt genuine as a result, because there was no Maya to wreak havoc in the enemy camp via some monstrous transformation.)
Also, the lack of Victor Bergman weighs heavily on the season. Bergman might not have been the most developed of characters (Shakespeare this aint, that's for darn sure), he was also a bit ineffectual at times, but he was a really nice guy, a human among robots, someone to spread enthusiasm and optimism around, so, yeah, I really missed him.
Ok, so here is my take on some of season 2's episodes..
Favourite episodes, episodes that, with some pruning perhaps, would have been able to stand proudly alongside the better episodes of season 1:
'The Exiles'
'Journey To Where'
'The A B Chrysalis'
'The Immunity Syndrome'
'The Seance Spectre'
Episodes that are so bad one find it hard to understand how they ever got past the screenplay stage:
'Brian The Brain'
'Rules of Luton'
'Mark of Arachnon'
'The Taybor'
Others are bad, but have a strong entertainment value (like 'Space Warp'), while others are decent to good, but lack that extra something that the first five mentioned had (like 'Dorcon').
There, a short summary of my take on the show's second season."
I am going to say it. If this person thinks that those episodes, and others, are "bad", he has no legitimate "business" in joining that group, and the group should not welcome him- if its individuals are sincere in their appreciation for Season 2. Those episodes are quintessential Season 2. Fantastic worlds of diverse conditions, strange and unexpected sentient alien life, an alien possessing a coveted technology, and many outstanding character moments, to say nothing of suggestive iconography (e.g. the Archanon "Flammon" symbol, the "mark" of the "killing sickness").
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the concept of any of those episodes (yes, including "The Rules of Luton"). They are concepts that are lauded in their use in other productions. "Arena" is hailed as a Star Trek masterpiece, and "The Seeds of Doom" a Doctor Who exemplar. "Brian the Brain" offers an artificial intelligence with a fanatical desire to perpetuate itself indefinitely and possessing a homicidal tendency because of that desire. A valid concept for science fiction/fantasy. There is nothing wrong with "Brian the Brain" in concept. Bernard Cribbins' funny voice for Brian is an ironic affectation. And the episode is more, much more, than the voice. "The Taybor", with an alien barterer of wares offering to the Alphans a device that could liberate them from their runaway Moon but asking a price that John is unwilling to pay, is also a valid science fiction/fantasy and Space: 1999 concept. People's aversions to it tend to be purely superficial, based on the make-up of Taybor and that of the slatternly woman into which Maya transforms. The concept for "The Mark of Archanon", aliens with a violence illness, is also quite "solid", cogent, potentially meaningful, and worthy of presentment within the Space: 1999 universe. "The Mark of Archanon" may not be a favourite episode of mine, but I acknowledge the import of the concept of the "killing sickness" and the curing of it through a giving of blood. If a person judges these episodes to be unfilmable, he or she should not be credibly called a Space: 1999- Season 2 adherent.
Another old stand-by. The contention that Maya's powers are used in episode after episode after episode to resolve episode's crisis. It is wrong, wrong, wrong. People never give abundant specific examples, because they cannot. Maya's powers are used, of course, when called-for by Koenig, but crisis-resolving effort is that of the team of characters, each of them contributing some expertise, intuition, or resolution, to extricating Alpha or Alphans from peril. Not only Maya. Is it not strange that the fans who allege deux ex machina in Maya, tend to have no issues at all with that in their vaunted "Mysterious Unknown Force" in Season 1?
Seven purported Season 2 fans have "like-clicked" this person's posting, which is demonstrably largely disparaging of Season 2.
And then he puts under a picture of "Brian the Brain" this little sortie.
"Possibly the worst episode EVER!!!"
And then he slurs "Devil's Planet" with this comment.
"Another guilty pleasure, quite a crappy episode that delivers camp entertainment."
I have already answered to the camp allegation. And the other things said are sheer drivel. Guilty pleasure. I am so sick and tired of reading that tripe of a pretentious pronouncement. Where in hell did it come from, anyway?
So. What exists is a Season 2 Facebook group in which this manner of commentary is not only slavishly tolerated but granted "like-clicks". A group that has clearly been infiltrated by a Season 2 detractor proclaiming some conditional liking for some elements of Season 2. And quislings that they are, they like what he says.
And another person says this.
"Thanks goodness, I hate year 2. I get a break."
What in hell are people like this doing in a group for Space: 1999- Season 2?
The answer would appear to be obvious. There is no appreciative fan following for Space: 1999- Season 2. Every other 1970s production of the science fiction/fantasy genre, from Planet of the Apes to The Tomorrow People to Logan's Run to Battlestar Galactica to Blake's 7 to Star Blazers to Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, has a fan following. The second season of Space: 1999 does not. The best that a fan group for it can hope to attract is people with attitudes such as those of the people whom I am quoting. It is so very unjust and sad. And, yes, infuriating in the injustice.
But I still love "Black Sun", and I always will.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018.
As if Facebook were not enough, I have YouTube to contend with, also, in my effort to, at least for my sake, counter the assaults upon Space: 1999's second season.
Recently all Space: 1999 episodes have appeared afresh at YouTube. It is only a matter of time before Network Distributing and Grenada Ventures order their removal from that Internet video platform, but until then, the videos are contaminated with deluges of "snarkily" negative faultfinding comments. After little more than two months after being made available, the videos have acquired a "jeering section" comprising a protracted list of disdaining statements, with this-is-an-error and that-is-not-explained, mixed with the oh, the ever so reliable stand-by of Season 1-great, Season-2-"shite", and with the name of Fred Freiberger wielded as the ever so incontrovertible pejorative.
It does seem to be that all that people do these days is to watch videos on YouTube of decades-old television shows and, with notepad and pen in hand, systematically find fault with them, "jotting down" each and every one of such, with which to regale the world with their oh, so avant garde and ever-so-sophisticated "edginess" and so very scintillatingly stimulating scathing cynicism. Usually unfair fault, with the quibbles stated not those that a reasonable person extending courtesy of suspension of disbelief, recognition of "economy of detail", and allowances for dramatic licence, would choose to put forth. And all too often, it is not specific faults that are being "written-up" but sweeping rejections of the television series or season thereof, with the statement that the acting, the directing, the sets, the effects, are all abysmal and that although the person liked it as a child, he or she (usually he) cannot abide anything about it now.
As regards the Season 2 episode, "Devil's Planet", from the oh, so aesthetically stimulated persons from the seats of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, make-believe version, comes this resplendent and edifying display of astute, artistically observant, sophisticated commentary.
"Uhm... Moonbase Alpha... is looking for a habitable planet. They are immune to the disease that kills the natives. Plants, trees, presumably wildlife... and an intact city... exactly what more do they want?"
"I know the reasons why the producers of Space 1999 changed the second season opening and casting and overall look, but they took so much away from the show's original urgent survival story and the awesome opening and ending credits, the first season was awe-inspiring but the second season ruined the show."
"I always saw Season 2 as Star Trek but without any intelligence."
"The 'killer' of this season 2 was new producer Fred Freiberger - the man also known for killing the original Star Trek as he came on to that show for Season 3. Trying to sex it up and adding bells and whistles to a great show (Season 1) that didn't need it. If it ain't broke.... (Good intro music though) But come on!! The character of Maya that transform into any creature. This isn't Manimal."
"Traveled so many light years from Earth...meet a new civilization...they all speak English. Brilliant writing."
"How can a planet and its moon have the same gravity and atmosphere? At 48:28 she walks out 'I'm not political'. A minute later, she's back. Continuity error."
"5:32 Worst Death acting EVER!"
"So convenient for them to speak English."
"Freiberger did some stuff for Star Trek."
"Season 2 sucked."
"I've seen better acting from a pile of bricks."
"Oh God, I forgot how bad this was. Tacky sets, cheap costumes, very bad acting, childish plot line. I remember this as the 'it' show when I was a kid, but now that I see it again ....................Uh........ yuck."
To quote something I heard recently on a Webcast, "'Snark'-u-ment is not an argument." Most of these comments, and especially the last one, are garbage. Garbage fit only for rats. The rats ignorantly gnawing away at Space: 1999 as a two-season, 48-episode television series. They are a waste of the bits of Internet data used for their presence on the World Wide Web. And the people stating them are in my estimation worthless. They may not have been so when they were younger and somewhat open-minded, but they are so now. Worthless to anyone wanting an enlightened view of fanciful entertainment. Oh, but useful, ever so useful, of course, to my detractors, my former associates in fandom, who would point to such commentary to try to prove their contention that I am a "flake" rightly ostracised for appreciating something held in contempt by many people other than themselves. To them, numbers of people are all-important in championing their case. The quality of the commentary is not quite as important as the number of people belching it forth. And the amount of "turncoat" people who, having liked it in the past, now reject Space: 1999's second season, as blinkered to its merits as the people who never liked it. They point to such as proof that Season 2 needs to be relegated to the garbage heap of history, and every day forevermore spoken-of as the damnable piece of excrement that it so objectively must be. And anyone who now still appreciates it unapologetically deserving the chiding and allegations of mental deficiency that they incur for choosing not to be silent.
I will respond to some of these. Ones that are specific in their criticism.
Why does Alpha not colonise Ellna? Four possible reasons. One. Alpha feels that it would be morally wrong to "take advantage" of the death of an entire planet's population, Alphans literally stepping over millions of dead bodies to colonise a planet. Two. There is no guarantee that the "nerve bacteria" will not mutate and become deadly to Alphan settlers. Three. The Entran warders and prisoners may not appreciate Alpha colonising their home world, and they might eventually have some means of striking from Entra at the Alphans on Ellna. And four. By the time that John is returned to Alpha, Alpha may not have sufficient time to mount an Exodus evacuation.
The second season ruining the television show is not proved by objective criteria. It is a subjective fan opinion based on the premise that Season 1 was the only possible quality format for Space: 1999 and was a success. If it was a success, there would not have been the Season 2 that was. However, Lew Grade looked at the declining ratings in the U.S. in the autumn of 1975 and judged the television show to not be successful in its first season. Bottom line. And there are other styles of proved-successful science fiction/fantasy entertainment besides the style of Season 1. People who saw the second season first did in fact like it. Yes, many of those people were children then and try conceitedly now in adulthood to satisfy themselves that they are sophisticated and above their childhood tastes by "knocking" their childhood favourite. I presume that they are also immune, thoroughly immune, to nostalgia. In any case, back in the heyday of Space: 1999, when tastes and ratings mattered for Space: 1999's survival as a first-run television programme, the second season had good ratings in Canada on its CBC run. It was bringing the viewers to the sofa. It was adhering to its "worlds beyond belief" slogan with imaginative flair.
There is survival urgency in Season 2, evidenced in episodes like "The Exiles", "Journey to Where", "The AB Chrysalis", "Catacombs of the Moon", "Seed of Destruction", "The Seance Spectre", "The Immunity Syndrome", and "The Dorcons", but the Alphans, like any people, do need respite from that urgency. In the long months between planetary encounters, it is natural for people to settle into routines of work and recreation.
How can a planet and its moon have the same gravity and atmosphere? The viewer does not know. The viewer is not made privy to every detail. Just enough detail to "follow" the story to its conclusion. All other details can be left for a viewer to furnish. Or not. Whatever he or she chooses. Perhaps Ellna and Entra are twin planets in orbit around each other, with Entra being smaller than Ellna (and therefore nominally, as a figure of speech at least, a satellite) but perhaps having a similar mass or a faster rotation, such that its gravity pull is the same as Ellna's. Entra being a planet would verify Helena's reference to it as such in her Moonbase Alpha Status Report. Koenig later calls it a moon in response to Blake Maine saying that it is a satellite. Possibly because moon is the word that first comes to mind to Koenig when satellite is mentioned. Who knows? Or possibly the Ellnans terraformed their moon, Entra, at some time in their history, putting in place an energy field encircling Entra to generate an artificial gravity pull on the alien moon's surface and to keep the atmosphere from gushing away into space. The same energy field that causes Koenig's Eagle to malfunction. Ellnan technology may have achieved that capability, in addition to teleportation. Who knows? Who "bloody well" knows? None of this is impossible, though, within the established parameters of Space: 1999's universe. Need I say that Earth's own Moon attained atmosphere-retaining gravity by some alien machination in "The Last Sunset" of Season 1?
Space: 1999 was being made for a general public that would be "turned off" by too much exposition. Hence, "economy of detail". And it was produced more than forty years ago, when it was not expected that people would have home video equipment enabling stoppages for intensive visual examination, in repeat-playbacks of an episode. There was also an expectation that viewers would not be the snidely unaccommodating cynics that they are today and that they would suspend disbelief in watching something set far, far away from Earth.
Aliens speaking English is done for dramatic necessity. In Star Trek. In Space: 1999. In Doctor Who. In so many other works. Taylor does not question why the apes speak English in the highly acclaimed Planet of the Apes. Why "pick on" Space: 1999? Why, indeed.
Thursday, August 23, 2018.
On the YouTube video for "Journey to Where".
"Hilarious that they put in the sound of crickets in the night time scenes! You do not hear crickets in Scotland! Can't Ameticans relate to night with no crickets?"
Typographical error with Ameticans. At least, I presume that is typographical. Nighttime is one word. Anyway...
Space: 1999 was filmed in Buckinghamshire. Not Scotland. Funding someone to go with a Nagra to Scotland to audiotape-record "wild sound" of an evening outdoors was probably not included in budget. Whether the Pinewood Studios sound library had in it Scottish after-dusk wildlife sound effects is open to conjecture. Somehow, I rather doubt that the Space: 1999 sound department had time to search the darkest depths of Pinewood Studios' sound vaults to find so obscure an item, if indeed it did exist. And all of this would be assuming that the thought occurred to anyone in the production team to check whether crickets exist in Scotland.
I admit to not knowing much about crickets. I never had a motivation to research about them. And now, I have.
Part of the Southern Uplands of Scotland is below the 55-degree parallel of latitude, the northernmost parallel for crickets to appear, according to Wikipedia. Some crickets could have migrated to there in the early-to-mid-fourteenth century and later left the area. Or "died off". I doubt that the distribution of crickets was logged by the scribes of the time in all lands. The Southern Uplands likely is the area of 1338-9 Scotland to where John, Helena, and Alan are teleported in "Journey to Where", as it is wooded and it is hilly, hilly with potential for caves (it being somehat near to a coastline). There are pictures of it on the Internet. One such can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/49506000/jpg/_49506776_southup1_mbaker_766.jpg.
This said, I have to admit that crickets in Scotland is quite an astute criticism. These past four decades, the average Season 2 haters evidently have not delved so much into faultfinding as to research the world distribution of crickets. Or else this criticism would have become part of the smugly proclaimed fan refrain long before now.
I would venture to say that it is doubtful that Space: 1999 production would have done insect research when planning the filming for "Journey to Where". And whether there were Scots among the production crew, Scots whose input was sought or welcome on all technicalities of production, I do not know. Was it stupidity or laziness or insufficient collaboration or a wilful lack of professionalism in the team working under their loathed "Freddie the F." that resulted in this so egregious error? Or did Fred Freiberger himself order the sound department to use the sound of crickets? What is the answer? Does the answer really matter? "Journey to Where" is trash, right? Because crickets are heard in Scotland. Has to be, right?
Should I reject "Journey to Where" and all of its symbolism and foreshadowing because a certain insect may not have been present anywhere in Scotland in 1338-9? Is this a reasonable proposition? Maybe it is. I am not so arrogant as to dismiss the idea "out of hand". The episode does have an improbably short incubation for a virus, does not explain how Alpha is able to reply to a neutrino transmission, and is incorrect about the first married man in space. This could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
But I still have "Hyde and Hare", though. No insects in it.
Friday, August 24, 2018.
In a move almost as "left-field", almost as bizarre, as DVD releases of volumes of the old MARVEL COMICS VIDEO LIBRARY, Warner Home Video has decided to, in autumn of this year, resurrect its STARS OF SPACE JAM range of videocassettes of 1996 and to offer the volumes of that on DVD. Presumably intended for some sort of cross-promotion with a sequel (what on Earth for?) to Space Jam. One would have hoped that Warner Brothers might have deigned to commission several new DVD or, better yet, Blu-Ray, discs consisting mainly of cartoons previously unavailable on any digital videodisc format. But I suppose that I should not be a choosy beggar and be happy that this re-release of STARS OF SPACE JAM will allow me to strike two cartoons off of my cartoons-needed list for my collection, them being "Hare Splitter" and "Hot-Rod and Reel!". There would have been a third cartoon for this category, but Warner Brothers has, in its infinitely confounding wisdom, opted to replace "Holiday For Drumsticks" in the Daffy Duck volume with "Daffy Duck Slept Here".
I will buy the Bugs Bunny and Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote volumes just to have "Hare Splitter" and "Hot-Rod and Reel!" on DVD. It is doubtful that they will be from restored film prints newly transferred to video. But I will settle for whatever is there on the discs. The other volumes contain nothing of interest for me as a collector.
Does this set a precedent? Might Warner Brothers be considering "porting over" other VHS videotapes and laser videodiscs of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies to DVD? I doubt it. But it would be nice if that was to be the case. LOONEY TUNES AFTER DARK and the other laser videodiscs would be welcomed by me on DVD. One can but dream.
In 2008, I founded on Facebook a Douglastown Elementary School Alumni group. Now, I have not only resigned as its moderator but have left that Facebook group. Frustrated as I am that I am consistently unable to stir its members, numbering just over 100, to contribute memories and photographs to the group. Most notably my old schoolmates. The people whose memories and photographs would be most associated with me in my years in Douglastown. The group's Facebook Web page has been almost entirely barren as regards postings other than mine for many months. Nobody is sharing anything (despite my appeals that people do so), and I have exhausted my photographic material, and my memories just do not garner appreciation beyond a few people. Generation X is quite a "tough cookie". Even in their fifties, their parents having died, its members still are not nostalgic for their childhood. And never will be, I think. The 1970s decade is one that never, ever will be appreciated by the people whose most innocent and impressionable times were set therein. I have people in that group patronisingly lecturing me to embrace the future (what future?) and not to linger over the past. And I am "giving up" on trying to interest my contemporaries in remembering and cherishing old times and loving all that was a part of them (and, yes, this includes television entertainment). Join the teeming masses, one and all, in erasing memory of the past, for we are all "going forward". Not to Moonbases, Mars colonies, and commonplace space travel but to Orwell's rotted-civilisation-on-Earth dystopia. Further and further to the political Left we all go, happily embracing moral relativism, nothing-is-beautiful nihilism, bigger and bigger government, central planning, destruction of free markets, tearing down of monuments to past achievement, and, eventually, pushing people possessing any amount of treasured personal property into having nothing but abject squalor, if not killing them for "wrong-think".
I am most unhappy now with the state of things politically in both Canada and the U.S.. Nothing is going the way that I want it to, and this is unlikely to change with the national news media acting as propaganda arm of the political parties on the Left. People still believe everything that they are told by the television news. I do not, but I am an outlier. Mistrust of the news media may be "a thing" in some parts of the U.S., but in Canada, nothing doing. Today, Canadian news media "runs defence" for the anointed one, our Prime Minister, trust-fund-raised son of a previous Prime Minister, and hews consistently to the "narrative" that the Prime Minister's Office proclaims. Always, always way to the left of the traditional political centre. Spending future monies like crazy on social engineering. And now, the Conservative Party of Canada, the only political party with a chance of unseating him, has split into two parts. And the 1990s showed what happens with that. Majority governments in perpetuity for the Liberals, the party of the Trudeau dynasty. Not good. Not good at all. A state in which one party, only one party, wins elections, is only democratic in appearance, as long as some vestigial remnant of a challenging political party exists to maintain an illusion of bi-partisan politics. And when that one governing party is not centrist and embraces some form of collectivism, the situation is dangerous. I fear for the future. Again, what future?
I did say that I would "leave aside" the politics, but I cannot help but say something about the latest developments. Dark days ahead for Canada. And for the neighbours to the south, too. It looks like nothing is going to stop their lurch to the political Left, with conservatives losing their ability to elect Presidents, an ability lost forever.
With what is happening in the world, there being crickets in Scotland in an episode of a television series does seem to be a most trifling thing over which to stew. I am opting to dismiss that criticism, by the way. Crickets could have been in a southern region of Scotland below latitude parallel 55 in the fourteenth century. And in a television series (both seasons thereof) in which aliens speak English and there is sound in a vacuum, surely the sound of some crickets in a Scottish location centuries ago can be accepted as falling within the scope of some acceptable licence, for "atmospheric" effect if for nothing else. Do I wish that it had not been done? Yes.
I think that the lapses in story in Star Trek II- The Wrath of Khan are far more egregious, though. And much more difficult to dismiss.
I have come to the seemingly inescapable conclusion that, apart from Doctor Who, nothing more in my collection of DVDs will be released on Blu-Ray, and that my Blu-Ray holdings are not going to increase any further, outside of the Doctor Who Blu-Ray releases. And as regards Doctor Who, I do wish that the BBC would institute better quality control prior to release date.
Day after day after day, I search Internet forums about Blu-Ray for news of future releases and am frustrated to see nothing of interest to me. Most of my collection of science fiction/fantasy is on Blu-Ray with some notable exceptions. The Black Hole, for instance. One of the earliest titles on DVD, courtesy of Anchor Bay. Now denied to Blu-Ray collectors for some ten years. A High-Definition video transfer of the movie definitely exists. It is just a matter of having the will to commission a release of the movie to Blu-Ray, will that Disney seems to lack. I wonder if a letter campaign would do any good.
I would have liked to have seen the Planet of the Apes 1974 television series on Blu-Ray, but if Fox Home Video was going to commission that, it would have been done in conjunction with one of this past decade's Planet of the Apes movies. I think that the window is closed firmly shut on that one. Star Maidens? Unlikely. It was re-released on DVD recently with the same film-to-video transfers used for its initial, 2005 DVD release. There was some talk of Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman Blu-Ray releases later this year in France, but the well has gone dry for information on those.
All of the STARS OF SPACE JAM DVDs are now available for pre-order at Amazon.com.
And this is all for today, August 26, 2018.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Sigh.
Yesterday, at the Space: 1999 Facebook group.
"'Journey to Where', one of my favorite S2 episodes. Huge fan of the show. So this below post is mainly just poking good fun."
It is not "good fun" when it buttresses the arrogant attitude of the Season 2 detractors, strokes their egos, and gives to them further ammunition for slurring appreciators of Season 2 as "cranks" of a smaller and smaller minority.
"Some serious issues with this episode:"
No, I do not think that they are serious at all. The crickets in Scotland observation is more serious than any of this drivel.
"Earth calls Alpha by 'neutrino transmission'. Alpha responds. Ok if Alpha had this technology why didn't they use it before?"
Alpha does not have that technology. Tony says that neutrino experiments were just beginning on Earth in 1999. Technology based on those experiments was years, if not decades, away. This person either is not "paying attention" when he watches "Journey to Where" or lacks basic comprehension ability. Comprehension ability that I had when I was ten years-old watching "Journey to Where" for the first time.
The neutrino transmission sent from Earth has two-way reception capability. And is tuned to be compatible with the transmission frequency known by Earth to have been used by Alpha in 1999. So that connection with Alpha's transmission frequency is instantaneous. That has to be the case. Simple logic.
"Why didn't Earth call them sooner. If Alpha had it Earth (being decades ahead) must have."
Once again, Alpha does not have it. Earth evidently has achieved some breakthrough with neutrinos, enabling transferences across huge intergalactic distances, sometime prior to the events of this episode. Presumably not very long before them. Or maybe Logan had been searching for the runway Moon for some time and only recently achieved results in his search.
"They say they have been away for months. However, according to the Catacombs Website this incident occurred 429-433 days after leaving Earth - so years not months."
No, not years. One year and a few months does not constitute years. Not years, plural. Tony stating months is an apropos measurement of time. Not as precise as actually saying a year plus a certain number of days. But I can accept it. And so should any reasonable viewer.
I will respond to the remaining "issues" altogether in one "go".
"They say and eclipse will cut off communications for nearly a century. Ok but all Alpha has to do is wait a few months (as stated Alpha months are decades on Earth).
How an earthquake causes them to go back in time is beyond me - but I will let that one go.
Assuming i'm ok with going back to the past, how the hell do their wrist watch health devices send their data back (real time mind you) to the future?
And lets not forget the guy who captures them takes the wrist watch medical device from John and Alan. No consequences from leaving 20th century technology in the past?
Finally, to return them Logan says just reverse the magnetic pods on transference pod and they can be returned. Ok so why did they need to know the year and location? They could have just reversed the polarity.
Things I wonder about."
"My thought was about the eclipse. There's no moon anymore to cause an eclipse and besides how does an eclipse cause the transmission to end for a century."
Are these people for real? All right. First of all, an eclipse is the moving of a celestial body between two others, obscuring view of one or both of those other two objects from the other. A Solar eclipse is the passing of the Moon between the Earth and the Sun, such that the Earth's view of the Sun is blocked. A Lunar eclipse is the result of the Earth being between the Moon and the Sun. A person standing on the Moon would see the Earth blocking view of the Sun. And on the Earth, the Moon is seen in the Earth's shadow. In the case of "Journey to Where", a cluster of stars (a presumably dense cluster of stars) in a third galaxy is going to pass between the galaxy where the Moon is wandering and the Earth in the Milky Way galaxy, preventing Earth from "locking onto" the Moon for neutrino transmission. Maya says this in her report to Koenig near the start of Act One of the episode. It is a contrivance to generate an urgency to the proceedings of "Journey to Where", and quite an inventive one, I have always thought. And even at the age of ten, I understood it.
Galaxies are huge. A time-scale of centuries for duration of a "galactic eclipse" is not unreasonable.
Maya says that communications will be impossible for almost a century. And I have always understood her to be speaking in terms of time on Alpha. She later says to Yasko that there will never be another chance to return to Earth in Yasko's lifetime.
The earthquake's damage to the receptor equipment in Texas City causes a distortion in the transference of John, Helena, and Alan, and the distortion sends them through a freak time eddy "opened" by the distortion somewhere along the neutrino transmission's Moon-to-Earth connection, to Scotland of 1338-9. The transmission's path through time is traceable providing that Logan is considering the effect of a time eddy (for most of the episode, he is not) and depending upon whether he can, with his computer, pinpoint a precise time and place of the trio before the eclipse occurs and breaks the neutrino transmission "line". The three Alphans' biomonitor transmitters on their wrists are sending information through the neutrino transmission and through the time eddy back to Alpha, which is how Alpha is receiving signals from the wrist instruments. Logan needs a precise determination of when and where the time eddy put the three Alphans, and that is achieved with the information provided by Koenig through Morse Code. Scotland. New Year. Bannockburn plus twenty-five. Logan's computer then successfully traces the neutrino transmission's matter transference back in time through the time eddy and retrieves the three Alphans.
Understanding these elements of story is intuitive, for viewers possessing that quality. For some reason, or for no reason, these people seem to lack it. This has long been very apparent, judging from their inability to "grasp" the concept of an Irishman fancying himself a Texan cowboy after his having worked and lived in Texas as a geologist. They just say, "They don't have cowboys in Ireland," in response to Tony calling Dave Reilly an "Irish cowboy" in "All That Glisters". I was able to correctly intuit what Tony meant when I was all of eleven years of age. Even today, at ages of fifty-something, the fans of Space: 1999 cannot.
I also believe the time eddy to have originated in hyperspace, though that is my personal extrapolation based on incidences of hyperspace in other episodes.
Reversing a field polarirty on the transference dome on Alpha will enable John, Helena, and Alan's return to Alpha once the three are located by Logan and a transference procedure is initiated by Logan on Earth based on their location. Simply reversing field polarity will not automatically teleport the trio back to Alpha from wherever (and whenever) the three of them are. I always understood that too. These people evidently do not.
Clan Chief MacDonald probably burned the biomonitor bracelets removed from John and Alan. To prevent spread of supposed Plague. My guess is that he threw them into the fire meant to consume John, Helena, and Alan. But even if he did not, there was no way that anyone of his time would understand them or the technology behind them. They would have been deemed useless objects and discarded. Or possibly thought to be the work of the devil and buried. To be fair, I will acknowledge that one of the contributors to a subsequent discussion does say something to this effect, in "Journey to Where"'s defence.
Funny, is it not, that the latest efforts to assail "Journey to Where" seem to be happening all at once? Just last week, I was responding to the crickets criticism and opted to reject it, and, as if on cue, this series of "issues" then comes forth, to give a further beleaguered condition to "Journey to Where".
And of course there are comments like this.
"Really now, you ought not question plot loopholes one can fly an eagle through."
They are not "plot loopholes". Some of them are details economised for story pacing. Details that a viewer can intuit, if he or she possesses a developed capacity for intuitive thought. And the others are outright mistakes in comprehension of the episode's essential, given information.
Sometimes, I think that I am living Pinky and the Brain. I, the brain. And who is Pinky? I leave the answer to that to my readers.
"I can't be doing with getting tied up in knots over supposed lapses in scientific logic in science 'FICTION' myself. I don't care for the episode in any case."
Why? Why does this person not care for it? Oh, blinkeredness. Oh, blinkeredness. T'is unending and banal. Because of his blinkeredness, I cannot say that I am grateful for his seeming willingness to eschew being "tied up in knots".
"Some serious issues with this episode is an under statement I'd say."
And I would say not. Not these, anyway. Understatement is one word, by the way.
Monday, August 27, 2018. "Hyde and Hare" was released to theatres 63 years ago.
The "Journey to Where" saga continues, with the original commenter not budging from his contention that Alpha in 1999 had neutrino transmission technology.
"But my point is Alpha clearly had the technology. If they did then 1) why didn't they attempt at least to call Earth and 2) If Alpha had it a year later Earth MUST have had it (again experiments started before they left earth in 1999. So clearly Earth must have had the ability much sooner"
No, Alpha does not have the technology! The technology was developed on Earth after the Moon left Earth. Quite some time after that, probably. Egad! People are dense.
JOHN: "Tony. What about neutrino transmissions?"
TONY: "When we left Earth, the first neutrino experiments had just begun."
MAYA: "They can cover billions of miles in a matter of seconds."
JOHN: "But could they have perfected that system so soon?"
TONY: "Yeah, sure! We've been in space for months."
JOHN: "Which in Earth terms means decades."
TONY: "Right."
JOHN: "Okay. ... Okay. So it could be Earth."
And they call me and people like me who appreciate Season 2 mindless. Mindless. Mentally unfit. People who like "shite". Whatever. While they cannot even interpret dialogue correctly.
Alpha does NOT have neutrino transmission technology, as this dialogue clearly indicates. If Alpha did, this conversation would not come about.
Mind, neutrinos would have to be travelling much faster than billions of miles in seconds for transmission between galaxies in the episode. Obviously. Perhaps Earth found a way to accelerate neutrinos such that they enter hyperspace and bypass the light-speed threshold. It is a reasonable assumption, for the Alphans and Dr. Logan are conversing without any time lag.
"As far as neutrino transmission goes, if the technology was just being started in 1999, how would Alpha have a receiver on line? Why would it be in receive mode all the time if they did have one? What would it be tuned to? It's the same as if 100 years ago you were using the first crystal detectors, and you came across a video or high speed data signal, how would you even know what it was?
The transference dome, Alpha could receive instructions for building one, but how would they have the material or components to build it. It would involve technologies and methods not even thought of in 1999. Do they have some super manufacturing facility, to synthesize and create anything? I'm not even going to go into the watch sensors that can simulate a human being."
Oh, boys! Boys. Oh, Boys. Oh, Boys. Big sigh. Look, people. This is all excusable by "economy of detail" and by what Gerry Anderson called "licence". To encumber the episode with so much exposition would result in people in droves tuning their television to another broadcaster. Space: 1999 was being made for the general public, not for "sci-fi geeks" who want every detail addressed with dialogue in an episode.
Suffice it to say that the neutrino transmission is analogous to a carrier wave, with communication by radio signal receivable by Alpha (with its 1999 radio signal technology) sent along it, by the same principle that animate and inanimate matter is transferred from place to place along it? Not terribly knotty, is it? Alpha does NOT possess neutrino transmission technology. Earth sends the neutrino transmission to Alpha with radio signals conveyed along it, with an automatic two-way reception system established once Alpha "copies" the radio signals.
Why is this difficult to intuit and accept? Mind, it is not essential to rationalise the neutrino transmission in this way to follow and to appreciate the story. Hence why the information was not offered in the episode-proper.
The transference dome on Alpha is only a container for dispatch, built with Logan's specifications using materials on Alpha (Earth probably knew what Alpha has and how it may be adapted for use in transference), with all of the process of transference operated by Logan on Earth. It has to generate a signal for Logan's equipment to "lock onto" for "halation" to begin, and that signal need not to be 2120 A.D.-sophisticated. I would expect that all of this would have been "factored into" Logan's decision to "seek out" the runaway Moon and offer the transference option. The viewer does not know how the adapting of Alpha-based materials was done. And really, it is not necessary that the viewer knows. Just that Logan knew how Alpha could build a transference dome, and that Maya and the Alpha Technical Department had a window of time with which to build the dome.
"I would guess that it (the neutrino transmission) was like a sub space conduit. The transmission then only had to be a radio wave much the same way as SG1 can contact the SGC using only their 2 way radios through an active wormhole."
Yes. Somewhat along the lines of what I say above. The discussion stopped at this person's posting.
I will end this by reiterating that we, the viewers, are not privy to every detail. There are only 51 or so minutes with which to "tell" the story.
And besides, one could ask lines of questions about the details of any episode. Season 1 or Season 2.
Actually, I do have more to respond to, before bringing this Weblog entry to a close.
Beneath a photograph of Ray Torens in the Space: 1999- Season 2 opener, "The Metamorph", about to have his mental energy drained from him by the Psyche biological computer, is an edifying set of comments.
"Maybe he required his brains to be sucked dry to fully appreciate Season 2?"
Accompanied by three "thumbs-up", and three laughter icons.
People, I am going to say it. This comment is an affront. Deeply offencive. To me and to anyone for whom Season 2 is imaginatively and aesthetically stimulating. It is tantamount to saying that people who appreciate Season 2 have no brains, are stupid. It is the sort of insult that one would expect from an immature teenager in a school yard. It plus the aforementioned reactions to it. I am not the person who cannot write a sentence without spelling mistakes. I am not one who fails to comprehend information being conveyed by dialogue. But I am stupid, right?
WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"So Series 2 - brains = Series 1"
"Actually the opposite is true for most of Season 2, sadly."
"ROFL"
Oh, it is funny, is it? Rolling on the floor laughing, eh?
And then, there is this pair of gems beneath pictures of Season 1's Main Mission control centre.
"Every time I look at that fantastic Main Mission set I wonder what the hell they were thinking when they replaced it with a Portaloo for season 2."
"Almost appropriate really, a shithouse for a shite level of the 2nd series."
I have already argued that the Command Centre in Season 2 was large enough for many desks with video monitors (six such desks with a seventh lacking a video screen; see "Dorzak", first Moonbase interior scene), a bank of computers, and some trolleys. Apart from Martin Landau, all of the regular actors and actresses, some routine background "extras", and the entire guest cast for "The Bringers of Wonder" fit in Command Centre- and with empty space to spare.
Of course, nobody objected to the person's vulgar and offencive language or defended Season 2 in any way in response to it. Abject quislings, those purported Season 2 fans. Following the vulgarity came a comment by someone else with an attempt to smear Season 2 and its Command Centre with, "Main Mission was a stunning original and grand cinematic set, Command centre was a pathetic little set that belonged on some cheap Saturday morning kids show."
Which one? Space Academy? It was and still is a respected opus for Saturday morning television. I have never read anyone disparaging the main set designs for it. Some of the episodic planet sets were disappointing, but not Academy Control or the interior of the Seeker spacecraft. In any case, the Command Centre of Space: 1999 looks more "busy" and more technologically sophisticated than Academy Control in Space Academy.
This is the attitude of these people. It "speaks for itself", does it not? It plus the obvious inability of these people to intuit details for an episode of a television series or to even correctly interpret its dialogue. After more than forty years of familiarity with it.
It also qualifies to the ultimate degree my problem with the fans of Space: 1999 expounded at length in this Weblog. It is not that I am "badmouthing" them unjustly, maliciously. They deserve upbraiding. The upbraiding that I have written, and then some. I was not being condescendingly vicious when calling them half-adults. The terminology befits them. They certainly do not practice the lofty principles of the television series that they admire. And they do not have the moral "high ground" when they bemoan Star Trek fans for jeering at, ridiculing, and rejecting "their show". They are no better than the Trekkies. In fact, I would venture to say that they are worse. Because they pridefully claim to be better, and are not. And with those airs of intellectual superiority over the Trekkies that they smugly don, they are nothing but an adolescent group of posturing and hypocritical snobs. Cosy and comfortable in their "echo-chambered" group of, what, a few thousand people? Or maybe a million. I do not know. I do not want to know. I wish that I never knew any of them.
August 28, 2018.
I continue to struggle to bring my latest bout of acid refux under control. What I need to do, I think, is to purge all sources of aggravation and agitation from my life. And that means another attempted resolution not to look at the bile of the Space: 1999 fan community on the Internet. It can only help my physical situation to do that. Of course, it will mean that I will have less to write about on this Weblog. But I can go with that. A long weekend beckons, anyway. The last one of this disappointing summer.
Summers certainly are not what they used to be, for me. The "fun factor" is totally absent. But I need the company of others for that, and these days that does seem to be way too much to ask.
Last Weblog entry, I quoted some quite offencive banter among the Facebook-based fans of Space: 1999. Anytime that there are comparisons of Season 2 of Space: 1999 to foul bodily emissions, I have every right to be offended and indignant. Yes, I have myself used vulgar terminology (i.e. "circle-jerk") to describe the Space: 1999 fan movement. But that was my provoked reaction. I am as usual provoked to react. Not vice versa. My preference would be to just "get along" in a climate of mutual respect. But alas, that preference is perpetually frustrated in most galling manner. And the terminology is, in the attitude that I purport it to represent, certainly more demonstrably and objectively true than is Season 2 being feces-like and its adherents loving of anything like feces. If these people do not like me comparing their group to a cluster of males stimulating one another in a certain bodily area, then they need to modify their behaviour and drop their insulting "echo-chambered", confirmation-biased, gratifying-of-one-another glibly smug derisive portrayal of Season 2. But they will not.
Seeing one another assail Season 2 and gratifyingly congratulating one another for their ostensible wit in so-doing, with "like-clicks", laughter icons, et cetera, is what I mean with that terminology. They do seem to derive "jollies" from seeing their espoused hatred for the Freiberger season of their favourite television series affirmed by others of their group, and they go about expressing that hatred with the comfortable knowledge that no one will "take them to task". It is exceedingly rare for someone to come to Season 2's defence. The person who may do so is always solitary and is usually less than fully reverent himself or herself toward it. And people claiming to be Season 2 fans do it no justice in their own sorties "in fun" against it. And their proclamations to liking it despite its apparent faults that they will stumble over themselves to signal, do not absolve them from blame in contributing to the unending negativity. They themselves in their "put-downs" of Season 2 only contribute further gratification to the haters of all things Season 2. And embolden the detractors in their vulgar comparisons of Season 2 to biological waste. And as things are, the Facebook group dedicated to Season 2 is almost as riddled with denunciations of second season episodes as are the main Space: 1999 Facebook groups.
What I would settle for, because a changed mindset of fans is completely out of the question, would be for the fans to make all of their Facebook groups private. That way, neither I nor the general public will be able to see the hate-fuelled deprecation of Fred Freiberger and hostile faultfinding with everything from the opening scene of "The Metamorph" to the last seconds of "The Dorcons". They will not do so, however, as their berating of Season 2 is intended to be oh, so persuasive propaganda to prevent members of the general public from gazing upon Season 2 with an accommodating eye and considering it with an open mind. Alas, they do seem to be winning. Utterly. And have been winning for more than two decades.
But even if they are winning in the arena of public opinion, they are unwilling to relent. Not even for twenty-four hours. The repetition of their "truth" cannot rest even for a day.
But I have to stop looking at it. For my own health.
Season 2 sits on my shelf on glorious Blu-Ray. Can I watch it and enjoy it with the same sense of wonder, feeling of fun, and capacity for hearty appreciation that I had decades ago? No. That avenue of pleasure has been removed from me, as have Dairy Queen chili dogs, tasty Hamburger Helper, my old elementary school building and much of my personal geography of old Douglastown, and the company of valued friends. Considering all of this loss, I do sometimes wonder what there is to live for.
All for today, the final day of August in 2018.
It required ten years of being on the social media platform, but I have at last reached maximum disillusionment with Facebook.
I have already parted company with the elementary school alumni group that I formed. And now I am effectively convinced of my irrelevance to my Facebook friends.
Facebook will not allow its users to know who looks at their profile and their News Feed postings, or at least to know how many times that those have been accessed. Probably because if people, most people, did know, they would realise just how uninterested that their friends are in them, and how insignificant that they are to their friends. And they would react to that by choosing to have little or nothing to do with Facebook. Ah, but I do have a way of gauging friend interest. I post Hyperlinks on my Facebook to my Web pages, whose traffic I can track (in as much as I know that they have been visited and the geographical location of their visitors). And when I do post the Hyperlinks to my Facebook, making them visible only to friends, those Web pages receive no "hits". Zero. Zilch. Nada. None. And this can be regarded as indicative of how many "hits" that my other Facebook postings (the ones not involving my Website) receive from the people who are of utmost import to me.
The fact has to be faced. My friends do not care one jot about my fond reminiscences of my past, my interests, my favourite entertainments, my manner of appreciating those entertainments, the very things that define the person who is Kevin McCorry. What I am to them, at most, is one of many dozens or many hundreds of people to whom to show wedding and child-rearing pictures, "viral" memes with Hallmark card cliches, and virtue signalling. Not that I am opposed to friends showing wedding and baby pictures. Within moderation. But several of my friends only post those on Facebook. Those plus virtue signalling. Year after year. I will congratulate a friend in marrying or having a child- but I expect some interest in me in return. The virtue signalling is by far the most tiresome of all of these. There is more of it now than ever, and there is increasingly an us-versus-the-not-us political dimension to it. One can guess what political direction toward which the virtue signalling very much slants. And there is more of it now than ever.
The highest virtue, by my reckoning, is caring for one's own people. The people in one's life. Family. Friends. Keeping them safe. Safe from quantities that would wish them harm. Harm to them physically or psychologically. Keeping their neighbourhoods safe places in which to live and to move about freely. Keeping them financially secure. Solvent in the long term. Maintaining the dominance of the heritage and the traditional values with which they can prosper. Virtue begins at home. And should not veer very far away from home if such potentially jeopardises the safety and solvency of the local community and the nation of which the local community is part. One of those virtues is "taking interest" in one's friends' personal remembrances and being supportive of them in their "carried torches". If a person wants to signal his or her virtue, he or she can do so by caring first and foremost for the people in his or her life. That was what my parents did, and they were good people.
Because of Facebook's latest algorithms, I cannot any longer see many of my friends' postings in my News Feed, and what I see is dominated by the virtue signalling. But knowledge that my friends do not care about me is the clincher where believing in the use of Facebook is concerned. I know that they do not care about our shared past. The experiences that brought us together and through which our friendship grew and prospered. Again, all that I am to them now is someone to "show off to", to feel superior to, because they have spouse and children while I do not. The things in my life that make living it bearable mean nothing to them. There is no nostalgia in my friends. They utterly lack it. The Baby Boomer generation gushes with nostalgia. Generation X has no regard or fondness for its past. Not even the loss of parents can stir nostalgia in members of Generation X.
Not that nostalgia is all that Generation X does not care about. Generation X is the care-little or the care-not generation. But nostalgia is, I believe, the item for which Generation X most egregiously lacks enthusiasm. My parents, our generation's parents, gave to us outstanding childhoods in a time of prosperity and political stability when the future held so very much promise for man's development. For the producers and movies and television of the day the sky was no limit in what imagination-sparking concepts and depictions could be offered. And Generation X regarded it all as a trifle, to be dismissed readily as soon as something "edgy", so "grounded" as to be grungy, and nihilistic and ever-so-"cool" in its nihilism came along. Is it any wonder that the cultures of the West are now in danger of extinction? We spat at what our parents' generation gave to us. And so, our "Prime Mistake" says that the Canada in which we grew has no core identity and is the world's first "post-national state" (what an Orwell-worthy concoction of double-plus-good drivel that is!).
I am a believer in finishing what I started, and I have some current series of Facebook postings that I am going to bring to completion. Beyond that, I cannot be bothered using Facebook. Oh, Facebook still is a last thread of connection with people I knew in my life during my upbringing. It has value for that. But I have practically no chance, no hope, of ever seeing them again. Even when they are back in Fredericton or in New Brunswick, they never "look me up". They probably think me undesirable because I am not "current" enough for their liking and because I am not a spouse or a parent. The middle-aged single person is the only person toward whom ostracism is considered acceptable and de rigueur. Over the past decade, some of them have "un-friended" me, for reasons unknown, as they do not care enough about me to tell me why. Maybe because I did not "like-click" their virtue signalling. Or maybe they just regard me as an eminently disposable stupid loser who refuses to "let go" of cancelled television programmes. Maybe I am a loser along with all of the other losers who fancy Space: 1999 (perhaps season adherence and aesthetic astuteness are irrelevant in one being a loser).
But who needs Facebook to iterate this sad fact of one's life? The people whose past presence in my life has been cherished so much by me over the last several decades could not possibly care about me and our past any less than they so evidently do. In the day-to-day activities of social media. As the world now turns.
To end this day's Weblog entry, I propose to offer some images of front covers of Blu-Rays that came into my ownership in the mid-2010s.
The Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of Lord of the Flies is of the 1963 black-and-white film adapation of the William Golding book of same name. It was shown to my Grade 11 English class after we read Golding's book. Such was how I first came to see it. Ladyhawke has an appeal to me for it having Space: 1999 actors in it. Three in all. Leo McKern, Ken Hutchinson, and Giancarlo Prete. It involves transmogrification of people into animals, not unlike the Maya character of Space: 1999. Which has some additional appeal for my tastes in imaginative entertainment. And I fancy the music, controversial though the music may be. And with Blu-Ray, I finally acquired the all of the filmed episodes of the original Avengers television series, having only had some of them with the A & E Avengers DVDs of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The filmed episodes comprise the television series' fourth, fifth, and sixth seasons. All of the episodes look magnificent in High Definition, esppeciually Season 5 in all of its gorgeous colour.
September 2, 2018.
I was thinking today of some of the people who gave encouragement to me in my earliest days on the Internet. There was one person whose name I remembered. He was the editor of FPS Magazine. I am somewhat hazy on the details of how that particular periodical came to my attention, but in 1997, I viewed it as a potential venue for my "Hyde and Hare" essay. I sent a copy of my essay in its then form to an Emru Townsend. He replied most swiftly, said that he enjoyed it and would like to print it but that I would need to format it in a way as to be "accessible" to the average reader. He encouraged me to undertake a complete rewrite, which was what I did. Ultimately, it was in an acceptable format for printing but, alas, did not reach the pages of FPS, for some reason that I cannot recall. I remember Emru recommending that I start a column at the magazine with the same sort of "eye" trained upon other cartoons, but I was doubtful that I could repeat the same degree of analytical and aesthetic interpretive work on other cartoons.
In any case, the Internet seemed to be a better platform from which to make available my essay. Better in as much as more people would see it. But I do concede that being published in a magazine would have brought to it rather more prestige and aura of authority. Still, it was disseminated, and what came after that is history. Emru was the first person with whom I corresponded on the Internet to respond positively to my writing.
I did a Google search for Emru and was saddened to read that he passed away from leukaemia almost ten years ago. Awful disease, and it does seem to claim everyone whom it touches. He was kind to me. Why must it always be the kind ones who are "struck down" in their prime? He would have been only 39 when he passed.
On a diametrically opposite note, I am reeling from the discovery that the old Space: 1999 Mailing List did not end when I thought that it did, circa 2005 with the advent of social media platforms such as Facebook. Rather, it has lingered on and on and on, to almost the present day. I last night did a Google search for myself, as a curiosity to see if I am the subject of some discussion in some obscure corner of the Internet, and I found that I am mentioned in a book encapsulating that Space: 1999 Internet community's baleful wrangling over Space: 1999 season difference in what I thought had been just the late 1990s to mid-2000s but which instead persisted to as late as last year.
I and my interview with Fred Freiberger are invoked in the book. What is said is that if I interviewed Josef Stalin, he would have contended that what he did was right, as did Freiberger in my interview with him. And in this it is insinuated that I presumably would have been as amenable to Stalin's statements of self-justification as I was to Fred Freiberger's belief in what he did being right. This was the gist of a berating of me and my interview, a dismissing of it and me along with it as garbage.
Does it give to one cause to shake head in disbelief?
To try to portray what Fred Freiberger did to change style or format of a television show struggling to retain an audience, syndication contracts, and the support of Lew Grade for its continued bankrolling as being analogous to the murder of millions upon millions of people in the U.S.S.R.'s forced collectivisation programmes and Communist Party purges, is an appalling excuse for an argumentative position. It betrays an utter lack of sensible proportion, to say nothing of deficiency in good taste and common decency, in the person daring to draw the comparison. Loathsome. And to try to depict me as anyone who would interview, sympathetically or no, a monster like Stalin, is a most egregious slur on me. I am staunchly anti-communist. I despise Stalin and all that he stood for, from Marxist-Leninist collectivism heedless of millions of individual lives, to total trampling of the rights of the individual under the jackboots of the collective, the state, to group-think brutally enforced and "wrong-think" resulting in exile to Gulags. Freiberger produced the ill-reputed season of my favourite television programme. In no conceivable way can the two men and their actions be legitimately compared.
The person alleges that Freiberger sought to destroy Space: 1999 of first season format. And that this casts him in an evil man's role. Confound it! Yet again I must repeat that the first season format had been ended. Cancelled. It no longer existed as a commissioned precept for production that could be destroyed. Space: 1999 had to change, or Grade would not commission a second season. It is as simple as that. Freiberger, with the collaboration of Gerry Anderson, opted to make the changes that he thought to be right for survival of the television show. And Fred Freiberger fought for the free world in World War Two. To allege that he should be thought-of in the same vein as a brutal despot is among the unkindest cuts of all.
Who are these people, anyway? Assembling Mailing List ramblings and squabblings into a published book. Was every participant's permission asked? That is everyone who had contributed to the Mailing List's discussions. Mine was not. Was everyone given the understanding that their contributions to the discussion would be published in a book? Not me. One of the publishers goes by the pseudonym of the evil antagonist of a certain Season 1 episode. I know. It is downright bizarre.
Against my better judgement, I had a cursory look at a few of the other pages in this repellent publication. To see what purported justification these people may have for their outrageous posturing. I found quite lengthy passages of baffle-gab to the effect of Space: 1999- "Year 1" being an unassailable reiteration of the works of Homer. All right. I will "bite". I am not one to utterly reject any idea. At least not before I have analysed it from a variety of perspectives. But why only "Year 1"? Outside of the palpable pomposity of the predominant musings in the book, there is no credible argument given for excluding "Year 2" from such a conception. Merely saying that it was produced by the hated "show-killer" Fred Freiberger should not be at all persuasive to any fair-minded, non-blinkered person. Someone goes so far as to say that Maya is a representation, somehow, of fascism. To which I, with a full body convulsion, incredulously say, "What?!" Maya actually represents a successful integration of "the other" into a human society. Of course, for that it helped that Earth culture is similar to that of Psychon, as Mentor observes. But a successful integration of "the other" is the antithesis to fascism that seeks to exclude and ultimately to eliminate all traces of "the other" from a nation. What about Maya's background? Psychon may have been a homogeneous world, as Maya remembers in "The Rules of Luton", but there is no evidence that such was achieved through force or through any practice of eugenics commanded by a state. There were no wars on Psychon. Fascism is a warrior's credo, intended for the mobilisation of a nation for war. Advocating for an aggressive nationalism. There is no evidence that Psychons sought to forcefully expand their society to other worlds. At least not before Dorzak's reappearance in Maya's life, and in his case his dissimilarity in character to Maya was effectively delineated. He was a Psychon renegade who abandoned the peaceful poet's principles by which he had lived on Psychon. Mentor may have been despotic, but his actions were not ever said to be motivated by political ideology or by a desire to practice eugenics or to conquer and annex other worlds. Yes, he committed heinous acts upon peoples of other races, but what he wanted was to restore his beautiful world from an environmental catastrophe. He intended no aggression toward other races beyond forcing people of them to surrender themselves to being mentally drained to power Psyche for a re-transformation of Psychon. He was obsessive. He was mad. But obsessiveness and madness are states of mind not restricted to adherents to the ideology of fascism. A person can be obsessive and mad and not be a fascist. I cannot believe that this even has to be stated. The logical fallacy in what it debunks ought to be obvious. Anyway, the contention would appear to be that Maya herself represented fascism while on Alpha. Which is preposterous. Koenig was in command, and she was part of the team under the morally principled leadership of Koenig. At no time did she try to seize control of Alpha for the cause of her own race. Not even when she was delusional and on the rampage in "Space Warp". All that she wanted to do then was to leave Alpha and return to Psychon to save her father's life.
Ultimately, I cannot appreciate what these people are trying pompously to say. And say. And say, And say. Their effort to tie Season 1 and only Season 1 of Space: 1999 to Homer is not persuasive. Someone's trying to brand Maya as some fascistic bastardisation of "The Odyssey" concept and thereby invalidate consideration of Season 2's relevance to a comparison of Space: 1999 to Homer's poem brings, or ought to bring, the whole association-with-Homer exercise to a crash-landing with a dull thud. And these people's contemptible likening of what Fred Freiberger did to the deeds of Josef Stalin in an effort to smear him and myself, deeply undermines their credibility, besides- if they ever really had any of that to start with.
To be sure, the most obnoxious fans of Space: 1999 that I have encountered anywhere were in that Space: 1999 Mailing List group. Through a barrage of four-letter words, I was told to violate myself sexually and was called a series of derogatory things. I had long thought that it had gone the way of the Do-Do. That as recently as last year the group's members were persisting in the same narrow-mindedly and grandiloquently venomous spiels that they were proffering circa 2000 just goes to show how obtusely and insufferably obsessive and irrational that they are. A rational person would at least moderate his or her mindset over time to be tentatively accommodating of other, aware-of-merit perspectives. But these people just quasi-intellectually add more and more bolts to the locked door of their minds, to an extent that comparing Fred Freiberger's actions to those of Josef Stalin is judged to be an acceptable tactic in their unending quest to besmirch Fred Freiberger and his production work, along with my aesthetic interest in it.
There is some good news on the subject of Space: 1999. Yes, really. Shout! Factory has opted to offer all 48 episodes of Space: 1999 for free "Web streaming", and the episodes are all the high-definition film-to-video transfers used for Network Distributing's Space: 1999 Blu-Ray releases. The episodes look outstanding, and some of the audio problems that plagued the Blu-Ray releases are gone. The "warbling" in "The Rules of Luton" and "The AB Chrysalis" on the Blu-Ray discs is not in those episodes provided by Shout! Factory. Some of the audio problems remain, however, including muffled sound in "Seed of Destruction" and missing sound effects in "All That Glisters" and "The Immunity Syndrome". All of the episodes provided in Shout! Factory's "Web streaming" are time-compressed for some unknown reason. But they look absolutely gorgeous!
Does this mean that a Blu-Ray release of the whole television series by Shout! Factory in North America is imminent? I would not be sure of that. Shout! Factory would have to certain of its saleability. And that is the big X-factor in the situation. Most North American Space: 1999 fans would have the out-of-print A & E Blu-Ray release of Season 1. And Season 2 aficionados, what few there are, have probably bought Network Distributing's Region B release of that.
September 6, 2018.
I am a tired man. Tired and afflicted with an upset gut. Acid reflux the control of which is evidently going to require medication for the remainder of my days.
I am not the only person to be tired, evidently, with the Space: 1999 Facebook herd and its daily bile. This past weekend, someone finally, at long last, wrote something to the effect that he is tired of all of the vituperation heaped upon Fred Freiberger and the scorn flung daily upon his work in Season 2. Of course, it could not be an unqualified protest. There had to be a, "Don't get me started on 'The Rules of Luton'," et cetera. But it sparked a rather lengthy discussion, with some other persons stating some degree of agreement with the original Facebook posting. Someone said that the poor man (Freiberger) is dead and should be allowed to rest in peace. Amen. Someone else said that the attacks on Season 2 with comparisons of it with refuse are disrespectful to the production and to the professionals who worked on it. Certainly, they are. Of course, none of the regular vitriolic Season 2 detractors had anything to say to the discussion. And it "fizzled" without any definite resolve to forge a different path for the group. But for all of twenty-four hours, Season 2 photographs or whatever posted to the group's Facebook Web page were free from any derogatory comment. And then, the campaign to forever debase Season 2 and pillory its producer resumed in earnest. As if the discussion had never occurred. Or in impudent spite of it. And the people who did express their tiredness with the routine statements of anti-Season 2 acrimony went back to being quiescently wordless, saying nothing about the remounted sorties.
And the discussion on tiring of the anti-Season-2 attitude was, overall, not very gratifying for me in and of itself, because the angle used in broaching the matter was still disparaging toward the second season, in the territory of, "Fred Freiberger is not the sole person to blame." As long as the word, blame, is used, Season 2 is portrayed as being a bastard work, something worthy of blame, of no ostensible artistic value, and the people appreciating it dismissed as "cranks" of "flakes". And there was "Don't get me started on 'The Rules of Luton'", as I said. As long as "defenders" (the quotation marks mean that I use the word quite loosely) of the second Space: 1999 production block choose this tack, they do Season 2 no justice and are really just aggrandising the egos of the Season 1 bullies in a way slightly different from the usual round of "circle-jerking".
A Season 2 detractor (not one of the usual ones) did contribute to the discussion with a telling of one of the complainers to "chill". Right. Like the fans "chilled" when I, in 1995, called attention to some "nitpicks" with Season 1? Indeed, they did not "chill". Look, a person has every right to object and to complain when they and something that they venerate is being likened to feces and its producer unendingly slurred. I never did that in my incendiary newsletter column of 1995. And yet I was character-assassinated and resoundingly jeered-at as I "left town".
Anyway, after a day had passed, it was back to "business as usual" at the main Space: 1999 Facebook group. The Pavlovian impulse to go on and on and on and on with accosting all things Season 2 and belittling directly or indirectly anyone who respects the production and its subject matter, could not be arrested for any longer than that. It is all that these people do, and do and do and do. It has become their basic nature. A single picture from an episode of Season 2 will reliably always serve as trigger for that impulse. And such is all that Space: 1999 fans are doing lately at the Facebook groups. Posting pictures to the groups and provoking responses. Responses praising anything Season 1, condemning anything Season 2.
And so, the boredom quotient. Space: 1999 Facebook group, of course.
Under pictures of "The Beta Cloud". "'The Beta Cloud' is a guilty pleasure."
Yawn.
Under pictures of "Catacombs of the Moon". "The one I like the least."
Another yawn.
Beneath picture of Bergman writing equations in "Black Sun". "Victor works out just how much the viewing figures would drop off in season 2 before signing his contract."
Gr-r-r-r-r!!! Ho-hum! Yawn.
Beneath picture from "A Matter of Balance" "Man, what a missed opportunity for the writers. So many holes, items."
Tedious. And fallacious. Details economised to avoid unnecessary, time-consuming (Space: 1999 episodes have a set run time of 51 or 52 minutes) exposition are not "holes".
Calling "A Matter of Balance" "A Matter Of Crap, er, I mean Balance."
Oh, how clever! I could easily procure that wording from a thirteen year-old.
Beneath pictures of "Brian the Brain". "It's like a lot of season 2...theres a lot great ideas here...but there's no cohesive execution..."
Wrong. On the matter of there being "no cohesive execution". Wrong and boring.
Calling "Brian the Brain" "Brian the Brain-less"
Oh, how witty! How funny! How trite!
I was disposed to be appreciative of "Brian the Brain", for it had, for me, some cachet to it for being one of the most difficult episodes of Space: 1999 for me to have occasion to watch. I saw it only once in English and only once in French in television season 1976-7, and then never saw it again until I acquired it on videotape in November, 1984. Its repeat in English was preempted by CHSJ-TV for a Kiwanis Auction. Its repeat in French was preempted on CBAFT Moncton due to programming changes as a result of special New Brunswick news programming. I did not have it on audiotape, in English or French. And I was unsuccessful at obtaining it from its CBHT broadcast on New Year’s Day, 1984. Moreover, the one viewing I had of it in English was on the evening in 1976 that Halloween was celebrated, and it was a distracted viewing with trick-or-treaters coming occasionally to the door. It was one of those episodes that I scarcely knew. I saw "The Testament of Arkadia" even less. Only once in English. And not once in French. Before attaining it on videotape in November of 1983. Other difficult-to-see episodes were "Death's Other Dominion", "Force of Life", and "End of Eternity", all of them one-time-in-English and one-time-in-French during my 1976-9 experience of the television series. And furthermore, my first attempt, in 1983, to attain "Force of Life" on videotape met with failure. The majority of episodes, I saw twice in English and twice in French prior to 1983. "The Exiles", "Catacombs of the Moon" and "The Lambda Factor", I saw only once in English and twice in French.
Anyway, just what is brainless about "Brian the Brain"? It is an episode about the danger of artificial intelligence, most particularly when an artificial intelligence is given a robotic body. Brian, that artificial intelligence, a robot, tricks the Alphans into believing that a collision is imminent between Alpha and some hitherto undetectable celestial body and then uses the ruse of his being able to help in determining what is pulling the Moon toward it, to gain Koenig and Russell's confidence. He later entices them onto his Swift spaceship and has gained them as his hostages. He also wipes and disables Alpha's computer that is needed to process and interpret sensor data for Alpha to be able to "see". The computer circuits in Alpha video monitor screens are also affected, obviously. Brian uses a "love test" to determine whether Koenig and Russell love one another, and then holds Helena hostage to force John to acquire the Mothership's fuel core with which Brian can have an eternal existence. Maya and Tony go to the planet where the Mothership is, Brian being preoccupied with the "love test" and not noticing their Eagle descending to the planet; alternatively, maybe they are behind the planet at its far side and not seen by Brian (supply of such detail in dialogue is not necessary; the episode can be understood without it). Koenig meets Tony and Maya at the Mothership and deduces how Brian might be overcome. And with help from Helena and Maya, succeeds in exactly that. Brian is dealt the same outcome with which he had threatened John and Helena: expulsion into space via an airlock. Nemesis. A hallmark of inventive storytelling. Alpha is able to extract Brian's memory and regain the data that Brian wiped from Alpha's computer. And Brian is restored of his memory and reprogrammed to be less dangerous than he had been. With orders to self-destruct if he ever has an evil thought again. It is a intelligible script. And overall, I like the look of the episode. Impressive scenes on the planet and aboard Brian's Swift spaceship.
Oh, I suppose one might quibble about Brian not doing a life-form scan of the Mothership and not detecting Maya and Tony's presence. And his not knowing that their Eagle is nearby, presumably with Fraser at the controls. Maybe Brian was so confident of success in his plan, that he just did not do that. In any case, as I have said before, "perfect" productions like The Empire Strikes Back and Star Trek II- The Wrath of Khan are not faultless. Why "pick on" Space: 1999- Season 2?
Beneath pictures of "New Adam New Eve".
"UGH!!!""
Now, there is an intelligent assessment if ever I saw one of an episode.
Beneath pictures of "All That Glisters".
"That episode made Lost in Space look intelligent."
Oh, really. Since when did Lost in Space do a non-satirical, serious story about the effects of survival panic in an enigmatic, uncommunicative alien life form? The intelligence in "All That Glisters" is in the concept of the life form of the rock and what it signifies, invoking the Gaia principle in a scenario wherein a sentience or a consciousness within a constituent, living part of an environment has disrupted the overall ecology of a system, that system requiring something of a reset. It is a beautiful concept. Something lost of these narrow-minded louts. Oh, and I must have missed the singing Vikings, the gold-painted alien faces, Dr. Smith or a similar character acting in some exaggerated way and then groaning, "Oh, the pain!" before calling a robot a "bubble-headed booby", and the rotund actors in carrot costumes.
All of this and more has spewed forth onto the Facebook group in the days following that discussion last weekend, totally oblivious to, and perhaps in spiteful response to, that discussion. The ultimate result of all of this rancour is the general public's perception of Season 2 following what the fans "generally" think. The "general" thinking being that Season 2 is not only "the inferior season", but garbage because of "show-killer" Freiberger. People just accept such as dictum from an irrefutable source that is the oh, so enlightened fan gestalt. Even if the fandom unendingly stating it is demonstrably blinkered and wilfully ignorant, unwilling pigheadedly to grant any appreciable amount of suspended disbelief and recognition of "economy of detail" to the episodes of Season 2, densely misconstruing dialogue in episodes, making patently false statements about episodes or characters, obviously lacking in class in slurring and "making fun" of a dead man, and all too often cannot write with proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Any viewpoint deviating from the "general" one being unworthy of any acknowledgement, no matter how observant and astute the articulation of the outlier.
And so, in a discussion outside of Space: 1999 fandom's "echo chamber", in a "thread" of dialogue on Star Trek comes this oh, so edifying statement.
"Season 2 is generally derided by fans, and justifiably so as it was the year Fred Frieberger took over and killed the show. Maya was an interesting addition, and well-liked character who had previously been a guest star during season 1. However, the character was poorly written, essentially the female Spock, with little to do outside of spouting stats and calculations, and was made all the more comical by the constant shape shifting into ridiculous space creatures to solve problems."
See? People outside of the Space: 1999 fan community adhere to the "general" opinion of Space: 1999 fans as the authoritative "word" on the question of Season 2 having merits or not. What the minority of fair-minded, open-minded, aesthetically curious and venerating-of-all-things-Space: 1999 aficionados of that television series may think or have insights about, is ignored completely. This is what I "rail against". What I have been "railing against" for nearly three decades. With sheer, utter futility. It is all too easy to declare "the show" as having been "killed" because a third season was not "green-lit" by Lew Grade. But it was popular in Canada with Season 2. It had good ratings. Because it was scheduled with care and with wisdom at a family viewing hour and given effective promotion and because it was appreciated by the fanciful audience of all ages for whom it was intended. And because it had likable and relatable characters. And the subtle artistic "touches" to it being lost on the closed-minded vast majority of the fan following of Space: 1999 is not its fault. Nor that of the producer. There is no saying with any degree of certainty that the Season 1 format of Space: 1999 had further seasons of life in it as entertainment for mainstream audiences. Lew Grade did not think so. The "general deriding" by fans for forty-two years (and counting) is not justifiable. They are ignorant. Pridefully so. And they act like a group of bullying teenagers in a school yard to anyone who disagrees with them. They are vulgar. They are rude. They lack self-awareness, humility, and empathy. They have hated a man and his work for more than four decades. And they are unwilling to listen to reason. How is any of this justifiable?
And the dismissal of Maya is most unfair. That reminiscing scene with Koenig on the hilltop in "The Rules of Luton", her romance with Tony, her statement on generations-of-God theory in "New Adam New Eve", the depicting of her as "the other" integrating into a human society hailing from twentieth century Earth, her confrontation with Dorzak and the contrast of her with him, and her being the article of the conflict in "The Dorcons". There was more to her than "stats and calculations" and problem-solving with "ridiculous space creatures". How did she solve the problem in "The Beta Cloud"? She came to a rational conclusion and turned into a bee (not a "ridiculous space creature") to act on the conclusion that she had drawn. Her transformation into Captain Michael (not a "ridiculous space creature") in "Brian the Brain" contributed to solving the problem in "Brian the Brain". It was Helena who overcame Cantar and John who dispatched Zova in "The Exiles", not Maya. Koenig defeated the aliens in "The Bringers of Wonder" and Carolyn Powell in "The Lambda Factor". And Elizia in "Devil's Planet". And he contacted the Solitary Being in "The Immunity Syndrome". And so on. I am so very sick and tired of responding to this rot. It is all just reiterated fan refrains of denigrating and bleating. Repeated so often that it is just written or spoken without any thought anymore.
There is some speculation on Shout! Factory releasing Space: 1999 on Blu-Ray in North America. The Digital Bits said something recently about that, but I am unable to locate the particular entry in The Digital Bits' information stream. I frankly cannot see why Shout! Factory would proceed with manufacturing such a product. Season 2 has no fandom, is hated by all people of any consequence. Right? And the Season 1 fans have their Region A Blu-Ray set released by A & E in 2010. Oh, and by the way, I have determined that the Season 2 episodes available for viewing via the Shout! Factory Website are the monaural-audio versions of the episodes on Network Distributing's Blu-Rays, with the main opening from "The Exiles" grafted onto all other episodes, with some first notes of music from start of "The Exiles" post-main-opening remaining before the edit to the episode-proper in a number of cases. "The Rules of Luton" and "The AB Chrysalis" have lost the "warble" to their audio. Otherwise, it is the same audio tracks as are on the Network Distributing Blu-Rays.
Anyway, I await Kino Lorber's third Pink Panther cartoon Blu-Ray release. Due this coming Tuesday. After that, I believe a fourth and a fifth Kino Lorber Pink Panther Blu-Ray disc are on the docket for the final few months of the year. Other than these, I am looking forward to a Night Stalker and Night Strangler Blu-Ray release, also by Kino Lorber. And the BBC's Blu-Ray release of Season 19 of Doctor Who. Things to anticipate as the fair weather gradually gives way to the ice and snow of that season that killed my beloved cat, Sammy, this year.
Thursday, September 13, 2018.
Sunday, September 16, 2018.
I have recently visited the GoldenAgeCartoons Facebook group in a search of any promise of something in the foreseeable future for the release to digital videodisc of some cartoons (other than the STARS OF SPACE JAM DVDs coming within the next month). Where are those further releases from Warner Archive that had been pledged should PORKY PIG 101 garner a large amount of sales? There is nothing. As is all too usual, Warner is more interested in releasing properties other than its own cartoon catalogue to the DVD and Blu-Ray market. It would appear that this autumn, Warner Archive is putting eggs in one basket in releasing Hanna-Barbera's Jonny Quest on Blu-Ray. If it is not Hanna-Barbera, then it is MGM's Tom and Jerry. Bugs Bunny? Oh, who cares about him? Right?
I watched Jonny Quest in 1978 and 1979 on WVII-TV on Saturday mornings before WVII switched to the ABC television network for its programming offerings for the remainder of the A.M. hours. It was a fairly entertaining way of passing thirty minutes of time. I bought the DVD box set of Jonny Quest in 2004, and, apart from a few of the episodes to feature monsters, I found it to be rather dull. "Not my bag," one might say. And music from The Flintstones heard in it was, for me, quite incongruous with its serious premise and pulled me out of whatever I was watching. I do not doubt that Jonny Quest has a fandom, and good for it. But I am still very disappointed that Warner Archive is evidently abandoning its nod to the vintage theatrical cartoons of Warner Brothers after PORKY PIG 101 had been a sales success. I supported that DVD release in good faith.
Last Weblog entry, I said that the Season 2-hating fans of Space: 1999 are vulgar. Yes, indeed. I have quoted a number of them as being so. I was subjected to a barrage of it in that Mailing List back in the late 1990s, as I have recalled. Have I been vulgar? Yes, in using the "circle-jerk" terminology to describe the nature of their particular "echo chamber". I do feel somewhat sullied in descending to that level. But if there is a terminology as incisive and as pithy and as apropos as it that could be used, I would like to know what it is. A group of people in a circle of shared mindset who daily gratify one another in their hatred for a work and its producer. What other apt description for that is there?
I have had scant use for vulgarity and profanity, and as little respect for such, since I first heard the four-letter word starting with the letter, F, in those early disagreeable days of sixth grade at school in Fredericton in 1977. The values of my mother and father were impressed upon me in my upbringing. They were very strict about the use of any such undignified language. Not even if it was quoted. My mother would curse using the Lord's name in vain, if she was extremely agitated or had hurt herself. But she would never ever use that unmentionable word starting with the alphabet's sixth letter. And the children with whom I associated while living in Douglastown must have had parents with similar values and strictness, as they did not use that word, either. Nor the ones referring to body parts and excrement. My ears were certainly virgin before they were assaulted with the foul language of my school peers of Grade 6 and beyond.
Retreating into the Space Age worlds of Space: 1999 and Space Academy and, later, Star Wars, wherein nobody spoke as odiously as the people I was forced to sit with in classrooms or share playground space with in those early weeks and months of my tenure in Fredericton, was a, for me, richly cherished, highly appreciated procedure. I am so sick and tired of vulgarity and profanity. Any hope of leaving it behind upon finishing school and entering adulthood has been hopelessly dashed for all time, apparently. Not that fifty-something Space: 1999 fans are unique in being teenage vulgar. Not at all. Star Wars fans are much, much worse. And especially when it comes to using the word starting with the letter, F, as an adjective. Good grief! Just watch any YouTube video created by a Star Wars fan on the subject of something that he does not like.
All right. This is all that I have to say today. Very best regards to my readers.
September 19, 2018.
At the Facebook group supposedly existing for the celebration and admiration of Season 2.
"This episode ("Space Warp") is hilariously bad. Pure season 2 crap"
"This episode ("Space Warp"), just like 'The Beta Cloud' needs to be watched just for fun and not taken seriously."
"This is my 'guilty pleasure' episode. My main reason I liked it was because it gave Alan more to do."
Under a picture of Maya in "One Moment of Humanity". "'Fred, how much more of this do I have to take?'"
Under pictures of "All That Glisters". "Probably the most bird-brained episode ever."
Under picture of Malic (Gerry Sundquist) in "The Dorcons". "Probably the only season 2 episode worth watching"
Putting periods at the end of sentences. It is merely a finger press of a keyboard button. Too lazy to bother doing that? If someone is too lazy to typewrite a simple period, why should what he or she has to say be regarded as having a degree of authority?
Why, I ask with rolling eyes and clenched teeth, are people making comments such as these permitted within a group dedicated to Season 2? The answer begging to be stated is, as I have said before, that Season 2 does not have a fandom. And therefore practically anyone is acceptable within the group. Anyone at all. I have looked at Facebook groups formed to celebrate the Planet of the Apes and Logan's Run television series. Not a single disparaging remark about any episode, situation, character, or depiction. Not a one. Those television programmes, however short-lived, have fans. Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century certainly do. Space: 1999- Season 2, with its production values and its likable characters and its beautiful concepts of speculative fiction and its dynamic music and its compellingly nuanced timeline, has no fandom at all.
Really, the above quoted comments do not merit response. But I will hazard a doing of such with regard to a few of them.
What is so laughable about "Space Warp"? The Maya monster transformations? Transformations of a fevered, delirious, and disoriented Maya, the monsters being product of her fevered nightmare? One of them looks like a tree creature, with skin like bark. And with long hair like Maya's but with the hair dishevelled and looking like frayed, hanging wire. A surreal representation of the last days of a temperate, forested Psychon with its technological civilisation in tatters, before Mentor's obsessive work with Psyche to try to re-transform Psychon proceeded with grim determination? Maybe. She assumes the form of what looks like Mentor but is not quite Mentor. The product of fevered and disarrayed mind. And then, she has the form of an air-storing creature (she, in "The Bringers of Wonder", describes one such as having lived on Psychon's moon) but with the hybridised head of the creature of "The Beta Cloud" with perhaps the living matter of the head of the Thaed in "A Matter of Balance". The monsters are a projection of Maya's delirium. Of course they are going to look outlandish.
The subjectivity in someone laughing at a depiction in a non-satirical, serious work of the genre, is not an incontrovertible condemnation of that work. That should go without saying. Rather, it is indicative of the cockily irreverent mindset of the person who laughs. And of his or her deficient breadth of imagination and smug self-assurance in believing that he or she is the ultimate arbiter on what is right and wrong in a work of science fiction/fantasy. The compulsion to laugh at something un-Earthly and monstrous moving about in a technological setting would appear to be legion among the populations of science fiction-fantasy aficionados and of much of the world in general. I am not a psychologist by profession, but laughing at something not intended to be funny would seem to me to be a mind's effort to assert superiority and authority over it. And to "laugh it off" so as to not give considered attention to it. And to discourage others from giving such attention. Why? Could it be that that mind senses something about it? Something discomforting or disquieting. Something that could potentially deflate the ego of an individual or a gestalt. I am speculating here, of course. But calling laughable something that is not meant to be satirical or farcical, just seems to betray a disobliging arrogance in the person doing the derisive guffawing. To say nothing of contemptuous belittling of some other person's product of imagination.
The "door in space" space warp concept itself is beautiful, and the dramatic effect of John and Tony being separated from Alpha as a result of the space warp is done with competence in the acting, especially in that of Barbara Bain in the scene of Helena, Alan, and Sahn talking in Command Centre. I have also always fancied the scenes on the derelict spaceship wherein John and Tony view an alien commander's final communique. The exposition is simple and effective, saliently establishing premise for the alien commander's act of posthumous aid of John and Tony toward finding the "door". And giving some tantalisingly sparing insight into an alien culture about which there is no living trace present aboard spaceship. The alien commander had a most otherworldly sense of head wear. I do not know quite what it was about the peculiar head garment that has always impressed me. But impressed I was and am. It certainly is not something that one would expect to see a humanoid alien's face to be within. By the way, the derelict in "Space Warp" is the first disused alien spaceship encountered by Alpha since the confrontation with Mentor on Psychon (with derelict alien spacecraft on Psychon's surface). Curious that Maya's fever and her nightmarish visions of Mentor and of Psychon's final days begin coincident with the appearance of the derelict in "Space Warp". Both the derelict and Maya's fevered visions "hearken back" to "The Metamorph". It would be curious to someone who is not superciliously sniggering at the episode.
And why should episodes of Season 2 not be "taken seriously"? Is that something to be eschewed out of fear of finding something aesthetic and beautiful, or sheer pomposity? Think about what is proffered in Season 2. And appreciate what may be there to find. There is no need to abandon Season 1 in appreciation of Season 2. What is wrong with enjoying and valuing them both?
As to "All That Glisters". If a person's imagination is too constricted to absorb the idea that a rock on an alien world may be alive and sentient, perhaps even intelligent, that is not the objective fault of the episode or its producer. The rock in "All That Glisters" is a strikingly alien form of life. And one that is not incongruous with the manifestations of alien life in both seasons of Space: 1999. A television series with an alien force zeroing in on Moonbase Alpha on a mission to energise itself ("Force of Life"), non-corporeal "souls" piloting spaceships ("Alpha Child"), and an intelligence in space ("Space Brain"). The precedent for consciousness or intelligence to exist in beings without an anatomically tangible organ structurally analogous to the human brain, was already set in Season 1. And I have defended "All That Glisters"' story structure enough already.
First reviews of the third Blu-Ray release of Pink Panther cartoons have been posted to the DePatie-Freleng Cartoons Facebook group. And in them is good news that a version of "Pink Outs" without laughter track is included in Volume 3 as a bonus item. I hope that it is from better film elements than is the "Pink Outs" on Volume 2. My Blu-Ray disc of Volume 3 is en route to me. I should have it within the next seven to ten days.
September 21, 2018. Another summer has come and gone. Sigh.
Another day, another set of sorties.
I am tired. I am so tired!
Regarding "The Metamorph". What used to be a fairly acclaimed episode of second season Space: 1999. The opening episode. The one that introduces the character of Maya.
"Watching 'The Metamorph' today. Directive 4 when Alpha sends a Robot Eagle to blow up Maya and Mentor's planet.
The whole planet? What the hell sort of fire power does Alpha have at its disposal?"
Firepower is one word.
Why? Why watch "The Metamorph"? Why not watch your precious "Year 1", oh, one of the ubiquitous stalwarts of the Second Season "put-down"? I mean, is it not established beyond any reasonable doubt that Season 2 of Space: 1999 is an utter abomination? The worst work of science fiction/fantasy ever committed to film. Of no value to any rational person. That is what I read every God-damned day of my miserable life!
Why, oh, why was I cursed with seeing Season 2 first during the best twelve months of my childhood? Why was I condemned to a lifetime of seeing merit in something that virtually everyone besides myself and one other person, vilifies, scoffs at, or blames someone for it having been produced? What did I do prior to 18 September, 1976 to deserve this eternal punishment?
It is plain to see how tired and dispirited that I am.
Directive Four is a coded signal to destroy the place from which it originates. It is established later in the episode how tenuous planet Psychon's stability is, that a release of the energy of the biological computer, Psyche, in Mentor's lair, can destroy the planet, and does. In response to receiving Directive Four, Tony asks Petrov in Weapons Section what the maximum destructive power of a robot Eagle would be in the circumstance of the planet Psychon. It would be reasonable, or it should be reasonable, to presume that all of the analysed data from Fraser's original pass over the surface of Psychon has been found to indicate an energy source on Psychon that if released in a huge nuclear explosion (with nuclear devices aboard the robot Eagle) would destroy the structurally strained planet. Prior to his capture by Mentor, Koenig may not have known yet that Psychon could be totally destroyed by Alphan means. The data from Fraser's pass over Psychon may not have been fully analysed as yet. Or maybe he does know and he judges Psychon's destruction to be a necessary manoeuvre to preserve Alpha.
One could perhaps quibble with an Eagle only requiring ten minutes to travel from Moonbase Alpha to Psychon. If one were not prepared to accept short travel time for Eagles going to planets in first season episodes such as "Missing Link" and "The Full Circle", that is. But this matter is not broached in the discussion that I am citing.
I hew to the above rationalisation that I make. Not that it is necessary. Cannot it just be accepted, without detail, that the robot Eagle has the capacity to bring total destruction to Psychon? It is known that Alpha can destroy an asteroid with nuclear materials being detonated, as in "Collision Course". And Alpha sends a Eagle armed with "nuclear charges" into the space brain in "Space Brain". The ability of Alpha to destroy a tenuously stable planet should not be beyond believability.
But oh, how predictable are the comments that spewed forth after the original Facebook posting.
"The kind that Freddy writes into the script." Six school yard bullies or bully minions "like-clicked" or "laugh-iconed", this one. The smugly proclaimed drivel that it is.
"Moon blasted out of Earth orbit... Yeah that's fine; Encounters a new system each week... I'm cool with that; crashes into a black hole... This is good sci-fi; Alphans make a big bomb.... Freiberger!!!"
I do not know one way or the other whether this is meant to be a critique of Freiberger-phobia or is an iteration of it. Probably the latter. And it garners a "laugh icon".
The Alphans are already able to bomb, as I have said. They explode asteroids.
"I guess he figured that if the Enterprise could do it, Alpha could as well."
Then why does not Alpha do it to Taura in "The Seance Spectre" to avoid a collision in that case? No. Alpha is only able to do it to Psychon because of Psychon's deficient stability.
I do not recall the Enterprise destroying a planet in any of Freiberger's episodes of Star Trek. Or threatening to do so. In the first season Star Trek episode, "A Taste of Armageddon", Scotty threatens to destroy the inhabited surface of Eminiar VII. It is a rather large assumption that Freiberger knew of what transpired in "A Taste of Armageddon" (an episode of Star Trek in which he had no production involvement) and that he deliberately coopted it into his plans for Season 2 of Space: 1999.
"The planet DID blow up .. didn't it."
Yes, it did.
"But that was because Psyche blew up and that set off the planet's own internal stresses (which were already close to exploding as it was)."
Yes. And Alpha could have known that a nuclear blast in the vicinity of the energy source that is Psyche would destroy the planet.
"Eagle could set it off."
"Yeah but what the hell the Eagle packing in the first place?"
Nuclear explosives like those seen in "Space Brain".
"All eagles are packing a nuke in the back. Remember Koenig dropped his off before crashing."
I do not know to what this person is referring.
"Given what Alpha was originally designed for, and given that it wouldn't have occurred to the builders that the Moon could possibly leave orbit, why such a directive would have been programmed is open to question."
Koenig had it programmed sometime later, after experiencing acts of alien treachery. Why is this so difficult for a person to comprehend?
"I'd guess that that set-up (along with the 'Combat Eagles', plus the fixed-mount laser cannons), were attempts by Alpha to toughen up their defenses later in their journey, long after 'Breakaway'.
Good guess. A reasonable deduction.
"...well...then again, there was Earth......lol"
What?
"exactly the only planet the could blow up was Earth."
What?
"Maybe waste wasn't the only nuclear material stored on the Moon."
I say again. What?
"Or maybe they salvaged some super bombs from the wreckage of the Deltan and Bethan gunships."
Not necessary as a rationalisation but an interesting conjecture.
The discussion goes on and on and on, and then there is this.
"I did think it was a bit of a problem that if Mentor had tripped over Maya's gown tails and knocked over one of the fragile glass columns of bubbling water, the whole planet would explode."
Somehow, I doubt that this thought would have occurred to Mentor. Any more than it has occurred to viewers in the forty-two years before it was put forth in a Facebook discussion. And if it did occur to Mentor, the tubes of Psyche were probably made resistant to a minor accident such as tripping into something. Koenig with his upper body strength swings a sharp-edged rock formation through several of the Psyche tubes. That is no minor accident.
"Definitely a few health and safety issues. That's the '70s for you."
Oh, how funny!
"I'd have to watch it again, but doesn't the directive state to blow up the origin of the signal (or something like that). I don't remember it referencing the destruction of the whole planet (although maybe Sahn says something like that), but maybe it was just unsaid that alphas computers knew of the instability of the planets internal forces and recognized they could set it in motion by a chain reaction from an eagle nuke detonation."
Yes. Everything after the but and the maybe. Apart from missing apostrophes and lack of capital letters for Alpha and Eagle, I like this. It should have ended the discussion. But, oh, no, it does not. It cannot. Season 2 "dissers" and Freiberger-phobes have to have the last words.
"Oh, the whole thing was such a star treky Fred freiberger addition to the series. It's exactly like something captain Kirk would have done. I recognized that immediately and sensed the deep changes afoot."
Capital letters, please.
What should Koenig do, then? Just capitulate to Mentor? Or allow Mentor to destroy Alpha and reduce Helena, Alan, and Bill to mindless beings as Mentor threatens to do? Or go down on his knees and pray to God or the "Mysterious Unknown Force" for help? Or I suppose that "The Metamorph" should not have been made at all. Oh, yes, of course. Forget about making Season 2. To hell with anyone who liked it. Instead do "Balor Returns". Or something like that.
"Well when you think about it. There was a Picard in the episode as well."
Space: 1999- Season 2. Produced, 1976. Star Trek: The Next Generation. Produced, 1987-94. How is there being a Picard in Season 2 Space: 1999 in 1976 a "rip-off" of the Picard character of Star Trek: The Next Generation which premiered in 1987? I presume that this is what is being suggested. Anything to smear Season 2 Space: 1999. Crazy.
"So many changes in S2 weren't explained or attempted to tie in with S1, having a ton more firepower is just one."
But Alpha in Season 1 did have the ability to destroy small worlds. How does what is planned for the tenuously stable Psychon in "The Metamorph" require "a ton more firepower"? It need not require that.
"I think Fred did get the idea from Star Trek. It sounds just like General Order 24 in 'A Taste of Armageddon'."
Koenig orders destruction of the place of a transmitted signal, knowing or not knowing that an almost lifeless planet's end would be the outcome. Alpha knows that the commanded destruction will indeed cause the planet to be obliterated and proceeds with "carrying out" of the order. Koenig is intent on stopping Mentor from reducing Alpha to ashes or turning the lion's share of Alphans into what Torens has become. And Psychon is an environmental hell with no life outside of Mentor's corridors, laboratory, and caves. Psyche could restore Psychon to being a green, beautiful, structurally secure, and life-giving world, so Mentor says, but Mentor's deeds in that direction are obscene, evil. They cannot be allowed to continue. If Psychon is a doomed world without Mentor's work, then destroying it is not equatable to erasing a biosphere from a temperate world- which is what Kirk commands with General Order 24. Kirk wants to put a stop to an all too tidy computerised war and prevent the Enterprise and its crew from being "collateral damage", and he gives orders for the erasure of the surface of a vastly inhabited world. General Order 24 would have killed more people. Millions of more people. Suffice it to say that there are some differences between the two cases of commanded destruction. And Koenig is not Kirk. The survival of his people, none of them Starfleet personnel with orders to die if a mission makes that necessary, is of paramount importance to him. At all times. "Big-stick diplomacy" is not the motivation for Alphans going to alien planets at start of episodes. And this would, by my reckoning, make Koenig more justified than Kirk in doing what is necessary to protect his people during encounters with aliens.
"Economy of detail" ought to be sufficient for allowing the existence of the Eagle being able to do what it said to be able to do. A scene with Tony and Sandra discussing the analysed data on Psychon would have been exposition extending the episode's length past the allotted 51 to 52 minutes.
There is also a long discussion today disparaging "The Bringers of Wonder", but I am done with my day's defenses of Season 2 Space: 1999 for the day. I have "had enough".
Still waiting for the arrival in my mailbox of the third Blu-Ray disc of Pink Panther cartoons.
September 22, 2018.
Readership for my Weblog has decreased in over the past ten days. I would hazard a guess as to why. People are tired of my indignant replies to the daily attacks upon Space: 1999 Season 2 by the louts of the Season 1 "camp" and by persons touting themselves to be pundits of second season. Believe me, no one could be more tired of it than I am.
I wish that I had numerous DVD or Blu-Ray releases of other entertainments of my fancy about which to write. All that is coming for the remainder of the year, all that is of interest to me, that is, are the final Kino Lorber Blu-Ray volumes of the Pink Panther cartoons. Plus the two Kolchak television movies and Doctor Who- Season 19. And I know of nothing of my fancy "in the pipeline" for 2019. I will review the third Pink Panther cartoons Blu-Ray when I have it. As is usual now, I must wait for nearly two weeks, and sometimes more than that, for a package from Amazon.com to reach my door.
Oh, yes. How could I forget? The STARS OF SPACE JAM DVDs are coming, too. I will be buying two of them just to acquire two cartoons.
Seven years ago today, my father was admitted to hospital, beginning the downward spiral that ended with his death on November 2, 2012. I am aghast and disconcerted at how much time has elapsed since then. It does not seem to be that long a time. Indeed, when I typewrite the year, 2019, I can scarcely believe that I am now that late in the day that is my life. And that I have lived nearly six years without either of my parents.
I have carried with me through many decades my esteem and love for entertainments that captured my fancy and imagination in my life's first thirteen years. It has been a most frustrating journey in my adulthood to find kindred spirits in my veneration of those productions. And in the past ten years, all too many of them have dropped out of the public consciousness. Most particularly the Warner Brothers cartoons. Spiderman cannot even have its DVD release brought back into print during time periods when Spider-Man is in vogue via some current movie. Yes, the DePatie-Freleng cartoons are receiving a comprehensive release to Blu-Ray, but the general public is oblivious to that. I cannot stir any degree of enthusiasm among my Facebook friends for my favourite works. Certainly not nostalgic sentiment. Recently, I posted Hyperlinks on my Facebook to every episode of Spiderman, offering them weekdays at 4:30 P.M., replicating CHSJ-TV's old 1981-3 airtime for Spiderman. Almost no one commented on or "like-clicked" those Hyperlinks. Despite the popularity of the Marvel characters in the Zeitgeist of late. At least, it generated recall and nostalgic feeling in me for the old days of 1982 and 1983, when I looked forward to seeing and videotaping Spiderman each day as I boarded the school bus for home in the afternoon and as I sat through the 4 P.M. Do it For Yourself television show in eager anticipation of Spiderman and hoping for an episode that my videotape collection then lacked. My social life in that time frame reaching a zenith, I would be confident of seeing a friend and perhaps talking about Spiderman not long after seeing the day's episode thereof.
All for today.
September 24, 2018.
Election day today in New Brunswick. I am not expecting any significant change in how my Canadian province will be governed for the next four years.
And it is more of the same when it comes to my compulsion to respond to attacks upon Season 2 Space: 1999. Day in, day out. The same thing. The "echo chamber" that is the Facebook Space: 1999 community continues to grow, and each new person in it only launches into the same old baiting of the group to say what they dislike about the accursed season of the producer with the names starting with F.
"'One Moment of Humanity'. Androids seek to learn how to be violent. But can't until they experience it. Alpha's have to avoid agression acts or be killed.
They make a copy of Alpha in the hopes that Tony and Dr. Russel might shoot one another. They don't.
However Alan does shoot one of the androids later. Why didn't they perceive this to be an aggressive act?"
Alpha's? Dr. Russel? Agression?
All right. The response to this is simple. Ridiculously simple. For anyone possessing a pair of eyes and a modicum of reasoned thought.
Zamara is not looking at Alan when he trains his gun at her and fires it. Her back is to him. She is preoccupied with the Alphan library and on finding something therein that may be used on Helena and Tony and is not looking at John, Alan, and Maya. Further, Zamara and her peers are of the belief that killing is an act of strong emotion. Passion. Jealousy. Intense suspicion and mortal fear. By her reckoning, Alan cannot be driven by such emotion under the immediate circumstances. And indeed he does not raise and fire the gun with intent to kill. Only to incapacitate. Or to test whether the gun may have effect on her. High Definition video permits view of the setting on Alan's gun. No red to be seen. Only black. Therefore, stun.
Alan's firing of the gun may have some minimal aggression in its enaction. But Zamara does not see it, and if she did see it, she would not regard it as being the impassioned, murderous aggression that she wants.
From this blinkered observation does of course come the usual series of slurs.
"I try not to think too much about the 2nd series episodes, which is the answer to the question here."
Oh, funny. Do not think much about the episodes. Cannot possibly risk seeing something conceptually beautiful and potentially meaningful in them. Oh, heaven forbid. Really, it requires little thought for one to "reason out" the above-cited, allegedly faulty scene. For someone actually willing to think, and think un-scathingly, with regard to Season 2.
"Especially the big problem at the end of this one. If they needed the androids to thought-teleport, how the $#%! did they get back to Alpha? And if they could somehow do it by sending someone with an Eagle, why didn't they stay on the planet? The humans who lived there probably owed them a bid debt for deactivating the androids and would have welcomed them. Unless they were going out of range and didn't have time for Operation Exodus."
Oh, good grief! Must every detail be stated in dialogue? Obviously, John, Helena, Maya, and Tony were returned to Alpha (the next episode makes that quite patent), probably by an Eagle flown by Alan. Or if not that then by an old spaceship of the humanoids of the planet put back into service. The outdoor environmental conditions on Vega (or whatever it was called prior to the androids' ascendancy) would make it an undesirable planet for Alpha to colonise. I would have thought that to be obvious. And the climate-controlled city might not be able to accommodate nearly 300 Alphans, particularly with the city's master computer non-operational (the humans of the city would in all likelihood have a quite onerous amount of work ahead of them for just their own survival). And besides, there could be and probably is insufficient time to mount a successful evacuation of Alpha to Vega.
"I call it 'One Moment Of Stupidity' for a reason. Although truth be told, it's more like 50 minutes of it..."
Truth is not being told in this arrogant attack. Only blinkered thinking of a mind believing itself to be sophisticated in its confounded, wilful ignorance. And I am offended at the implications in the use of the word, stupidity, with reference to something that I have fancied for many decades. And of course, someone "like-clicks" it.
Stupidity, eh? All right. I can "give as I get". I am not the person unable to intuit simple story details. One such detail being plainly visible to the eye. Zamara not looking at Alan, her back to him, when he fires his gun. The androids are fixated on the idea that murder is an act of intense emotion. Killing potentially being done dispassionately is a concept outside of their breadth of consideration. They are androids, locked in a thought process from one basic premise and lacking a capacity for any lateral movement of cogitation. It is the way that the androids have been programmed. A full range of complex human thought patterns should not be attributed to them. I have intuited this. Without difficulty. Oh, but I am the stupid one who likes stupid things. Sure.
My late father used to say that familiarity breeds contempt. Over-familiarity would appear to do so when it comes to works of entertainment, or Space: 1999 at the very least. Actually, an argument could be made for this as regards the Warner Brothers cartoons, also. I have not forgotten (how could I forget?) what a privileged occasion that it was to see an episode of Space: 1999, especially after CBC Television terminated broadcasts thereof in 1978. And even during the years when it was a full CBC television network offering, there never was a guarantee of Space: 1999 being aired in New Brunswick on CHSJ-TV on any given Saturday. To have those first glimpses of an episode or of the Season 2 opening was met with the profoundest satisfaction and sense of relief. It hurt so very much when CBC Television replaced Space: 1999 with Mork and Mindy in September, 1978. And again when CBAFT discontinued its airing of Cosmos 1999 in September of 1979. From then until 1983, I had only my audiotape-recordings of some episodes in English or French and the books, and I clung to them as items of dearest import to me. Them plus two ATV telecasts of Destination: Moonbase Alpha. Oh, how good it felt to be seeing Space: 1999 again that late night in May of 1980! I will never forget my dogged determination in 1983 to obtain videotape-recordings of Space: 1999 from its broadcasts then in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. And my eventual most gratifying success in that pursuit. How prized and precious were those videotapes, televised Space: 1999 in New Brunswick being so rare a thing as to be effectively extinct (aside from the Super Space Theatre "movies")! The notion of being to any substantial extent "nitpicky" with or cynically disrespecting of the episodes that I was collecting (in some cases through transactions, with long, long wait times, with American videophiles) was alien to me. Mind, some of my then associates (i.e. friends of friends) did not refrain from putting forth some uninvited mocking of dialogue of the occasional episode, an irreverence at which I bristled with sullen or sometimes fuming indignation. The imagination in Space: 1999 had my fancy firmly in its grip, and I thought it superior in its episode concepts to those of every other television or movie series opus of space encounter. Its production values continued to be impressive. And John Koenig was my hero.
Some people would deride my enthusiasm as being "fanboyish" (as though one can only legitimately be an aficionado of something by being bitingly critical of it, cynical of its production methodologies, and having only a rigidly qualified regard for its concepts and depictions), but it was unflinchingly resolute and deep-hearted loving appreciation of a work of entertainment that had frustratingly eluded me for a number of my upbringing's most socially sparse years and that were it not for my efforts and expense to procure it on videocassette through videotape-recordings of broadcasts outside of my Canadian province, would have stayed quite elusive until the breakthrough with YTV in 1990.
Fans today have it too easy where Space: 1999 is concerned. It is on DVD and Blu-Ray. It is on the Internet. No episodes are rarer than others. All of them can be watched over and over and over again. Dozens of times. Hundreds of times. With instant replay and capacity for pause and slow motion. Space: 1999 was not produced for that. Its episodes, like those of all television programmes of the years of its heyday, were made to be seen twice, in run and rerun. And maybe a few more times in some later syndication distribution. The episodes were filmed very fast, over a time period of nine or ten days, and with limited budgets. Continuity lapses and maybe even some illusion-shattering filming off of set or visible production crew are to be expected. Script editors did not have the luxury of forty years of scrutiny. If a script had an imaginative idea and could be followed without confusion by the average television viewer, it was commissioned, and an episode was filmed. If the episode was found to overrun, some exposition would be excised, the viewer expected to intuit what details were omitted. Some creative licence was required in some cases. Considering the constraints under which producers, directors, and production team had to operate and the dog-eat-dog business that was and still is television, one should be appreciative of the fact that two full seasons of Space: 1999 were made at all. And that they were as impressive visually and conceptually as they were. My generation was so very blessed to have had Space: 1999 over which to marvel in its most impressionable years of "growing up". That familiarity with it has grown to excess, and contempt for it is so often expressed toward any of its episodes, is such an awful and most upsetting travesty.
The third Kino Lorber Pink Panther cartoons Blu-Ray is now in my possession. There are more cartoons in in this Blu-Ray release than in either of the previous two volumes of Pink Panther cartoon shorts. Twenty-two instead of twenty. And to my eyes, there does appear to be a "bump-up" in picture clarity and depth of colour. I have watched most of the cartoons and am smitten with the look of the cartoons on this Blu-Ray release. "Pink is a Many Splintered Thing" I found to be especially impressive to behold. Almost all of the cartoons that I have watched thus far were those with audio commentaries, with the audio commentaries being set to on. I have no quibbles with the audio on the commentaries that I heard. And the few cartoons without commentary that I have watched were free of any problematical audio. So far, so good.
And I have not found any cartoons with laughter tracks as yet on this Blu-Ray disc. Kino Lorber is to be commended for managing to find the original film elements for most every Pink Panther cartoon. I wish that the same success could have been had with offering the Inspector cartoons without laughter tracks (and with the correct opening credit music for "Napoleon Blown-Aparte" and "Cock-A-Doodle Deux-Deux"). I confirm also that a laughter-free version of "Pink Outs" is offered as a bonus item on this third volume of Pink Panther cartoons. Alas, the visual quality of the film print used looks to be as shabby as that of the version of "Pink Outs" with laughter on the Pink Panther cartoons second volume. Film wear lines. Digital video tools could remove many of them, or perhaps all of them, and restore the cartoon to a pristine look. But MGM or Kino Lorber have not the budget for that, one guesses. Still, I am pleased that "Pink Outs" is now available without laughter track.
All in all, I am exceedingly pleased with this Pink Panther Blu-Ray release and am eagerly awaiting the next one. No release date is set as yet for it, however. Disappointing, as I thought that the intention was to release all six volumes of the Pink Panther cartoons this year.
Having justifiably lauded the latest Blu-Ray, I cannot help but notice how bored that Jerry Beck seems to be with the recording of the audio commentary for "Think Before You Pink". From it, I have the impression, whether right or wrong, that he is recording the audio commentaries out of some obligation (to Greg Ford, maybe) and not love for the cartoons. His commentary for "Think Before You Pink" pivots to stating his appreciation of audio commentary in general. And even that comes across to a listener as nothing more than laboured small talk, to fill time. When the Pink Panther is attempting to build a wood bridge from one building to another, Beck says that it is a gag used in other cartoons but cannot motivate himself to provide the title and characters to the earlier cartoon in which the gag had been done most effectively and most akin to how it was "staged" in the Pink Panther cartoon. That earlier cartoon having been "Tree Cornered Tweety" (1956). The character nailing planks of wood together in it having been Sylvester. I have a feeling that other commenters, like Greg Ford or William Hohauser, would specify the earlier cartoon and note the similarities and differences between how the gag is essayed there and its utilisation in "Think Before You Pink". And do so with some amount of ardour. Jerry Beck does not seem to care. Honestly, I am of a belief that Jerry Beck does not really think much of the works of Friz Freleng, before and after the advent of the DePatie-Freleng oeuvre. Certainly not those post-1948. And when Beck is likening one of the Pink Panther's actions to those of Chuck Jones' Wile E. Coyote, he just seems to be straining to sound interested, or is rather less than intellectually or viscerally invested in what he was watching and remarking about in commentary. It seems to me that he would much rather be commenting on a 1940s Bob Clampett Warner Brothers cartoon. That would seem to be where is love for cartoons focuses or resides. By contrast, commenter William Hohauser has an enthusiasm for the cartoons of DePatie-Freleng that is plentiful and quite contagious. It is very, very evident that he loves them. I believe that commenter Mark Arnold loves them, too. He may not be as effusive in his love as William Hohauser, but his affection for the cartoons comes through to the listener in his voice intonations and his precise, encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the DePatie-Freleng output.
Not that I cannot accept that one may not be enthusiastic about certain cartoons. I am not so about the cartoons in the PORKY PIG 101 DVD set. But, then, I am not supplying audio commentaries on them to be value-added content in a DVD or Blu-Ray release of them. Not that I would expect to be asked to undertake that, mind.
I was wrong about the New Brunswick election in that I had underestimated the votes garnered therein by the Green and People's Alliance political parties. As a result of Legislature seats won by them, neither of the traditional two political parties that have alternated as provincial government since long before I was born, are able to form a majority government. The Progressive Conservatives hold one seat more than the incumbent Liberals and need the support of either the Greens or the People's Alliance to pass votes in the Legislature. All told, the parties of a conservative identification or a specified conservative leaning received approximately 45 percent of the vote in the election. And in English New Brunswick, conservative parties won more than fifty percent of the vote. Francophone New Brunswick seems to be eternally in love with the Liberal Party. Provincially and federally. I cannot say any more than this, for, because of my job, I have to be as impartial as I can be on New Brunswick provincial politics.
All for today, September 27, 2018.
My Weblog is experiencing a slump of late. Readership of a number of my Web pages is also in a recent decline. Oh, the usual ones to receive daily visits (The Littlest Hobo Page, The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show Page) continue to have them. But others are not faring as promisingly as they were over the summer months of this year.
Last evening, I had a look at the MI6 Community James Bond discussion forum. I seldom visit there as my interest in the James Bond movies has "flagged" in the past ten years. Occasionally, I will put a Bond Blu-Ray in one of my Blu-Ray players for a spin. But generally, my enthusiasm for Bond is not what it used to be. Everyone with whom I talk (with frustratingly decreasing regularity) is only inclined to discuss the Daniel Craig Bond movies, which leave me quite cold. And, as I have previously stated, I am of the opinion that the Bond movies should have been retired many years ago. Anyway, I ventured onto the MI6 Community's discussion forum and found a compelling angle for looking at A View to a Kill (1985) as one mission too many for an ageing Bond nearing retirement. The initial proffered argument for such was intelligently written and the discussion of it to follow was respectful, open-minded, tentatively accepting of it. This despite the fact that A View to a Kill is one of the least acclaimed James Bond films.
It was a treat for me to read it. Being as these days I can find enlightenment from other people on my other entertainment fancies in very, very, very few places. The Space: 1999 fan community on Facebook is now simply posting picture after picture after picture to the Facebook groups and writing fatuous dialogue "captions" to them under a razor-thin pretense of sophistication with vain airs of purported wit. Most of them are, of course, slights against Season 2. This is what Space: 1999 fandom has been reduced to, between its reiterating of praises of "Black Sun", et cetera from nearly forty years ago. The originality-welcoming discussion at the MI6 Community regarding A View to a Kill was some breaths of fresh and crisp air to push away some of the stale stench of Space: 1999 fandom's beyond-cliched refrains, quasi-intellectual pigheadedness, bullying group-think snobbery, and smugly concocted jocularity.
Word is that the BBC is at last mailing replacement Blu-Ray discs for the Season Twelve Doctor Who box set. But is doing so without cases to protect the Blu-Ray discs from damage in transit. Just stuffing them into bubble-wrapped envelopes without protection from scratching or bending. What a shambles! I never did receive a confirmation that replacements would be sent to my address, that the proof of box set ownership that I supplied attached to an e-mail message was acceptable to the people at BBC's home video division. If the Blu-Ray discs are going to be scratched to the decrepit defacement of the damned denizens of Hades' hole, why even bother to ask for replacements? Why not just be satisfied with my DVDs of the same stories and leave the matter at that? And not buy any further Blu-Ray releases of Doctor Who. I am not happy with the BBC's politics now, anyway. No more than I am with the CBC's. Or the politics of today's Britain in general.
I am continuing to enjoy the third Pink Panther cartoons Blu-Ray. Kino Lorber definitely scored a goal with this one. I would not say that it is a winning goal, though. The audio errors on the Inspector and Ant and Aardvark Blu-Rays mean that Kino Lorber has since then been playing at a marked deficit.
September 29, 2018.
I have found a 1970s picture of the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Newcastle. It and the street adjacent to it. I have done digital "clean-up" of the photograph and have added it to my Era 2 memoirs.
My Blu-Ray of The Night Strangler has arrived. I am still waiting for The Night Stalker Blu-Ray that I ordered from Amazon.com at the same time as the Blu-Ray of The Night Strangler. The two Blu-Ray discs were dispatched to me separately for some reason (or no reason at all). And it will be a long wait, as Amazon.com's shipper sent the Night Stalker Blu-Ray parcel to Long Beach, California, instead of Canada. The same thing happened in August to my Blu-Ray of The Day After, and I had to wait for more than two weeks for its arrival.
Kino Lorber has yet again produced a Blu-Ray with faulty audio-video synchronisation. Yes, again. The audio commentary for The Night Strangler is noticeably ahead of the video throughout the movie. What is it with Kino Lorber and audio quality control? What is Kino Lorber's malfunction? Oh, the movie's main audio track is correctly synchronous with the video. That is what is of primary importance. But the Blu-Ray disc is not glitch-free, overall.
The Space: 1999 Facebook group's latest escapade. Beneath a picture of the replica Koenig from "Seed of Destruction" poised to fire the Moonbase main laser weapon, is a discussion (always pictures with discussions (or invented dialogue "captions") beneath them; this is what the Facebook community for Space: 1999 consists of these days, for the vast majority of the postings thereto) about the printed appellation, in bold lettering, of the weapon on a Command Centre console above a red firing button.
"'Not the red one,never push the red one'"
"The production designers probably thought that television was going to be 480p forever, there the Batman style signage"
"Ah ... series 2 Fred subtlety"
"unfortunately!"
Still too lazy to typewrite periods, I see.
So, now they are comparing Season 2 Space: 1999 to Batman because of bold-lettered labelling of equipment or equipment controls. Alleging lack of subtlety. Oh, trust me. There is subtlety in Season 2. Subtlety beyond the most superficial appearances of the tiresomely bemoaned alien monsters of certain episodes. Subtlety, as Season 2's patterns in given chronology and symbolisms are evidently perpetually beyond the awareness of Space: 1999's wretchedly intransigent fandom. Even after some of such has been intelligently "pointed out" to the fans in newsletter columns.
Yes, Batman was unsubtle in its labelling of equipment in the Bat Cave, and the satire, the camp, in such stemmed from the fact that only Batman and Robin work in the Bat Cave and, being experienced in their particular brand of crime-fighting, should know what each mechanism does, the labelling therefore being superfluous- and affectedly showy in the size of its lettering. But on Moonbase Alpha, there are some 300 people of varying professions and Moonbase departments. Not everyone is trained in all of the particulars of Command Centre operations. Some people of certain specialisations that do not bring them often into Command Centre may be required to undertake command personnel tasks in the absence or incapacitation of the regular Command Centre operatives. The lettering is for them, arguably. So that they can quickly find something if circumstances require them to hurry. The colouring of the laser weapon firing button as red and having the wording of, fire, above it, is logical if a person wants to be certain of pressing the correct button during, say, a time of Red Alert on the Moonbase. Red Alert. Red button for the laser weapon firing control. Why not? There is an aesthetic consistency to this. No? Further, people not trained in Eagle spaceship operations may be required to pilot the Eagles. Bold lettering for mechanisms may be justified in those cases, also.
Moonbase Alpha is not the Bat Cave. It has some three hundred people. Three hundred people of many different specialisations. The Bat Cave has two. Two seasoned crime-fighters with extensive experience in operating their equipment. Quite different conditions. A reasonable person should recognise this. An unreasonable person will not- and he or she will invoke the pejorative of Fred Freiberger to try to buttress his or her ignorant and fallacious point of view.
Oh, these people are monotonous! And galling in their smugness. But it is just another usual day in my life. Such as it has been for the past few decades.
October 6, 2018.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Here is what I have for my Thanksgiving. Because, after all, I must be thankful for the curse I am condemned to live for whatever time that I have left in this cruel world. The curse of evidently being only one of two people who appreciate Season 2 Space: 1999. So my Karma has evidently decreed.
Facebook group for Space: 1999.
"And now we're sitting on the biggest bomb mans ever made !"
Why no apostrophe in the third word from the end? Why the space between the word, made, and the exclamation mark?
Anyway, among the responses to this is this delightful series of slurs.
"You mean Season 2??" Eight laugh icons and three "thumb-up" icons.
"Boom!"
"Actually the biggest bomb was Galactica 1980, but season 2 came close."
And not a single rebuttal from any of the so-called fans of Season 2. They disgust me. Almost as much as the arrogant, empathy-poor louts who peddle this gallingly offencive rot.
Comparing Season 2 of Space: 1999 to Galactica 1980 is an insult. An insult to anyone who fancies Season 2 of Space: 1999. An insult to the professionals who produced Season 2 of Space: 1999. Really, though, anyone with the faintest amount of discernment should be able to acknowledge that production values of Season 2 Space: 1999 permitted encounters with many alien worlds, extinctions of planets, the battle scenes in "The Dorcons", et cetera, et cetera. While Galactica 1980 had scarcely anything of the kind. It used stock footage from Earthquake and space battle footage from the original iteration of Battlestar Galactica for what little spectacle that it offered. Space: 1999- Season 2 was not restricted to twentieth century Earth and the stale "fish-out-of-water" premise of otherworlders being on Earth. It had imagination in bucket loads. Exploration of alien worlds. A plurality of alien beings. Planets ripping apart and exploding. Moonbase Alpha buffeted by heat or energy waves and under military assault. Et cetera. Galactica 1980 had Earth for most of its scenes and flying motorcycles going about amidst the Earth scenery, a child prodigy on a darkened, super-cheap set, Colonial youngsters as super-Scouts, heroes in 1980 dress, Wolfman Jack, and episodes about baseball and farming. But the fact that matters for Season 2 have become so dire that it is said without any refutation to be almost as "big" of a "bomb" as Galactica 1980, is most distressingly offencive. Of course, these Space: 1999 fans do not care about offending. They are half-adults with an empathy deficit. And of course their opinion must always be the definitive one. It is hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. This woebegone effort of mine to try to bring fair-mindedness to the fore. Who in hell gives a rat's derriere about that or about the perspective that I have on that "bomb"? The people who said good riddance to bad rubbish to me when I left the Alpha League club in 1995 are no doubt smirking in smug satisfaction.
This is my Thanksgiving. This is what I have to be thankful for. This curse under which I am condemned to live.
I have a turkey to roast today. Oh, a turkey! Why not compare Season 2 Space: 1999 to that too? Oh, come on. I know that everyone bar one other person would like to do that. Oh, so very much so. With many laughter icons to follow.
Sunday, the accursed seventh of October, 2018.
The Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD is now en route to me. Amazon.ca has for some reason (or no reason) not sent the Bugs Bunny STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD to me yet. It had better be soon, because, yet again, Canada is living under threat of a Postal workers labour stoppage. Last time that this was the case was little more than two years ago. I do not know what the dispute is about, this time. Is Jean-Claude Parrot still the head of C.U.P.W.? It would not surprise me.
Anyway, word on the Internet is that the cartoons on the Bugs Bunny STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD that were not restored for earlier DVD release, are still in an un-restored state. Them being "Hot Cross Bunny" and "Hare Splitter". And while I have no interest in buying it, the Daffy Duck STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD has a time-compressed, un-restored "Boston Quackie" thereon. I will therefore expect for "Hot-Rod and Reel!" on the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD to be un-restored. So be it. I have lost any hope of Warner Brothers bothering to do any more restoration work on the cartoons. I just want the cartoons, from the best existing film elements possible.
Quite a discussion has erupted at the Space: 1999 Facebook discussion group. A member of the horde of regular Season 2 detractors asked why UFO receives unqualified acclaim while Space: 1999 receives "bad press" from both critics and "sci-fi" fans. And of course, of course, of course, within no more than the first few responses, so began the usual chorus of Season 2 being to blame for for all that ails Space: 1999. It and Fred Freiberger. And then someone says that there being no budget and monsters was not all because of him. There was a budget, confound it! That should be plain to see from the eyes of any rational person. Reduced, yes. But still a budget. These people think in extremes. Reduced budget means no budget. A less spacious control centre means broom closet or "portaloo". A few episodes with monsters as antagonists means "Monster of the Week" for all 24 episodes. Season 2 is not "as good" as Season 1 (not that I personally think so) means it is horrible, awful, unwatchable garbage or feces. This is the idiot's reasoning that permeates the fan movement for Space: 1999. Permeates and is legion.
Monsters being unacceptable phenomena for a work of science fiction/fantasy is not an absolute truth. What of the monsters of Doctor Who and Star Wars? Are they lamentable blemishes on the television or movie series entries of those works? I am so damned sick and tired of the snobbery of these clowns. They speak of something being "cartoonish" or "comic-booky" as being beneath contempt, as though cartoons and comic books are not imaginative art forms in their own right.
The discussion became entertaining when some people without an intellectual or emotional investment in lauding Season 1 every sixth way from Sunday, entered the fore and proclaimed that Season 1 was not the masterwork that it is rabidly claimed to be, that it was the reason for the "bad press", syndication contracts not being renewed, et cetera, and put the arrogant ignoramuses on the defencive. And they, the ignoramuses, could not formulate responses beyond their usual lazy reliance on tired cliches (e.g. Season 1, 2001; Season 2, Star Trek), which were upbraided with assured calm by the challengers. Invoking Star Trek and similarity thereto as being something damnable is boring and so very predictable, they say. And indicative of forty years of atrophied brain activity in a complacent "echo chamber". The usually blustery nincompoops then retreated to a let-us-agree-to-disagree posture. "Let's not," was the response to that. And then, faced with more counter-arguments to their forty-year-old refrains, it was a cowering "bye-bye" from the usually cocky, obnoxious louts. Ha!
The challengers' opinions on both seasons are just as blinkered as that of the haters of Season 2. I acknowledge that. But it was delightful to see the minions of the cosy "circle-jerk" being thrown into a fluster, convulsing, and "folding". I even chose to put aside my objection to Space: 1999 being branded a "kid's show" (yes, the challengers countered with that to the Season-1-for-adults-and-Season-2-for-"kids" old chestnut, contending that both seasons were made for children, as also were the Andersons' earlier work with puppets), just to enjoy this spectacle. Certainly, I do not believe that either season was produced as "kid vid". I have already demonstrated that not to be the case with regard to Season 2. They were made for families to watch together, as was the case in Canada. On Saturday afternoons or evenings. But anyway, it was a pleasant change to see the swaggering ones knocked off of their self-made pedestals. They will be back on those pedestals soon enough, though. Within less than twenty-four hours, no doubt.
Not even twenty-four hours. As I discover with a further look at the discussion.
"Fred Freiberger took a wrecking ball to S2 as he did with Trek TOS S3."
No, he did not. Season 3 of Star Trek had a "clunker" or two, but was for the most part an imaginative set of episodes, all of them quintessentially Star Trek in the seeking-out of discussions and hopeful alliances with denizens of other worlds, the preserving of alien cultures from potential catastrophes, exploring strange, new worlds, contrasting the Federation values with those of aliens, defeating tyrants, et cetera. The vast majority of third season Star Trek is true to the essence of the Star Trek known and loved by people by the millions. Star Trek was cancelled by NBC which had wanted to cancel it after its second season. NBC which hated Star Trek and intensely disliked working with Gene Roddenberry. And as to Fred Freiberger's wrecking of Season 2 Space: 1999, that is a matter of opinion. Blinkered opinion.
"But part of the blame also goes to the BBC, if you watch the documentary."
Ha! The BBC did not air Space: 1999 in the 1970s and certainly did not produce it. Such ignorance of basic facts (basic facts that anyone who knows anything about Space: 1999 to be worth his or her salt ought to have had imprinted on his or her grey matter forty-some years ago) should torpedo any credibility that this person thinks that he has. As for The Space: 1999 Documentary, it was a biased concoction slapped together by the most blinkered people in Gerry Anderson's U.K.-based fandom. An editorial "hit-piece" against Season 2 masquerading as an objective documentary work. Even Johnny Byrne, far from being a Season 2 aficionado, objected to the editing of it. Or so I was told. Editing done to make the commentary about Season 2 and Fred Freiberger sound as scathing as possible.
"They wanted action and Monsters of the Week, and Catherine Schell got imposed on them as a Spock wanna be."
"Monsters of the Week". I have rebutted that quite effectively already. No need to do so again. Aside from being, like Spock, a resident alien, which is not by any objective measure a demerit for a work of the science fiction/fantasy genre, Maya was quite unlike Spock in her personality. Maya was not imposed on "them". Lew Grade green-lit Season 2 based on the suggestion by Freiberger and Anderson of the Maya character. Maya was conceived by Fred Freiberger and then was "pitched" to Grade by Freiberger and Anderson. Successfully. The producers themselves broached the Maya character. It was not imposed on them by the ITC Entertainment "high-ups". The idea for the character did not come from ITC. It was not an imposition. Gerry Anderson said that Catherine Schell was the best choice for the role of Maya. Yes, she was the preferred choice of Abe Mandell of ITC New York, but Anderson conceded that Mandell was right. The idea of Maya gave a new lease on life to Space: 1999 after Grade had cancelled it. Season 1 was cancelled. This world is, sadly, teeming with people unwilling to acknowledge that fact.
"I agree with Landau that S1 was much better and a lot of S2 is almost unwatchable."
None of it is unwatchable. To anyone with an eye for visual beauty (and an ear for aural beauty) and an imagination unfettered by an unwillingness to suspend disbelief. Wherever he is, Landau now knows that he was wrong about Season 2. He sees the nuance in it. The "regions" and patterns to the given chronology. Jungian archetypes and so forth.
October 10, 2018.
The discussion at the Space: 1999 Facebook about which I wrote yesterday, has gone on and on and on and on, with person after person after person (many of them new to me) "weighing-in" with negative opinions of Season 2. Cliches, of course. They hate Maya. They hate Command Centre. They say the episodes have "bad" writing. Monsters. Freiberger was a derriere's hole. And Season-1-for-adults-and-Season-2-for-children. Oh, yes. Of course, that one. That camera pan along the dead body of Joe Lustig in "The Immunity Syndrome". Joe Lustig dying from a discharged laser ray into his abdomen, with blood trickling out of his mouth. Perfectly at home on children's television. Kander dying after being on fire following an explosion in "The Bringers of Wonder". That, too. Beer consumption. Taybor grabbing Maya's leg. A woman being killed by shattering of her internal organs. A woman hitting another woman over the head with a stone ornament, ultimately killing her. Dead bodies strewn over the surface of two planets. All perfectly at home on Saturday morning television. Not!
"Season 2 was for kids. Season 1 was for adults." Two "thumb-up" icons and a heart icon denoting love.
"Dumb kids."
Demeaning children, now, are they, these despicable louts?
All right, then. I will spare them nothing in my response. The second person here quoted has reached forty-one years back in time and called eleven-year-old me "dumb". Me and the friends that I had who enjoyed Season 2 along with me. Who fancied it along with me. He is scarcely any different at whatever age he is at now, from the hectoring duo in sixth grade who cackled at me for liking Space: 1999, insinuating that I was a contemptibly stupid piece of human refuse. He has torn open that old wound, a sensitive boy's wound, and thrown salt into it. Oh, of course, not a single person reprimanded him, and this makes everyone in the discussion culpable in the insensitive slurring of impressionable boys. I therefore have righteous anger thoroughly on my side now and no longer feel any qualms over having called these people half-adults. I was too kind. They deserve much more of a verbal thrashing. They are not half-adults. Even if they are fully grown and have a libido, mentally they are not adults at all. That someone in his fifties would speak so of fanciful, sensitive children, is indicative of a dearth of maturity and adult human decency. These people are the swine that slobber and defecate over cast pearls. Which they do daily. Every single day. Forty-two years after they declined to appreciate the beauty in what was depicted in the second season of their favourite television programme. They are almost entirely dead inside. Hatred has "hollowed out" their souls, turning them into detestable things with zero empathy. Their sole pleasure in life is in being gratified by people of the same mindset in their avowed disdain for the work of the man named Freiberger. They will continue as they are into cursing-Freiberger-daily senior citizens, before their miserable corpses are pushing up droopy daisies.
I hope that they never have their Region A Shout! Factory Blu-Ray set. Of course, with the way that they "carry on", why would Shout! Factory believe that Blu-Ray box sets of Space: 1999 would sell in sufficient numbers for a profitable manufacturing line of pressed Blu-Ray discs? They have only themselves to blame for Space: 1999 currently being out-of-print on optical disc media in North America.
I do not deny that when I was a teenager and a young man of approximately twenty years, I was a jerk sometimes. Less so than many of my then peers, I would hasten to say. But God Almighty, I and my contemporaries in the viewing of Space: 1999 in its heyday, are in our fifties (or late forties, at least). We are supposed to be grown men and women with accumulated wisdom from decades of humbling life experience. Humble would not describe these people in their eternally steadfast hatred for Fred Freiberger and their obstinate, closed-minded refusal to accept Space: 1999 as it is and entertain insights into the aesthetic qualities of both seasons. And their insensitive "putting-down" of children is the foul, decomposing thick icing on the rancid cake representative of their despicable frame of mind and resultant behaviour.
So. What started as an entertaining read turned into a hurtful tribulation for me. Oh, the challengers to the ignoramuses had sway for a short while, but the oh, so high-horsed, ever-so-courteous ones "came back", gushing with bile. I have no doubt that the discussion will continue until every single person in the stinging swarm has had his and her say in the marathon of reiterated repudiation of Season 2 and the cursed wretches who fancy it. And then, they will chide offended people like me for being overly sensitive at having our lifelong fancies dragged through mud and feces and us branded as having been "dumb" for having liked those productions from the "get-go", in our youthful phases of life.
October 11, 2018.
Sunday, October 14, 2018.
My Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD arrived in my mailbox on Friday. On it, "Hot-Rod and Reel!" is un-restored but fairly decent-looking, with no audio issues and no time-compression (or PAL-to-NTSC "speed-up"). "Zip 'n Snort", likewise. I am as pleased with the DVD as I can possibly be, per the conditions that prevail at Warner Brothers Home Video. Amazon.ca is in no hurry, it seems, to dispatch my Bugs Bunny STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD. I will wait until mid-week, and if there is no progress by then in this matter, I will cancel my order with Amazon.ca and opt for ordering from Amazon.com. Doing so will cost me substantially more money, with shipping and currency exchange.
No word as yet on release date for the next volume of Pink Panther cartoons from Kino Lorber. I finally received Kino Lorber's Blu-Ray release of The Night Stalker, and it appears to be without any flaws.
I have attended to the wound of my eleven-year-old self following the statement by a Space: 1999 Facebook group member that Season 2 Space: 1999 was for "dumb kids". The fact that nobody in that group of several thousand persons objected to it is quite telling. Not a single person who liked Space: 1999- Season 2 as a child (and numerous people in the group have said that) thinks that he or she was an intelligent boy or girl, evidently, concurring as they so apparently do with the statement. To not object to it, the inflammatory assertion that it is, is to be in agreement with it (and doubtless a lack of any reprimanding for it will embolden others to say the same thing), and this, as far as I am concerned, is the "tin hat" put on my contention that fans of Season 2 do it no justice and are the perfect self-deprecating quislings with the Season 1 fundamentalists. They declined to rally to "back me up" when I was being verbally assailed by said fundamentalists. They just sat on their hands, complicit with their silence in the "wolf-packing".
When it comes to stupidity in children, I had my taste of it. An abundant fill of it. When I was in Grade 6 and in junior high school in Fredericton. People who opted for talk of drugs, sex, and vulgar music and sneered at intelligent consideration of space phenomena and cosmology. The same people who preferred rough physical sports over creative writing and other avenues for intellectual development. Who idolised distinctly non-intellectual characters in situation comedies (John Travolta's character in Welcome Back, Kotter, for instance), declaring them "cool". And who thought art to be a waste of time. Who deliberately misbehaved in a Friday afternoon art class knowing "full well" that the consequence of that would be a full-class detention for an hour on a sunny springtime Friday afternoon. This, people, is my definition of stupidity in children. I recognised it then as now. Of course, none of them had any use for either of the two seasons of Space: 1999.
These were people who "picked on me", bullied me, had me fearful of reprisals for appearing to be "brainy". And who portrayed me as being stupid for liking Space: 1999. I would have hoped to have left all of that behind me upon reaching adulthood. But oh, no. Of course not. Not when I have to contend with people of school yard bully (or school yard bully's minion) mentality in their forties and fifties.
There should be consequences for people in their forties and fifties who demean others just for being fanciful and open-minded. The "dumb kids" slurrer ought to be scolded by the group, or better yet invited to leave it, for his mean-spirited statement. People should be righteously offended at it. But the group is too far gone. Attitudes therein such as that fuelling word usage along the lines of "dumb kids" are de rigueur, and will forevermore be so. Sad. So very, very sad.
People think that they are edgy, avant garde, ever so sophisticated, in dissecting the creative work of the Greatest Generation in faultfinding exercises with the ultimate aim of nullifying following of such work, but they are scarcely any better than the art-repudiating boors that I had to endure in school, and they bully just like them.
I have said it before and will say it again. Nothing made by man is going to be perfect. "Plot holes" and "goofs" exist in even the most meticulously made motion pictures. What is important are the ideas. The concepts. The motifs. How they are arranged in imaginative depiction. People who go on and on and on and on with the refrains of "why this?" and "why that?", allowing for no "economy of detail", dramatic necessity, artistic licence, or suspension of disbelief, are no more than Visigoths defiling the beautiful works created by better men and women. And they are of the same mentality as the louts who were my peers from Grade 6 through junior high. At least, I think so.
All right. I have said my "piece" for today.
Monday, October 15, 2018.
I have been looking at my Weblog entries for 2015 and 2016 and am inclined to affirm that attitudes vis-a-vis the matter of Space: 1999 season preference, specifically Season 1 preferred over Season 2, have become more hatefully vitriolic over the past few years since Season 2's Blu-Ray release, and are worse now in their rancour than ever before. With the constant growth of the Facebook groups, intransigent, harsh bearing against Season 2 has proliferated, become more and more venomous, and is more and more arrogantly and cockily expressed and put forth more times per day. Few people bother now to articulate specific examples of what they hate, even if the examples would be from wilful misconstruing of episodes' story developments or outright fabricated falsehood. It is just sweeping statements of absolute disdain laced with vernacular of the gutter, expressed with the utmost cocky confidence that what is said will be unanimously approved (or received with acquiescence from a dwindling minority) by the members of the group. And the attitude is metastasising across Facebook groups and Internet platforms. Internet platforms such as YouTube, Amazon.com product reviews, et cetera.
I did say a few years ago that the rancour would just keep worsening and worsening, that mellowed age with open-minded wisdom is a concept totally foreign to a group-think gestalt with some kind of pathology. And these fans of Space: 1999 cannot abide there being even a possibility of people watching the Blu-Rays and appreciating the visual beauty, if nothing else, of Season 2's episodes. Hence the "ramping-up" of the sorties. That was back in 2015 and 2016. What is on display now is indicative of a derangement syndrome that is like a snowball far along on its roll down a long hill, and gathering more and more poison moss in addition to snowy mass as it goes.
Thing is, I find that, correspondingly, my own "tone" in my Weblogging has itself become more and more vitriolic. I am calling people nincompoops, ignoramuses, dolts, and louts. Even if the terminology is apt or correct, it is a departure from how I responded to animus toward Season 2 a few years ago. Growing incivility, not just in Space: 1999 fandom but in the world at large, is affecting me too. Though from me it is borne of fatigue and pique. Of being "fed up" with other people's confounded asininity.
My own slide into incivility is reactive, and I at least have the self-awareness to recognise it and to self-admonish for it. Other people are lacking in self-awareness and are too far gone in a blinkered mindset.
On and on and on and on it goes. I cannot "keep up" with it anymore, and beyond today, I am not going to try. I am increasingly busy at work, and I am frankly too tired at the end of work days to assemble words and press keyboard buttons for a cogently articulated, rational response to the sorties. I would much rather unwind by watching some esteemed work on Blu-Ray. Oh, not Space: 1999, of course, because I cannot enjoy that anymore. Or going outside for a walk in whatever daylight there is left.
Anyway, here I go again. At least some of these attacks give examples.
"One problem with S2 I had was the planetscapes were not all that interesting. Seems like half the planets were filmed in the backyard of the studio...nothing surreal like Piri or Arkadia or Terra Nova or Zenno. Golos and Ellna were leftovers from 'War Games'. Vega was a second rate Ultima Thule. The Chrysalis planet had some intrigue, as did Psychon, but even they didn't have much imagination."
Half the planets, eh? No, just Luton and Sunim and medieval Scotland. Notice that the person declines to mention the desert planet in "All That Glisters", 2120 Earth in "Journey to Where", the toxic Planet D in "Brian the Brain", the jewel-like Kalthon in "Seed of Destruction", "dust planet" Taura in "The Seance Spectre", and the penal satellite of Entra, with its prison compound, in "Devil's Planet". Golos and Ellna have elevated city buildings, like some of the structures in "War Games", but sky and flora on those planets are different from those of the "War Games" planet. They are different worlds. What would the griper consider to be enough imagination? Psychon is a fascinating fevered planet of volcanoes with ghastly subterranean goings-on. A hell. With a biological computer, Psyche, being the force through which the planet's tenuous stability seemingly hinges. The moon-ringed planet of the Chrysalids in "The AB Chrysalis" also has an underworld. And has a populace with a unique life-cycle. And a defencive mechanism of blast waves. And artificial intelligences made mobile as bouncing balls.
To be honest, I regard Piri to be rather a dull place. Indeed, it is for that very reason that Koenig objects to it as a place for his people. What are those stationary balls supposed to be? Machines as artificial plants? The viewer does not know. "Economy of detail"? Fair enough. The cyclorama perspective set is at times rather too obvious, though. One sees little of Zenno other than a view of some city blocks outside of the ceiling-to-floor sheets of Raan's abode. Future Earth in "Another Time, Another Place" is a successful planet depiction, and, yes, so are Terra Nova, Ultima Thule, and Arkadia. The viewer never actually sees the "planetscapes" of Ariel or Astheria. Balor's asteroid is rather drab. Retha was filmed in Black Park as were Luton and Sunim in Season 2. All told, both seasons offered diverse impressive alien planet depiction. The television series as a whole should be lauded for its imagination as regards planets.
"'Year 2' has a handful of decent episodes, 'Seed of Destruction', 'The Metamorph', 'Immunity Syndrome', 'AB Chrysalis', 'The Dorcons'. A few more mediocre episodes, and then absolutely dreadful outings like 'All That Glisters', 'New Adam New Eve' and the infamous 'Rules of Luton'."
Handful? Why not "Journey to Where"? Why not "The Bringers of Wonder", "The Lambda Factor", "The Seance Spectre", "Dorzak", and "Devil's Planet"? Decent. Mediocre. Those are subjective judgements heedless of the subtle qualities of episodes' subject matter. Symbolisms. Etymologies. And not liking the intelligent rocks and plants of other worlds concepts is not sufficient footing for making sweeping, absolute statements about episodes being dreadful. Those concepts are pulp science fiction/fantasy used successfully in Star Trek or Doctor Who. And just what is so objectionable about "New Adam New Eve"? Why has it suddenly "come in" for heaps of venom? Is it the use of live lizards filmed in miniature caves to appear as though they are giant? The miniature caves are convincing enough to sufficiently give to the lizards the illusion of being gigantic, for the seconds in which they are shown. A viewer's imagination ought to be able to compensate for any lapse in that illusion, if there is any. Magus' awesome powers and the Biblical affectation that he chooses and the explosive end of New Earth should be distinguishing characteristics of an imaginative episode.
I cannot credit these people for their dismissals of Season 2 involving wilful neglect of examples or facts about successfully utilised concepts that may contradict their stance against the value of Season 2 and the taste of some eternally beleaguered person who appreciates it. My former associate, Dean, provided some fact-based observations on "regions" in the Season 2 chronology, etymologies of certain names, and correspondences between symbolisms in episodes, in fan newsletters back in 1988 to 1990. I put forth my work on Jekyll-and-Hyde symbolism in "Journey to Where". Fandom embraced none of it. None of it was coopted into the "received fan wisdom", and we were branded pariahs. Dean before me.
And I now propose to pivot away from this for a little while to address the matter of my detractors over the years who were always most quick to pounce on any error that I may commit.
I am wrong occasionally but am usually right. I was more fallible when I was young than I am now. Naturally, as I was in the process of learning and had problems with only-child's difficulty with relating to others. Of course, people point to those occasions when I am wrong to portray me as incapable of ever being right, so that everything that I say may be oh, so confidently dismissed (which is, of course, an unjust and ludicrous contention). The fans of Space: 1999 are usually wrong, right only for a small fraction of the time. That they are right some of the time does not make them right all of the time. And when they are right, it is usually in their nearly forty-year-old reiteration of observations regarding nuance or symbolism in some of the episodes of their precious "Year 1".
They are chronically blinkered as regards "Year 2" and wrong about it the lion's share of the time, pridefully ignorant as they are of its aesthetic qualities and artistic patterns in its given chronology. Oh, they have numbers on their side. Numbers being people. But just because people in large numbers are ignorant does not lessen or negate the ignorance. The ignorance just becomes legion and banal.
And in yet another long series of sorties against Fred Freiberger (at the Space: 1999 Facebook group in the past twenty-four hours), this is said.
"FF was a lousy penny pinching idiot and even though TOS and S:1999 were in trouble, he made things worse!"
No. The idiots are the people who will not open their pig-headed minds after more than four decades. And as for him being lousy, was he lousy when he fought in World War Two for the values of democracy and liberty? And he was exceedingly kind to me. He was a far, far better human being than any of these disgusting people. I say that without the slightest trace of reservation.
Freiberger had to work under a budget. A budget that, in Star Trek's case, was substantially reduced by Paramount Television after Desilu ceased to be and turned production over to Paramount. A budget that, in Space: 1999's case, was lessened by Lew Grade as a proviso for a second season. Freiberger did what he could with a budget given to him, and was quite a superb craftsman in the conceiving of imaginative worlds with less money than what was had by his predecessors. And with Season 2 Space: 1999 in tooling episodes to be filmed simultaneously to meet deadlines imposed on him by ITC.
And as to making them worse, I would argue that he did not. Season 3 of Star Trek is more imaginative, does more with the concept of seeking out strange, new worlds, than Season 2. "The Mark of Gideon" has more imagination in it with its overpopulated planet concept than the Spock family drama of "Journey to Babel". Gladiatorial combat on alien turf is more strikingly otherworldly in "The Savage Curtain" with the planet of molten lava and a rock creature (and with an accurate representation, somehow, of long-dead Abe Lincoln, to boot!) than it is in "The Gamesters of Triskelion". "All Our Yesterdays" presents the time-travel concept with more diversity of setting than "Assignment: Earth". And so on. Freiberger eliminated the comedic episodes like "I, Mudd", "The Trouble With Tribbles", and "A Piece of the Action" and chose a thoroughly serious study of dislike-of-the-unlike in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield". And Season 2 of Space: 1999 is filled with representations of "the other" in its array of alien planets and alien societies, offered a mirror-image impostor and "doors" in space and an alternate universe with devolution instead of evolution, chose to dedicate its last batch of episodes largely to psychic phenomena in an interesting clustering, and had many symbolisms in its episodes, including that of Tony's beer and Dr. Jekyll's concoction in "Journey to Where".
And this is said.
"Killer. Talentless hack."
No, he is not talentless. Just look at his Internet Movie Database history at all of the productions, spanning many genres, to which he contributed scripts. If he were talentless, none of his scripts would have been commissioned, and he would have been denied entry to offices in Hollywood. Fans of The Wild Wild West do not consider him to be talentless. Neither does anyone who respects such Star Trek episodes as "Spectre of the Gun", "The Enterprise Incident", "The Tholian Web", "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", "Day of the Dove", "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", "Requiem For Methuselah", and "All Our Yesterdays". Those are the more acclaimed third season Star Trek episodes. Several others have merits, even if they are not appreciated by as many people as are those of the episodes here listed.
A producer worth his salt delivers productions on time and on budget, and Freiberger did that. He did it while combining derivative ideas in original synthesis and in a chronology of events without match in some other work. If a producer (or a director) does not meet timetables and overspends, he or she is replaced or is not again invited back to the production. And the ideas that he or she may have contributed to it thrown to the wind.
"So much went wrong with S2. Terrible stories, bad acting, removal of the beautiful main mission set from S1 and, did I mention terrible stories? From what I remember Space: 1999 was retooled in hopes of reaching a wider American audience or something but ban did they ever destroy that show. Had they kept S2 the same or similar to S1 I'm sure it would have done very well."
Terrible stories. Not a single example given. "Bad" acting. Not a single example given. Nor is there an objective telling of what constitutes the terribleness and badness. "Economy of detail", fanciful ideas for alien planets and alien creatures, and a non-minimalist approach to portraying characters? How is any of that objectively "bad"?
Yes, the Main Mission set was beautiful, but beauty may also be found in another control room design. One that is more "busy" and more colourful. The Command Centre set has a more Space Age control centre look to it, with video monitors at every desk and a multi-coloured computer terminal that outputs data on also multi-coloured reusable cards (rather than Season 1's rolled paper). It was still a large enough control room to retain the lovely Big Screen wall panel used in Season 1. The production schedule of Season 2 made the Main Mission set and its time required for lighting impractical.
The person can be sure that a continued Season 1 would have "done very well" all that he wants. But it is at variance with facts. Ratings for Season 1 declined in the autumn of 1975, renewals of syndication contracts were not probable in numerous U.S. television broadcast markets, and Grade cancelled Season 1. Keeping Season 2 the same as or similar to Season 1 was not "on the cards". There was no continuing Space: 1999 with the style of Season 1. Q.E.D..
"...but ban did they ever destroy that show."
Ban or man?
Destroy is an exaggerated choice of terminology. Season 1 was history when Grade cancelled it. It was, in 1976, no longer a continuing commissioned work to be destroyed. Season 2 essayed a different style to the runaway Moon premise. It captured imaginations of people willing to suspend disbelief. It had an audience. In Canada, with a broadcaster that treated it with respect, it certainly did. And as Scott Michael Bosco, consultant on the A & E Space: 1999 DVDs, has stated, American television networks were interested in Space: 1999 in 1977 after Season 2 reached the end of summer reruns. He said that "high-ups" at ITC told him so, and I believe him. Here is what he said.
"From high-ups at ITC, which originally distributed Space: 1999, I was told the U.S. networks showed an interest in that series after its second season run. First it was CBS that wanted to run the series, starting from 'Year 1', and if successful after running 'Year 2' would create a new series with as many of the same characters, with new episodes. However, due to the way the series was sold to various local stations throughout the country this was impossible since it would result in conflicting rights already sold to various regions. ABC entered the equation with an option of using the same characters but building a new scenario to continue the series anew thus avoiding the rights issue of 'Years 1 & 2' in syndication. It was devised that the traveling moon from Earth would be contacted by human aliens who foresaw a collision course was imminent between two celestial bodies which would destroy both their planet and the Moon. Their offer was to have the Earth people from the Moonbase join them on a space-ark on which they can find a new home. The ship used a unique jump drive that allowed them to jump from galaxy to galaxy and thus named... the Galactica. Not being able to obtain most of the cast from Space resulted in the idea being shelved. But not ABC's interest structuring a new sci-fi series. Although it could have been interesting what eventually emerged was a rip-off opera from of the popularity of Star Wars rather than the intellectual and stylized approach of Space: 1999 (especially 'Year 1'). Even 'Year 2', though vastly different was still true to the show being unique in style. Merging with Star Wars effects with laser-ridden space dog fights would have been sad indeed."
So, there. Space: 1999 was not really destroyed or dead after Season 2's run. Potential existed for an extrapolation from it. But, alas, circumstances with existing contracts and unavailable people prevented it "living on". Thence, it died.
Moreover, Gerry Anderson was not convinced of Fred Freiberger being the "kiss of death" following the run of Season 2 on television, as he was in collaboration with Freiberger for a time on some other project. I do not remember the title of it. It was not until much later than that, after fandom had expressed for years and years its disdain for Season 2, that Anderson started talking disparagingly of Freiberger.
Season 2 had merits. Superficial and subtle (though I do not any longer expect the fans to recognise or appreciate subtlety). And people watched it week after week for its entertainment value. Those people evidently did not become die-hard fans, for there does not appear to be any fandom for Season 2 nowadays. The members of the public who enjoyed it in its initial run on television "moved on" casually to other works after the cancellation and for the most part are disinclined to look back at it (or at just about anything else from that long ago). My friends of my youth would seem to be of that persuasion. The past should be left behind in the past. This is, sadly, the way that most people are. I wish it were otherwise, but it is not. For whom was "the show" made? The general public, for the most part. The people from whom advertisers of foods and clothing and household appliances and automobiles and so forth sought business. It was not made solely or mostly for "nerds". It was made to capitalise on an increasing public taste for things otherworldly, that taste surging with the release of Star Wars in 1977. Star Wars with its action, its heroes-versus-villains conflict, its gun-wielding, laser-firing young heroes, its wisecracking rogue, its robots, and its monsters, monsters, monsters. See? Many of the things in Season 2 Space: 1999 that fans of Space: 1999 lambaste as so very objectionable were in vogue just a year later. And do not "get me started" on questionable script technicalities, for The Empire Strikes Back and Star Trek II- The Wrath of Khan have several of those and still are considered five-star movies.
I am tired. I have said my "piece". I propose to end this Weblog entry for October 17 and will at a later time write an update on the status of my STARS OF SPACE JAM Bugs Bunny DVD.
Saturday, October 20, 2018.
All right. To start with, I finally have the Bugs Bunny STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD. I had to change my order from Amazon.ca to Amazon.com after Amazon.ca changed the due date for a package consisting of it to mid-November. And then, as Amazon.com was declining to send the DVD because of threat of a Canada Post labour stoppage, I had to pay expensive courier fees for it to be dispatched. And I reckoned that as I was paying "through-the-nose" for parcel conveyance, that I should add some more content to the package. And therefore, I also bought Kino Lorber's two-disc Blu-Ray release of DePatie-Freleng's Misterjaw cartoons.
I can confirm that "Hot Cross Bunny" is not remastered on the DVD, and that it looks and sounds worse than it did on the Treasure of the Sierra Madre DVD and Blu-Ray on which it was a bonus item. The audio crackles and pops in the first minute or so of the cartoon in ts STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD iteration, and there is aliasing over edges of stationary objects and over Bugs Bunny's whiskers, and an overall blurry look to the cartoon throughout its run time.
"Hare Splitter" fares better. Though it is time-compressed or is the result of a PAL "speed-up" prior to a PAL-to-NTSC conversion, its audio is without crackle. And the cartoon does not suffer from the aliasing and blur marring "Hot Cross Bunny". One can thank goodness for small mercies. However, "Hare Splitter" looks "soft", and it does not exactly sport vibrant colour. And it must be said that the transition from these cartoons to the restored ones on the same DVD is jarring, to say the very least. It is a sad, sad state of affairs that one must be satisfied with quality such as that on "Hot Cross Bunny" and "Hare Splitter" on the Bugs Bunny STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD, that Warner Brothers will not bother to at least do a new film-to-video transfer from the best film elements available (without any restoration work), for just a couple of cartoons on a DVD. This said, I still am pleased to have any previously-unavailable-on-DVD-or-Blu-Ray cartoon that Warner Brothers will deign to release. These cartoons still look better than they did on VHS videocassette. That is at least something about which to be happy.
Misterjaw is not my favourite DePatie-Freleng character (by far, he is not so), and watching thirty-four of his cartoons is going to be something of a trial. I will be "spreading out" my viewing of them over the course of days or weeks. Still, it is rather gratifying to now have every cartoon in The Pink Panther Show as it was distributed in syndication in the 1980s, and I do give plaudits to the documentary included on the first of the two Misterjaw Blu-Ray discs. Kino Lorber has come rather a long way as regards documentary production quality since its first two slipshod efforts for bonus documentary on DePatie-Freleng cartoons on Blu-Ray, those first two efforts having been for the Blu-Ray releases of the cartoons of the Inspector, the Ant and Aardvark, and Crazylegs Crane. Two thumbs up, definitely, for the latest documentary.
Canada Post's workers will be in legal "walk-out" position on Monday, and oh, bully for them. Sarcasm, of course. I hope that there is no "caving" to their demands. I am so sick and tired of this interruption or threatened interruption of mail delivery every couple of years (2016 was the last time I remember being anxious about packages being suspended in transit because of recalcitrant Canada Post employees). "Snail mail" is a dying operation, and it is long past time that this fact be accepted and that people in the mail-sorting and mail-delivering field of endeavour be more cooperative with their managers, who are just trying to keep the sinking ship afloat for as long as possible. People like me who would rather not have to pay for expensive courier service every time that we order something from Amazon.com or wherever, would appreciate that.
Anyway, for me, for the time being, I am not expecting anything else in the mail for some time to come. And unlike my "pot-smoking" fellow countrymen, I have no interest in having cannabis delivered to my door. Timely delivery of cannabis seems to be the main concern in my country with threat of a mail delivery stoppage. I wish that I were joking, but I am not. This is true.
Lo and behold, there was finally some protest (fairly meekly worded protest) to the worse-than-ever proclivity for, amount of, and severity of assaults upon Space: 1999's second season on Facebook, and what was the response from the people doing the venomous berating of all things Season 2? "Oh, we're just having fun." "Oh, don't be such a baby. Suck it up." "Oh gawd not this shit. I thought this forum was free of it.... sigh....." Along these lines. Pique or indignation at being told to "dial back" the snide, contemptuous, hate-filled dialogue and to at least try to be civil, empathetic, respectful of others' tastes. Or saying that being "called out" for their hostility toward Season 2 makes them hate it all the more. Or proclaiming that "snarky" comment is justified in Season 2's sake and that anyone who does not like comparisons of it to body emissions or the content of garbage cans should just leave the group and join the one dedicated to Season 2, for the banter there is so much more respectful of the second season. And even likening the protester of the bile to a "snowflake", as being akin to someone trying to stifle free speech in a political arena or needing a "safe space" or a "trigger warning" in the event of statements of an opposite political ideology. Oh, some proportion, please. A television show and avenues for appreciating it is not the same as a national political discourse involving the lives of hundreds of millions of people. Mind, there should be some level of civility in the latter of these, too. But when it comes to being an aesthete for some work of imaginative fiction, it should behove all persons participating in a discussion on such to be respectful of one another for the merit that each person sees in it, to not "trash-talk" any of it, to be grown-up in bearing and conduct, to not gloat or laugh like children in school yard at others' mean-spirited sorties against producers, episodes, concepts, or fans of current or past age.
As usual, the nasty people "won the day". They emerged victorious from the brief dispute, and the disparagements and the attacks continue unabated. So, what else is new, eh?
Word is that there will not be a fourth volume of Pink Panther cartoons on Blu-Ray until mid-January. So much for releasing all six volumes in 2018 as was originally intended. At this rate, the Pink Panther Blu-Ray collection of cartoons will not be completed until late-summer or autumn of next year. I am not sure how much that I should be carping about this, though. If Kino Lorber requires this much time to do each volume right, with no flaws to audio or video on the Blu-Ray discs, then so be it. It is disappointing, though. I was hoping to have a complete collection of the panther on Blu-Ray by early-to-mid-2019 at the latest.
All that I have to look forward to for the remainder of this year is the Doctor Who Season 19 Blu-Ray set. Not exactly at the top, or near the top, of my list of seasons of Doctor Who desired on Blu-Ray, is Season 19. And I have given up hope of receiving replacements for the faulty Blu-Ray discs in the Season Twelve box set released in July. They are never going to come. My faith in the Blu-Ray range for Doctor Who is not exactly as robust as it could be.
Here are images of the Doctor Who Season 12 and Season 19 Blu-Ray box sets. They are given a range name of DOCTOR WHO- THE COLLECTION.
Late this past summer, I was in communication with a collector of Warner Brothers cartoons with the possibility of once again possessing a complete collection of the post-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons. Inexplicably, communication stopped on his end in early September, and therefore it looks like my hope for completing once more my collection has been dashed.
Returning to something that I said a couple of Weblog entries ago. What following that Season 2 of Space: 1999 had in its initial run on television ceased to exist not long after the cancellation, because the viewers of it were casual and "moved on" to something else. Yes, I have to acknowledge this fact. To not acknowledge it, to deny it, would be stupid. Season 1 retained a die-hard fan following while Season 2 now has almost nothing but the occasional self-deprecating person of some affinity for it bemoaning it for having had supposedly damning flaws and proclaiming it to be nothing more than a nostalgist's "guilty-pleasure" (which by no means is satisfactory rebuttal to the daily slurs heaped upon it). Again, this is a fact that needs to be acknowledged. To try to deny it would be foolish. It is obvious and true.
Not an incontrovertible indication of Season 2 lacking aesthetic interest, mind. It says only that the people who liked it back in the heyday of Space: 1999 did not watch it very attentively, or largely were lacking the degree of sophistication needed to "pick up" on its more subtle artistic qualities, even in a seminal way. Or that the allure of Star Wars was so strong that considered people "put aside" all thought of Space: 1999 and embraced the "new thing". And people who did "pick up" on those subtle artistic qualities and did not "leave aside" Space: 1999 for Star Wars, are doomed to be minorities of one, two, or maybe three persons scattered across the Terran landscape. All of them regarded as "flakes".
And mind further, the die-hard fans of Season 1 have, over four decades in a cosy "echo chamber" of like-minded persons, become intellectually atrophied and routinely fallacious from blinkered mindset, and act like spitefully hostile children toward anyone not adhering to their group-think. And especially toward one Fred Freiberger, deceased. Of whom they "make fun". Daily. Lack of couth and class and humanity is so clearly evident. And I am therefore not of the belief that retention of a fan following has been a good thing for Space: 1999 as a whole or for Season 1 specifically. The attitude of the fans casts rather a negative light (or ought rightly to cast such light) over the television series for it conditioning such a myopic group of people to be the disagreeable way that they are. They certainly do not practice the open-mindedness and humility that their favourite television programme ostensibly proffers. The "passing" of Season 2's sizable following soon after its first departure from the television airwaves, is sad, very sad, for it has effectively left Space: 1999 an appreciated-for-one-season-only opus whose prideful pundits are, in their unending, venomous resentment over and hate for Season 2, some of the most despicable people on the planet. They are the most despicable people I have encountered in my mostly frustrating existence. I thank my maker that I have had other entertainment interests to which I could turn for escape from people like them. Like the Warner Brothers cartoons. For awhile, at least. Before the Termite Terrace Trading Post.
And with another lovely day, my oh, so good friends at the Space: 1999 Facebook group are "at it again". They are today having still another "go" at episodes "One Moment of Humanity" and "All That Glisters".
"One Moment of Stupidity and a glistening dog turd."
What a charming specimen of a quality human being! Space: 1999 fandom is replete with such people.
"'One Moment...' is ok, if a little dull and plodding, but All Those Glowrocks is a mound of pure doodoo, no artificial colors or flavors."
Another prize specimen of the sort of person that plagues the fan movement with adolescent air-headedness.
"Season 1 is much more about serious sci-fi. Season 2 is more science fantasy with a comic book edge to it."
So, they are still using comic book as a pejorative. One might have expected that with the success of comic book characters at the cinema in the past several years that this angle of attack would have been abandoned. Not so, I guess. There is no hoary old cliche that these people will avoid using.
"Another comment on 'All That Glisters'. Koenig oddly calls Reilly 'Dave' throughout. Usually he calls everyone by surname unless it's someone like Victor who he knows well. So sadly more inconsistencies"
Wrong. Koenig addresses Bill Fraser as "Bill" several times in "A Matter of Balance". And he addresses Shermeen as "Shermeen" in that same episode. He calls Mark Sanders "Mark" in "The Lambda Factor". He calls his co-pilot "Bill" in "Catacombs of the Moon". He addresses Lew Picard as "Lew" twice when they are on Psychon in "The Metamorph". And going back into "Year 1", he calls Luke Ferro "Luke" numerous times in "The Testament of Arkadia", and he calls Baxter "Mike" in "End of Eternity", and he calls Ryan "Mike" in "Black Sun". As a leader, Koenig prefers a personal "touch" with his people as much as possible. With Alphans who are being recalcitrant or mutinous (e.g. Sanderson), he addresses them by surname. And yet, he does prefer to call David Kano "Kano", for some reason, and never deviates from that.
Another Season 2 detractor is proved wrong. Yes, another one. Proved wrong by me, that is. Not by any of the 11,778 members of the Facebook group. They are complicit in disseminating false information with intent to diminish Season 2.
All for today, Sunday, October 21, 2018.
Attacks on the episodes, "One Moment of Humanity" and "All That Glisters", of Space: 1999- Season 2, are continuing. The Facebook group dedicated to Season 2 has entered the fray, with the two episodes being disparaged in that group by several persons yesterday. Why these particular episodes all of a sudden? Because they both were telecast on an American speciality cable television channel called Comet on Sunday night. Indications are that all episodes of Season 2 are going to be run on Comet within the next month, and one can expect that every episode will receive a renewed round of assailing for alleged hopelessly faulty story technicalities or for their central concept involving alien life or alien worlds. "One Moment of Humanity" and "All That Glisters" happen to have been the two latest ones to receive a pummelling in the wake of their Comet transmission.
Yes, there is no "corner" of the Internet, other than mine, where episodes of Season 2 are assessed with aesthetic appreciation being the paramount interest, and with rational interpretation of their developments of story. No, not even at a Facebook group dedicated to Season 2. It may be the unkindest cut of all to find people professing to like or love Season 2 (pah!) buttressing and emboldening the venomous attacks of the Season 1-adhering detractors of all things Season 2. And within a group supposedly created to honour it, yet.
Neither "One Moment of Humanity" nor "All That Glisters" contain the phenomena for which Season 2 is routinely lambasted. There are no monsters in them. No men in latex. The Alphans are not "God-awful spacemen" militarily "kicking alien butt" through use of bulky weaponry attached to their Moonbase. Rather, they are "set upon" for the majority of the episode, put through crises by some alien quantity. And forced to improvise potential solutions as a situation develops. There is no alien in tight yellow shorts and yellow boots and cape. Maya does not transform into an ape or a monster. The episodes are quite similar to episodes of Season 1 in that there is a divided alien society with a mystery and an ingenious "twist" to be revealed and an enigmatic alien life form encountered, the source of its sentience left unexplained. And yet, still Season 2 cannot win with these people. No, it just cannot. No matter what it does, these people reject it and invoke the pejorative of Freiberger.
And so, it is "plot hole", "plot hole", "plot hole", "plot hole". "Why this?" "Why that?" No "economy of detail" permitted. No allowances made for Space: 1999- Season 2 to deviate occasionally from "air-tight plotting" for dramatic or artistic necessity. While other works receive such allowances. And in my perusing of the Space: 1999- Season 2 Facebook group discussion of "One Moment of Humanity" and "All That Glisters", all that I see is: bad scripts, bad writing, failure, blame, silly, cheesy, very Trek. Bad. Bad. Bad.
It is as I say. There is no fandom for Season 2. No appreciative mindset. Outside of myself, Dean, and maybe one or two others on this planet, all of whom outliers derided by the "right-thinkers" as mentally deficient, there is no liking for Season 2, its concepts, storytelling of the concepts, its depictions, its timeline. No one in the fandom for Space: 1999 has the imagination to accept that a rock on an alien planet in a galaxy far from Earth could be alive and sentient. Nor is there any respect for the imaginative planet production design of "All That Glisters". A world whose look I have always fancied. Me in my abject solitary state.
And as for "One Moment of Humanity".
"Yep, actually creating an entire 'moonbase'...mere days after the moon reached proximity.
Huh....?
It was an interesting idea, just badly written and executed."
With "friends" like this, Season 2 does not need enemies.
Who knows how powerful the Vegan master computer is? It could have manufactured a duplicate Moonbase with some sort of replicator apparatus over the course of several weeks, or longer. Remember that the Moon is travelling at relativistic speeds while in interstellar space. Years of time on Vega may pass while only weeks pass on Alpha. The telescopic sight of the master computer could have reached into interstellar space and started recording the dimensions and the detailed contents of Alpha long before the Moon encountered Vega, Vega time. And this is alien technology that should not be beyond the imagination of an obliging viewer.
Oh, and Koenig probably told Helena about Raan's image of Alpha in "Missing Link". A precedent exists for alien duplication of Alpha. Hence why Helena is not incredulous at the idea of it, once she and Tony have "figured out" Zamara and Zarl's ploy.
"Just watch 'Lambda Factor'. Same story as Star Trek- 'Where No Man Has Gone Before'.
The idea of psionic powers boosted by an encounter with some space phenomenon is shared between the two episodes. But the story is not the same. Execution of it is different. "The Lambda Factor" starts as a murder mystery, whereas Mitchell in "Where No Man...", while known to be a dangerous quantity over much of the the course of the episode, does not kill anyone until Act Four of the episode. And the antagonist, Carolyn Powell, of "The Lambda Factor" is defeated when the Commander is the victor over her in a battle of minds, whereas Kirk vanquishes Mitchell by physical means.
"By the time Fred Freiberger took over the show, the writing was on the wall. As I say, Fred did make some suspect choices in stories but in his defense, he was put under an enormous amount of pressure to make Space 1999 a hit in the U.S.A.."
Always disparaging. Always disparaging. It is not much of a defence of Fred Freiberger to say that he was a hapless cog in a machine of a blame-worthy production for which "writing" was already "on the wall". I am not convinced that it was so, anyway, or that everyone in the production was of that opinion. All of the still photography done during production (with many hundreds of gorgeous pictures snapshot) at some considerable expense would indicate to me that there were high hopes among some people in the production team for successful distribution of and viewer interest in Season 2.
"Since it was stated by Number 8 that the androids have never seen violence, so when Zamara and Zarl observed Tony using a laser on the master control room doesn't that constitute as an act of violence?"
They want violence with intense emotion and clear intent to kill. Their determination to learn aggression and murder is based on that premise. What Tony intended to do was to see whether his gun would be in any way effective against the force field.
"For such an apparently observant race of androids not a single one noticed that Maya transformed into a parrot and flew off out of the grove during the entire dance scene."
"They're all linked together like a chain," Maya says. As Zamara is fixated on "the play", Othello, and on provoking jealous violence from Koenig, so are they all. They have no interest in Maya. At least none that is immediate for the goal that they have. How do we know that they did not notice her being gone from the grove? They may have noticed and just did not care, confident as they were that the force field and the master computer behind it could not be neutralised by any Alphan. Not in the time frame that they had allocated for "the play". And once they were successful in eliciting violence from Koenig, they would kill all of the Alphans and the humanoids of the planet. Also, they probably did not know that Maya could turn into a cockroach to pass under the force field. An ability to do so was outside of their experience.
"Speaking of which Koenig with his advanced knowledge of what the androids are attempting to do sure can not contain himself for very long before bashing Zarl across his chops."
"The real failure I think is Koenig loosing it because Helena is dancing with an Android and starting to get into it in front of everyone. Wacky for Dr Russell, did this happen at medical school mixers? And it's a machine, is Cmdr Koenig jealous of the Alpha Log Recorder?"
He was desperate. Maya had just told him that the computer could not be de-energised, Alpha's weapons had been known to be ineffective against the androids, the androids were not going to be talked into relenting from their desired outcome, and he could not just sit and let Helena be sexually assaulted. He therefore acted in an instinctive way as his "vulnerable humanity" (to quote Christopher Penfold's assessment of the character of Koenig) compelled him to act in a time of crisis. And so he pulled Zarl off of Helena and punched him. And because Helena is the woman he loves and he had been restraining himself with difficulty during her dance with Zarl, emotion release occurs with the punch. I do not see how the scene could have been better written. All that these people do is criticise it. No one offers any blueprint for script improvement.
Zarl is a machine, yes, but is in perfect humanoid form. The comparison of him to an Alpha Log Recorder is nonsensical. Helena could have found him attractive. Perhaps he reminded her somewhat of her husband, Lee. Who knows?
I have "had enough" with defending "One Moment of Humanity" and "All That Glisters" this evening. I will end this Weblog entry by acknowledging, vis-a-vis observations in last Weblog entry, that Koenig, in "The Bringers of Wonder", does use surnames in addressing Ehrlich and Bartlett. And although both of those men, in what they are doing under the aliens' illusions and telepathic control, are posing a threat to Koenig's leadership and to Alpha itself, neither one is being wilfully seditious. Koenig mostly calls non-mutinous people by first name in Season 2. If there is an inconsistency to be noted, it is in "The Bringers of Wonder". But perfect consistency in this regard, in either season, is scarcely of paramount importance in any case. "Pointing it out" is just being "nitpicky", and is quite a "reach" in that, too. Koenig has the prerogative as Commander to address his people how he chooses to do so on any given Alpha day. He does not have to be perfectly consistent.
And that is all for this evening, that of October 23, 2018, the day of the first snowfall of autumn and winter. One of the earliest snowfalls that I have experienced in my many years.
Saturday, October 27, 2018. A dark and dreary autumn day today. Matches my mood.
At least the snow that fell mid-week is all but gone, apart from the remains of snowmen built by children.
HostPapa will be doing some migration of my Website in the next week and has advised me not to do any Web page updates within that time frame.
Visitor traffic to my Web pages is down again to frustrating lows. Usually, my article on "Hyde and Hare" sees a "bump" in its number of "hits" around Halloween, but I am not seeing much of that this year. And my Littlest Hobo Web page is having its worst slump in visits since I first introduced it to my Website twenty-one years ago.
Comet will be showing the Space: 1999 episodes, "Journey to Where" and "The Taybor", tonight. And even before their broadcast comes the oh, so predictable negativity from the Facebook Space: 1999 community.
"No far from Luton in England is a place called 'Ware'. Was Freddie having a laugh with us?"
Typical. Always have to invoke the Freiberger pejorative before the discussion "takes off".
"'Journey To Where' doesn't deliver on its set up and is rather overrated. There are far better Season 2 episodes. The story has more of a Season 1 feel about it, which might explain its popularity with some fans. 'The Taybor' is Season 2 at almost its very worst I'm afraid."
Overrated? Nobody other than myself and Dean appreciates it at all. And we are irrelevant, right? Abjectly irrelevant.
So, the Jekyll-and-Hyde symbolism in it does not exist, right? Figments of imagination? Maya turning into Hyde after a gulp of Tony's beer. The Alphans desiring a return to Earth with which man's animalistic connection is said by Jekyll to exist. The "Who needs nature?" scientific arrogance of the Earthlings being analogous to that of Jekyll. Logan's reference to escaping the laboratory. Tony's beer as a Hyde potion symbol imbibed by the Alphan heroes before transference, their assuming of risk with some relish being a function of "lust for adventure" (an element of the baser side of human nature per Carl Jung) which Tony associates with his beer. Tony brewing the beer in Medical Centre, cogently affiliating his hobby with physician Dr. Jekyll's on-the-side experiments, and Helena ("You're the doctor, Helena.") being the one beset with illness following the gone-awry transference (and her and the others' assumed risk of transference) who compares herself to a monster. Attempt to "stave off" illness (Hyde) with a drug ineffective after the consumption of more alcohol. And because of Helena's affliction, she, John, and Alan are in chains and set afire in a cavernous underworld. An allusion to damnation. Such as that of Dr. Jekyll. Helena contemplating about more Earthly experience after sipping more of Tony's beer in the epilogue. And then looking down at the beer with revulsion as John mentions some of Earth history's most lamentable events. As if to say, "I'll never drink that potion again".
Does not deliver on its "set-up", huh? Subtlety is lost on you, Pinky.
I wrote a rather more elaborate essay on the symbolism of "Journey to Where" for Alpha League's newsletter in 1992 (the above paragraph consists of a precis of my observations and interpretations in that essay). Nobody (and I mean, nobody) acknowledged any of it, and everyone was happy to see me gone from the club three years later.
So now everyone confidently declares "Journey to Where" to be no better than or as "bad" as the other twenty-three Season 2 episodes. A couple of years ago, it was attacked by numerous people on Facebook. No doubt those attacks will be reiterated tonight and tomorrow and Monday and Tuesday. Them plus the complaints about crickets, the misconstruing of the particulars of neutrino transmission, Helena's short time frame for incubated virus, and some carefully chosen "screencaps" to show "risable" countenances on faces, so that "Freddie the F." can be invoked as the definitive "put-down" to buttress confident denial of any nuance whatsoever existing in the episode.
What Season 1 "feel" does it have? The fact that John and Alan remove their jackets and show their tunic sleeves? In my estimation, "Journey to Where" is all Season 2 in its story structure, the sociability of its Alphan characters, its action, and its humour. And I do not judge that to be a "bad thing". But who cares what I say, right? I am nothing but a piece of excrement as far as these people are concerned. Human fecal garbage who would be "better off" six feet under. Yes, that is me.
As for "The Taybor", just what is wrong with it? Besides the "old sot" appearance of Taybor and Maya's slatternly woman transformation? Both of those being representative of the baser side of humanity, they have value for appreciating the episode thematically. A jump-drive device provides for the Alphans and Commander Koenig some keen interest in bartering with Taybor. And there is appealing dialogue in it, likening space to a "wide, wide sea", a "lonely place to wander in". It fits "neatly" in the first cluster of Season 2 episodes with focus on beauty and on good (honesty) versus evil (dishonesty). And Tony says that, "Anyone who likes my beer is someone who can't be trusted." And I love the look of the S.S. Emporium. Inside and outside.
But, again, these people are chemically devoid of any capacity for appreciating something that is not delivered with unsubtle philosophical commentary by a "brainy" character in "the show". Of course, nobody (I mean, nobody) will defend the two episodes as they are scorned and accosted and brutalised.
My rant for the day. It will have to serve as a preemptive strike to the copious bile soon to be heaped upon the two episodes, as I will be doing no Weblog entries for the next several days.
Saturday, November 10, 2018. And snow. Good God, I hate that foul white, cold substance. And there will be more and more and more and more of it to come in the next six months.
I am back in the Website and Weblog maintaining business now that the migration of my Website is complete. And there really has not been much for me to comment about in the past couple of weeks as regards my favourite entertainments. Oh, the fans of Space: 1999 do what they do and say the smugly complacent and galling things that they say. But none of what has been said in the past two weeks merits response. Just the predictable put-downs for "economised detail" and fanciful story devices in the episodes being televised on Comet, people saying that from an adult perspective Season 2 is the biggest piece of indigestible tripe ever to be foisted upon mankind and is rightly hated, and all of the usual cliches about Command Centre being a broom closet, Victor being better than Maya and that Maya is nothing more than a convenient story plot contrivance, "my season is better than yours; na-na, na, na-na," and so on and on and on, for ever and a day.
Does any of that really merit a further expenditure of my time in the writing of a response to it? I mean, really? Anyone with an un-blinkered, astute eye ought to be able to perceive how pridefully ignorant and foolish and immature that they are. And hypocritical. They had their underpants in a convulsions-inducing twist over Kevin Smith's sweeping, all too confidently and steadfastly derisive assessment of Space: 1999 (Season 1, mainly), calling him stupid, ignorant, and God knows what else (I did not bother reading the entire discussion) while mindlessly "dissing" Season 2 with the same insufferably intransigent and ignorant attitude as that of Smith. The hypocrisy should be obvious (and ludicrous) to any open-minded person observing the matter somewhat dispassionately.
This is all that I have to say today.
I have updated all of my Televised Looney Tunes Web pages to put a hyphen in "A Pizza Tweety-Pie", as I have discovered that a hyphen should be put between the last two words in that cartoon title.
Now, then. I rejoin the fray. Briefly. At the Space: 1999 Facebook group this morning is this.
"One other question about 'Year 2'. I have not read a lot about the series and what went on behind the scenes... but something seems 'off' with the casting. Landau and Bain seem to be deliberately separated during large parts of episodes..."
I have an idea. Why not "read a lot" about the television series instead of baiting the Season 2 haters in the Facebook group with questions? Many a Website will provide the answer to this person's question. I know that research can be such an undesirable thing in this era of instant gratification, but it behoves someone claiming to be interested in Space: 1999 to have enough dedication to the subject as to "read up" about its production history. The simultaneous filming of episodes mandated by Lew Grade for delivery of episodes for a certain broadcast date, meant that the acting cast of the television series needed to be divided. Plus, it creates drama for people who have romantic interest in one another to be circumstantially separated, with one or both of them in peril.
"Martin's role in 'Year 2' seems to be making irrational command decisions and yelling a lot."
Examples, please. I want many of them for such a generalisation. And I want to see the context for which he is yelling. Is Alpha under attack? Yes. As in "The Dorcons". Is Alpha being invaded? Yes. As in "The Bringers of Wonder". Is he angry at a member of his crew for lacking concern for a fellow Alphan? Yes. As in "All That Glisters". What is wrong with having a moment or two of intensity in an episode? And as for irrational command decisions? Name one. Name several. I can wait. I would wager that any examples given will involve misconstrued story or lack of allowance for "economy of detail" or a failure to attribute to him the quality of "vulnerable humanity" (again, to quote Christopher Penfold).
The Koenig in Season 2 has many moments of calm and sympathetic rapport with his people. There is his scene with Shermeen in the Eagle in "A Matter of Balance". And his scene on the hilltop with Maya in "The Rules of Luton" as he hears her story about Psychon. And his comforting of Tony during Tony's near-death account of his fight with Lustig in "The Immunity Syndrome". And the "shouty" Koenig is seen in "Year 1", as in episodes such as "Missing Link" ("Raan!!!!"), "The Last Sunset" (he severely tongue-whips poor Kano there), "Collision Course" ("Helena! Why don't you believe me?!!!!!" and "Arra!!!! Arra, where are you?!!!!"), "The Infernal Machine" ("Gwent! Gwent!!!!"), "Dragon's Domain" ("There were no facts!"), and "The Testament of Arkadia" ("Just do what I say!" and "Do it!!"). Mind, the context in most (or all) of those cases may allow for the shouting. But to argue that Koenig only yells "a lot" in Season 2, is wrong. And as for irrational command decisions, what about leaving Helena alone with Zoref (an alien-possessed man who has already killed) inside Medical Centre in "Force of Life"? Or ignoring Victor's credible warning about anti-matter in "Matter of Life and Death"? Or believing Arra's far-fetched let-our-two-worlds-touch directive in "Collision Course" without any evidence and basing his command orders on that belief.
I would add that I have selected the images above of a shouting Koenig only to provide visual proof of my contention that Koenig shouted in Season 1, lest anyone doubt my word. I am not doing such for purpose of season denunciation. I leave the selective use of film frame capture solely for denouncing purposes, to the loutish detractors of Season 2.
"I'm really enjoying quieter scenes with Tony and Helena (when Bain is not acting in a one man play)."
Huh? What one-man play?
"Don't get me wrong, I still love it.... something just seems off with chemistry."
Whenever I see the expression, "Don't get me wrong," I wince. I hate that expression. It shows an abject lack of sophistication. My first-year English professor impressed upon me that the word, get, is very imprecise and should not be used in intelligent discourse. And never imply preemptively that someone is wrong. Wait for proof that he or she is.
What chemistry do Koenig and Russell have in Season 1? Is it always consistent there? No. In some episodes ("The Last Enemy", "Dragon's Domain"), they seem to have a romantic tenderness. In others, less so. In "Space Brain", Koenig and Russell seem to be straining for patience with one another. In "The Troubled Spirit", Koenig is quite restrained in his comforting of Helena after her experience. And in "Missing Link", Helena shows little emotion at Koenig's life-signs not registering. For what it is worth, I have always regarded Koenig and Russell in Season 2 to be a believable romantic couple. Even if the writing did require for them to be separated in episodes and to focus attention on the crisis confronting them.
"And whats the deal with Yasko and Sandra? Was Sandra fed up or busy with other projects, and who was Yasko sleeping with on set because she has got to be the worst actress I've ever seen."
Again, read. Research. Zienia Merton was unhappy about not having a contract. Yasuko Nagazumi was director Ray Austin's wife. English was not her first language, apparently. And her role was not a major one. She is serviceable. Would I prefer to have had Zienia Merton as Sandra in every episode? Yes, definitely. But it is not something that I am going to bemoan for the remainder of my born days. Life is too short. Life is too short for me to be sitting and writing any of this.
Anyway, in response to this person's Facebook posting comes this.
"Season 1 for adults, Season 2 for children." With two thumbs-up icons.
That Non-Player-Character meme that seems to be ubiquitous on the Internet of late. It may originate in the sphere of national politics but is also a quite apt metaphor for the Space: 1999 fans who mindlessly belch out drivel like this on a regular basis. There is no way that I am going to waste time and energy to reply to this rot yet again. Nobody in the group is responding to it, of course. But I cannot be bothered responding either. Not again. It would be a waste of my Web space.
"Yeah, and 'Monster of the week' doesn't do it for me unless I'm watch B films from the 50s, then they are just so bad they are cool."
Non-Player-Character. "Monster of the Week". I am not responding to this again.
Really, this is all that I have to say for today, November 18, 2018.
I am feeling rather more upbeat than had been usual for me before late last month. There is a spring in my step, and not even a very, very early onset of winter and Fredericton being buried in January amounts of snow in mid-November can dampen my spirit.
It is always darkest before the dawn. Last summer, I was at a nadir of confidence in my social fortune and belief in the efficacy of Facebook in furthering such social fortune. This is "turning around" completely with my discovery of a new friend. The darkness of late last summer and a wet and cold early-to-mid-October has been replaced with a brightness, a warmth, an optimism. My new friend is the kindest, nicest, most thoughtful person I have met since at least the 1980s, and possibly the 1970s. He is by far the most communicative friend I have on Facebook. Happy to commune with me on Facebook Messenger for as long as his day's schedule allows. And prompt, so very prompt.
I met him by accident. A most happy accident on Monday, October 29. Serependity to the power of a billion. My computer mouse happened to be atop him on my Facebook suggested friend list as I was closing a computer window, and I was "clicking" the mouse as the window vanished. My computer went immediately to his profile, on which the mouse was atop the "Add Friend" button. Almost instantaneously, with my mouse clicks, I had accidentally "friended" him. I messaged him to apologise, and he immediately responded that it was all right, and he accepted friendship with me! We share a mutual friend. So, I was not an absolute stranger to him. Still, his faith in me in accepting friendship was so very edifying. I am in awe of his faith. We chatted on Facebook Messenger for about ten minutes and he informed me with full openness that he had not had any close friends when he went to Fredericton High School (our being alumni of that learning institution was one of our first noted items of kindred spirit). I said that I knew how he felt about that, telling of my own experiences as a not exactly popular student at Fredericton High School. And I think that this warmed him to me very much, and I was so very happy for that. We chatted again on the following weekend during a windstorm that was beseiging Fredericton, and then had our best chat yet, one lasting almost an entire Saturday afternoon, that of November 10. One on which we became fully acquainted and bonded completely as friends. Alas, we are probably not going to meet in person for some time as he now lives in Mississauga in the Greater Toronto Area. But his presence in my life promises to bring so much warmth and kindness and positivity to me as I embark on endeavouring to endure another winter. It has been so long, so very, very long since I was with someone as positive in mind and committed to sharing time and friendship as he is. He is responding most appreciatively to my Facebook posts, also, including one on the sad death of Stan Lee, whose work is a shared interest of ours. At a time when my other Facebook friends are oblivious to me, this is for me a most gratefully received change in my social fortune. I look forward to many many more chats on Facebook with my new friend. He is the first new friend I have made the past few decades through some process other than work. Friends met through work are consistently temporary and situational. I want more than that. So much more. With my new friend, I have palpable hope of much better, much more steadfast rapport. He is much, much younger than I. The age difference is impressive. Yes, I know that age difference has been a complicating factor in friendship in my past. Yet, from my chats with him I can see that he has a commitment, an everyday dedication to being my friend, that has been missing in my life for decades. Decades. He is from Vietnam, studying in Canada to become an electrician. His positivity, his hope, and his drive for success are so very inspiring to me.
I am feeling far, far less inclined to write pugnacious responses to attacks upon my entertainment favourites now. I want to match my new friend's personability, so that I am worthy of his lifelong friendship. And I absolutely cannot afford any subsconscious slippings in my now more agreeable bearing, like those of the 1990s. Those must not recur. At the same time, I do still have a need for my own peace of mind to counter the assailing upon my favourite opuses whenever such needs to be done. I will find a balance. That is my firm intention. My defences will continue, but less indignantly or stridently.
Thursday, November 22, 2018.
Sunday, November 25, 2018.
And my defences must continue.
Last night, Comet showed the Space: 1999 second season episodes, "Dorzak" and "Devil's Planet". And thus is there a barrage of hostile commentary from the Space: 1999 Facebook community on the two episodes. One would think that these two episodes should be immune to animus from fans, for they contain no rubber-suit monsters and no Maya transformations into monsters (Maya is not even in one of the episodes, beyond a brief flashback). One of them offers an element of mystery for a time as to who an evil quantity is, and both of them have conversations over different philosophies of leadership (they are not just ostentatious action "run-arounds" lacking any overt philosophical content). Both of them portray alien societies with some potential for further exploration. There is a darker element to them as an alien woman is bludgeoned by a stone ornament and an Alphan meets a sudden and grizzly end in unwittingly stepping into an energy boundary. And yet, Season 2 just cannot win with these people. They "rip to shreds" the episodes on story plot technicalities that they regard as defective. And I will respond to the attacks with as much rational thought as I can muster, in my pique over the lack of reverence for the imagination on display in the episodes and the potential for aesthetic representation or meaning in such. At the same time striving to maintain a refurbishment of my personability.
"'Devil's Planet' is awful. What exactly is the medical emergency team, and why does Alpha suddenly have one? The appearance of a character called Blake Maine is further evidence of how bad the Americanising of series 2 had become as well"
Are these to be considered acceptable criteria for judging an episode to be awful?
What exactly is the Medical emergency team? It is a Medical team that responds to emergencies. It is seen in Season 1's "Matter of Life and Death" as the Eagle with Parks and Bannion (and Lee Russell) aboard is returning to Alpha. What is it about a team of Medical Centre personnel assigned to emergency response that is so difficult for this person to comprehend?
As for Blake Maine, Maine is a surname with Old World roots.
https://www.houseofnames.com/maine-family-crest
Yes, Maine is also the name of a U.S. state. The one that borders my Canadian province, actually. But how is that a certain indictment against "bad" Americanisation? Even if one assumes that the writer, Michael Winder, or Fred Freiberger used the name of Maine to appeal to American audiences, how is the surname of one scarcely even incidental character (who dies less than ten minutes into the episode) an incontrovertibly bad and episode-damning creative decision. How, objectively, is Americanisation an absolutely negative process? Cannot American productions be artistic? What these people are peddling is sophistry. Sophistry with flimsy projected intellectual foundation. It ought not to merit any consideration.
"Yeah it's unfortunate that America gets blamed for the TV executives' folly. I would suspect most Americans here prefer the first year."
This person can suspect all that he wants. But the attitudes of Space: 1999 die-hards are not representative of the population in general, and it was the general population for whom Space: 1999 was made. And even if most people do prefer the first year, that does not mean that they cannot or do not enjoy the second, or indeed that people in minority who do prefer the second should be invalidated out of existence (oh, I know that the Season 1 fundamentalists would love for that to be done).
"Watched 'Dorzak' last nite. Poor episode. So many of these Year 2 episodes rely on characters being stupidly naive and making stupid decisions. Let's leave Maya alone with Dorzak. What could possibly go wrong?? Let's just have Helena surgically remove the suppression device without asking what it is. Let's send Alan to the alien ship even though he's an astronaut and Tony is security chief. You really do have to shut your brain off to enjoy some of these episodes."
Night is the correct spelling. Not "nite". How, pray tell, am I (or anyone) to seriously consider the judgement of someone who refuses to spell words correctly?
Episodes relying on characters being stupid, eh? What of the first season? What of Koenig leaving Helena alone in Medical Centre with Zoref in "Force of Life" and her turning her attention away from him? What of Sandra opening the Eagle door so that a caveman can come into the Eagle and abduct her in "The Full Circle"? What of sending Sandra on the mission to Retha? Since when was she a trained photographer? What of Cellini in "Dragon's Domain" not suspecting something undetectable of killing the occupants of those spaceships and sending his entire crew into deadly danger? What of Koenig not being securely fastened into his Eagle cockpit harness in "Missing Link"? What of Helena not deactivating Koenig's commlock when she confines him to quarters in "Collision Course"?
And as to "Dorzak". What was wrong with leaving Maya alone with Dorzak? She was trying to learn the truth from him while she was in the form of Sahala. Dorzak was not expected to be revealing of his true nature unless Sahala were alone with him. Helena removed the jammer from Yesta's head because it was involved in Yesta's wound. She was not privy to Sahala's story to Alan about Dorzak's ability to psionically control minds and was not cognisant of the possible function of the jammer. She could have asked Sahala about the device, I suppose. But Sahala earlier "pulled a gun" on her, and she was unlikely, as yet, to categorically believe what Sahala says. And Tony had Sahala in detention. Negotiating with Tony to see Sahala would consume valuable time, and Yesta needed surgery as soon as possible. Tony was in charge of Alpha in Koenig's absence and could not leave Command Centre until he was certain that the landing of the alien spaceship posed no threat to the structures of Moonbase. So, he sent Alan along with Maya to meet the Croton landing party. He probably wanted a couple of executive officers there. So, what? Why must this be a damning indictment against the episode? Much of the criticism here quoted is petty and wilfully crass.
Sure. Shut brain off. Prescribe that everyone watching the episodes do that. Cannot possibly leave brain functioning to absorb the aesthetic nuances, the situating in timeline, the symbolism of the episodes.
"The Immunity Syndrome" and "The Dorcons" are next to receive a renewed slinging of venom. They will be televised tonight. Then, it is back to the "perfect" Season 1 for another run of that. Oh, but the assaults upon Season 2 will persist. Of course they will. Daily. Every time that a picture is posted to the Facebook groups, even if it is a picture from Season 1, the loutish goons will scribe some concocted dialogue pejoratively pertaining to Mr. Fred Freiberger and the changes rung for Season 2. Or someone will pose the question, "Why was Space: 1999 cancelled?" to one of the groups. And on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on it will go.
As I said before, familiarity breeds contempt, and Generation X, my generation, is the most contemptuous generation to walk this Earth (in modern times, at least), gushing with "snark" and pridefully possessing zero reverence and scant appreciation for the generation that raised it and that gave to it so very much in terms of entertainment and imagination. Sneering at conscientious, professional effort from its elders to bestow unto it mythology in a Space Age setting. Sniping for decades at productions over alleged imperfections. Most of the despicable Space: 1999 fans are Generation Xers. As were the "f-word"-spouting, obsessed-with-reefer, obnoxious boors I endured in school post-Grade 6.
There is a statement from Jerry Beck appearing on some discussion forums, to the effect that unless Popeye sells in sufficient numbers, that is "it".
"It" being the end of vintage cartoon shorts on optical media.
All right. I certainly have something to say to this.
I acknowledge that Popeye cartoons have their aficionados, but I am not one of them. Not every theatrical cartoon character or series of theatrical cartoons is identical, aesthetically. And I do not appreciate a character or a cartoon simply because he, she, or it is a work of cartoon animation. I bought PORKY PIG 101 last year on the understanding that "strong" sales would mean further releases of the Warner Brothers cartoons. I say again for emphasis, the Warner Brothers cartoons. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. And most particularly the ones of the most recognised characters. Bugs Bunny. Road Runner. Tweety and Sylvester. Daffy Duck. And spanning at least some of the post-1948 oeuvre. The PORKY PIG 101 DVDs sold "well", and it was reasonable to expect a further release. Of the Warner Brothers cartoons. NOT Popeye!!!
Whose decision was it not to go with a further release of Warner Brothers cartoons and to instead shift to Popeye? Someone made that decision. What was the, ahem, rationale for that? An unwillingness to see any more restored post-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons on shiny digital videodisc? I am so damned sick and tired of that attitude on the part of certain people. People I will not name.
I bought the PORKY PIG 101 DVDs in good faith. There was not a single post-1948 cartoon in that DVD set. But I bought it. As I say, in good faith. In good faith that my purchase of it would be contributing to further DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the Warner Brothers cartoons. Good faith that the powers-that-be were interested in increasing the representation of the Warner Brothers cartoon catalogue on digital videodisc. Representation thereof including my beloved post-1948 cartoons. Even if only as a fraction of a further series of DVD or Blu-Ray releases. My good faith was abused. Plain and simple. Instead of, say, "Finish the Wabbit" or a comprehensive Road Runner, Tweety and Sylvester, or Daffy Duck DVD set, the persons with the "clout" at Warner Archive give to us, the consumers, not anything Warner Brothers but... Popeye. And then say to us that if we do not buy Popeye, nothing else will be forthcoming.
I say categorically that no amount of persuasion or threat will compel me to buy a Blu-Ray of cartoons that do not appeal to me aesthetically in any way. I say again, in any way. At least Porky Pig is a character for whom I have some affection, and some of his early cartoons do have somewhat interesting milieus. This Blu-Ray release could have been of Bugs Bunny or of Tweety. But, no. It is Popeye. It is late 2018, and still "Hyde and Go Tweet" is not on DVD. Nor is "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide". Nor is "Beanstalk Bunny", "Hare Brush", "Rabbitson Crusoe", "Upswept Hare", "Hare Lift", "Hopalong Casualty", "Fastest With the Mostest", "Plop Goes the Weasel!", et cetera, et cetera. The one release of post-1948 cartoons this year contained only a handful of new-to-DVD cartoons, all of them un-restored.
No, I will not buy Popeye. And if the amount of units sold is insufficient to continue DVD and Blu-Ray releases of vintage cartoons, so be it. It is the people choosing what cartoons to release who are at fault. Buyers of PORKY PIG 101 expected a further DVD (or Blu-Ray) set of Warner Brothers cartoons, and for whatever reason (or for no reason at all), a different choice was made at the helm. I will be voting against that choice with my wallet. Besides, even if I were to buy the Blu-Ray, what guarantee would I have that a further Warner Brothers cartoons DVD (or Blu-Ray) box set would be forthcoming? None whatsoever. As the lack of such in the year after PORKY PIG 101 is plainly indicative.
In order to acquire a complete set of the cartoons on digital videodisc media, I will need the help of other collectors. And the cartoons' quality will be far from pristine. But that is the sad reality. The post-1948 cartoons just do not have the support of any influential people at Warner Archive or Warner Home Video.
Monday, November 26, 2018.
Popeye, indeed.
A short Weblog entry for today, Monday, December 3, 2018.
It seems that 2019 will be solely a Doctor Who and Pink Panther year for me for Blu-Ray purchase. Nothing else of interest to me has been announced so for for the year ahead. I do hope that quality control will be more of a consideration for the BBC in its further Doctor Who Blu-Ray releases, after the problems with the Season Twelve box set. Season 18 has been announced for February. And Season Ten is said to be "in the works". I do hope that Season Thirteen is "in the pipeline", also. It is my favourite season of Doctor Who.
I propose to "follow up" my comments of my last Weblog entry on the subject of the cartoons of Popeye. Lest anyone accuse me of being as intransigent about Popeye as the people I routinely detract for their pigheadedness on the matter of second season Space: 1999 or post-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons, I think it necessary to articulate in no uncertain wording my stance as an aesthete on the matter of the Popeye cartoons versus those of the Warner Brothers cartoon characters.
It is not that my mind is wilfully locked tight against any arguments for sophistication in the Popeye cartoons. No such arguments have been proffered. The cartoons do not appeal to me visually, aesthetically. Not in the character designs. Not in the backgrounds. And the imagination factor (which I always prize most highly) in the Popeye cartoons tends, in my estimation, to be minimal, if not nil. Popeye is a sailor in the usual sailor's seaside town's settings. A sailor who loves that repulsive (to me) foodstuff, canned spinach, and is constantly needing it to fight his arch-enemy, Bluto. And the cartoons are, to the best of my knowledge, a love triangle with Popeye, a woman named Olive Oyl (a character for whose portrayal in live-action the uncomely Shelley Duvall was apparently preordained) and the brutish cad, Bluto. And if there is one story device that interests me the least, it is the romantic triangle. It is a soap opera cliche resorted-to most often by the writers of daytime drama. Give to me anthropomorphised animals in a vast array of historical, literary, legendary, fairy-tale, futuristic, or modern urban, rural, or modes of conveyance settings, with suggestive philosophical import, any day of the week over the trite fare of the Popeye cartoons.
And I fancy neither stereotypical sailors and their mannerisms nor spinach. Of course, this is just a matter of personal taste. Granted.
There. I have given my reasons for not being an aficionado of Popeye. Unlike the Non-Player-Characters of the Space: 1999 fan community, I do not spend valuable time every day of every week reiterating my distaste for entertainment which I do not like in increasingly smug sorties. I have elucidated my disliking of Popeye for the one and only time and have in an earlier Weblog entry expressed my disapproval of the abandonment of Looney Tunes for Popeye on the part of Warner Archive and decision-makers as regards what to release to shiny digital videodisc. And I propose to "leave it at that".
All for today.
December 5, 2018.
They are doing it again. Concocting premises for the attacking of second season Space: 1999. They being the illustrious paragons of open-minded enlightenment who are the fans of Space: 1999- Season 1.
Onward I go. Once more into the breach, dear friends.
"I've noticed that, in S2, the dates are all off."
No, they are not "all off". The second season episodes can be watched in the order of the given dates in Helena's Moonbase Alpha Status Reports. Until the final batch of episodes, i.e. the ones from "The Bringers of Wonder" to "The Dorcons", there is, within the scope of Season 2, no episode dating information given that may be interpreted to conflict with that of other episodes. And as for the last batch, its episodes have a pattern of given dates suggestive of something that I am not at liberty to divulge (Dean, again; sigh!). But the dates are not "all off" from "The Metamorph" through to "The Dorcons". Not as a chronology limited solely to Season 2. Yes, there is a contradiction with the date given in "Dragon's Domain" in Season 1. But it can be rationalised, if one has an inventive imagination. And anyway, information given in "Dragon's Domain" is inter-episode contradictory (if the Ultra Probe is launched on June 6, 1996, why does the "Space News" report on the planned launching of the Ultra Probe give its date as September 3, 1996?) or quite evidently inaccurate (Helena saying the Moon is between galaxies when she ought to have said that it was between solar systems; Koenig later says that there is nothing for billions of miles, indicating an interstellar, not intergalactic, void). So, there is that.
"One had Helena saying that it had been 2312 days since 'Breakaway', and the very next 2105 days."
Wrong. There is no episode of Season 2 dated at 2312 days since leaving Earth orbit. Nor is there any Season 2 episode dated at 2105 days since leaving Earth orbit. In fact, there are no episodes dated as happening between 2100 and 2300 days since leaving Earth orbit. Again, these people will not present correct facts. And yet, their opinion on Season 2 is supposed to be sacrosanct and regarded as the only legitimate one possible.
And hilariously not far away in the Facebook group's postings from a picture of an enraged Koenig shouting at Gwent in Season 1's "The Infernal Machine", someone says this.
"I prefer the cool collected Season 1 Koenig. The S2 version was a tad unhinged."
Further, this is said beneath a picture from "War Games" from a scene wherein John is about to act rashly, violently in the aliens' control chamber after being denied by the aliens any mercy for Alpha. He refuses to listen to Helena's counsel that, "Violence is not the answer," and begins hitting and kicking some of the aliens' equipment. Cool, collected Season 1 Koenig, indeed.
Okay. That scene of "War Games" did not actually happen, was part of an illusory machination by the aliens. Yes, I know that. Still, the person making the statement about Koenig being "cool and collected" does put that statement forth beneath said picture from "War Games". And such still warrants ridicule, by my reckoning. And besides, in a Weblog entry not long ago, I gave numerous examples of an angry or outraged, shouting Koenig in Season 1. Examples outside of "War Games". What examples are there of Koenig being "unhinged" in Season 2 outside of "The Lambda Factor" (when he was disturbed by "ghosts" of his past; Landau gave a bravura performance in that, I think) and "The Bringers of Wonder" when he was under the aliens' control? In Season 2, he sometimes did what his experience and instinct told him to do, even if it meant drastic action had to be undertaken (smashing Psyche's tubes or gambling that Zova was bluffing) for the aim of preserving Alpha.
In either season, Koenig could be "cool and collected" at times and angry and impulsive at others, as his "vulnerable humanity" did decree. The fans' perceptions are skewed by four decades of hatred for Fred Freiberger and stunted intellect from the unflinching adherence to that hatred. And so, they say Koenig was all one way in one season and was irremediably corrupted from that way in the other. And are clearly wrong in doing so.
"I always took that number (311 people on Alpha) to be post-Breakaway, after the devastation was complete. And I'm brought back to a suggestion from S2 that the number is just around 300. Hard to swallow that, given the apparent need to build big-a$$ laser guns for defense. Permission to blame Freiberger?"
No, permission not given from me to blame Freiberger. Or at least not to exclusively blame him. But of course, I do not matter, right? I am garbage. Excrement. "One can short of a six-pack". That is their contention. Who am I to argue with it, right?
The big-whatever guns were installed for defence because of the vulnerability of Alpha to alien menaces in Season 1. Q.E.D..
"If you remember correctly, Doctor Russell said that the count was at 297 in the first episode of the second series. Practially speaking, it should be lower, but it's like counting Eagles...only good when you've nothing better to do."
In "The Testament of Arkadia", considered by most fans to be Season 1's final episode, Helena says that there are over 300 people on Alpha. That was after all of the many deaths (in a number exceeding twenty) of personnel in Season 1. So, why "pick on" Season 2 for providing an ostensibly unlikely number for Alpha's population since the 311 population number stated in "Breakaway"? That practice started in Season 1. Season 2 just carried it forth- and did not kill Alphans in a majority of the episodes as Season 1 did.
I am amazed, though, that, with regard to the 297 population count given in "The Metamorph", someone actually provides correct information. Pity that he forgot what Helena said in "The Testament of Arkadia". Or expediently overlooked it.
Under a picture of Maya in "The Metamorph" is this little gem.
"Imagine... she lived her whole life (before Alpha) in a grotto with a crazy father? Where's the mom? What about her past? Nah... no Season 3 and Freddy was not interested in characters lives."
Oh, sure. I suppose that was why "Freddy" wrote that lengthy scene in "The Rules of Luton" in which Koenig and Maya talk about their pasts, and Maya says that her mother died and that Mentor was a bereaved husband and could not leave his wife's tomb. And Koenig remembers his wife and the circumstances of her death. Because "Freddy" was not interested in characters' lives? Right. I am being sarcastic here, of course.
Oh, but why let facts "get in the way" of a good anti-Freiberger tirade sure to receive a hearty series of thumbs-up icons?
Instead of anyone mentioning the scene in "The Rules of Luton" that contradicts this person's faulty assertion, along comes this.
"Fred 'Kiss of Death' Freiberger"
Non-Player-Character programmed response number one... dot... EXE.
"Season 1 score was beautiful, season 2... pass"
Non-Player-Character programmed response number five... dot... EXE. I should compile a list of them.
On second thought, why bother? People familiar (through this Weblog) with the wretched fandom for Space: 1999 knows what they all are. Why waste the Web space?
Also, I continue to be cognizant of my resolve not to be unpersonable. I am trying to maintain "the high ground" and not become bellicose.
Best for me to stop now, I think. All for today, then.
Firstly, for today's Weblog entry, I will call the attention of my readers to three excellent Podcasts with interviews with people involved in the making of Spiderman. Two of them contain lengthy interviews with Paul Soles on his career inside and outside of the Toronto voice recording studio at which he gave vocal life to Peter Parker/Spiderman. And the other is (wait for it!) an interview with Ralph Bakshi, producer and director of Spiderman- Seasons 2 and 3. And also Seasons 2 and 3 of Rocket Robin Hood. It is the first time that I have heard Ralph Bakshi's voice. And no, he does not swear at any time in the interview. Nor does he "call down" anyone for not being "grown-up" for fancying Spiderman or Rocket Robin Hood. He does have a reputation for doing that, for being acetous as regards discussion of his Krantz Films television work prior to his highly acclaimed opuses of the 1970s. In the interview, however, he is quite mellow, cheerful, obliging. And although he does express misgivings about the quality of the output of his cartoon production facility for Spiderman, he does not condemn it. He says that he made the episodes that he did, episodes that deviated from what Marvel Comics was doing with the Spider-Man character, because he fancied the subject matter of those episodes, the fantastical and psychedelic subject matter. When money and time became scarce, he did have to put into production stories that he was not particularly enamoured-with, just to have completed episodes delivered to Steven Krantz on deadline. If he was late with the delivery of completed episodes, Krantz would not pay him. That was why there were cheater episodes. That was why "Phantom From the Depths of Time" and "Revolt in the Fifth Dimension" were commissioned. That was why there were so many prolonged web-swinging sequences. He makes direct references to Rocket Robin Hood in the interview, and without any disparaging comment.
Paul Soles reveals that, "Whallopin' websnappers!" was used only in the cartoon television series, that "Here Comes Trubble" was his favourite Spidey outing, and that he is approached by people working on post-year-2000 projects with which he is involved, to sign his autograph to DVD box sets of the 1967-70 Spidey television show.
The Podcasts are available at the following URLs. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wT6xOVpHF8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hK17vOXHdY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl_ri-9HyVw
Watching and/or hearing these interviews have given me pleasure over the past week.
Now, I am going to refer back to something that I said in my qualification of my disliking of the cartoons of Popeye. I said that romantic triangles are a story device that interests me least. It has occurred to me that people quick to pounce upon me with accusations of hypocrisy, may be throwing at me a couple of episodes of Season 2 Space: 1999 wherein there is either a suggested possible development of or an incontrovertible statement of a love triangle, to try to portray me as being inconsistent at the very least, in my un-enthusiasm for the romantic triangle, that inconsistency being indicative of some lack of artistic or intellectual integrity. I am now going to respond to that probable angle of attack.
"All that Glisters" opens with some demonstrable attention given to Maya by geologist Dave Reilly, to the concern and the pique of Tony Verdeschi. There is a suggestion that perhaps a love triangle may be forming, or is on the verge of forming. However, "All That Glisters" is an episode about an encounter with an enigmatic alien life form in a state of survival panic. Any romantic tension that may exist is at most ancillary to the main story element, the finding of a living rock that is desperate to survive. And besides, whatever romantic or sexual attention is being cast upon Maya by the eyes of Reilly, is not being reciprocated. Maya's only interest in Reilly is curiosity about his Texan "cowboy" attire and professional collaboration as scientists. And the male protagonist, Tony, in any love triangle that could potentially form with the three characters, is incapacitated as a free-thinking individual for most of the episode. This subverts a viewer's possible love triangle expectation. Further, when the episode is in its denouement, Reilly seems to have lost some of his romantic aggressiveness, having been humbled somewhat in the encounter with the rock as that encounter neared its conclusion, and there is some good-natured humour delivered in his direction by Tony, who seems to be quite robustly confident of Maya's fidelity to him as a future lover. This is at most ancillary to the episode's central, story-"driving" conflict, that of the Alphans with the rock that has gained dominion over their Eagle. It is not the episode's primary focus.
"The Lambda Factor" opens with a love triangle in existence, but within the episode's first few minutes, one of the females, the protagonist, in the romantic triangle is killed, and although jealousy in the love triangle is catalyst for the killing, which is a murder, the main concern for the Alphans in the episode is the science fiction element, the boosted psychic abilities of certain Alphans, that boosting being caused by a Lambda wave phenomenon outside of Moonbase, and the death and destruction, and potential death and destruction, that it may wreak. The most dangerous of the affected Alphans was, yes, the antagonist, the aggressor, in the love triangle. But her rival is killed "early on" and the love interest is murdered by her at the end of the second act when he tries to leave her, and thereafter, for the latter half of the episode, the matter of the affected Alphan's growing psychosis and of her desire to cruelly dominate all people on Alpha, is the menace that must be fought by the Alphan heroes. And most particularly by John Koenig, for whom the episode is a harrowing experience because of the Lambda wave phenomenon's effect upon him, fostering the creation of "ghosts" from a dark chapter in his past life. The episode is not focused throughout its structure upon a cliched battle of wiles between two rival lovers of one character.
Here is some of the bile being flung around at the Facebook group for Space: 1999 in the past twenty-four hours.
"There was NOTHING good about Tony he was the Jar Jar Binks of Space: 1999"
"Wasn't 'Guido' an alien blob of radioactive snot?"
"Tony sort of resembles alien snot for that matter."
I am not going to dignify this inane tripe with a response beyond what should be the obvious observation. In addition to being abjectly and blithely blinkered, these people are lacking in basic adult maturity. This is banter that one would expect to find in a school playground. Not in conversation of mature fifty-year-olds.
And a twelve-year-old coming out of Grade 6 in elementary school should know where to put a period or a comma.
December 10, 2018.
I have not much to say today. The louts at a certain Facebook group are "doubling down" on their assertions of Koenig shouting more in Season 2 Space: 1999 than in Season 1 and as usual declining to offer any examples in support of their assertion. Nor do they present any salient argument as to why a character shouting at certain times is any kind of a mark of deficiency in quality of story writing. No need by their reckoning to bother in either case, for their group is ever one of guaranteed confirmation bias and of guaranteed "circle-jerking" to the hatred for Season 2 and its long-ago-deceased producer.
Traffic on my Web pages and this Weblog has been low of late. It cannot be due to the time of year, as the onset of winter weather has each year routinely met with an "uptick" in my Web page accesses. I am wondering if my use of Non-Player-Character terminology have have something to do with this slump, if maybe Internet "search engines" are bypassing my Weblog and Website because of my mention of the Non-Player-Character meme. The fact that I am not using it in the scope of national politics but rather applying it to the attitudes and behaviours of the deplored-by-me fans of Space: 1999, may not shield me from censoring for having invoked the meme. I may have to remove all reference to it from my Weblog entries.
All for today, December 16, 2018.
Another Christmas is near. As has been the norm since my father's death in 2012, I will be alone on Christmas Day, cooking a turkey and watching Blu-Rays. This year, the Blu-Rays will be from the Doctor Who- Season 19 box set. I have already watched most of what is in that box set, but what I have not yet watched, I will watch in morning and afternoon of Christmas Day.
I am of a rather different frame of mind this year compared to that of last year as regards this Weblog and the maintaining of it. Readership has reduced to almost zero, and that being the case, I find it to be exceedingly difficult to motivate myself to write anything in this Weblog. And the subjects about which I usually write, are so very tiresome and boring to me now. What I am doing is so much tilting at windmills, anyway. There will never be another DVD or Blu-Ray release of post-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons not previously on shiny digital videodisc. The cartoons not released, will remain forever unreleased. And Space: 1999 fandom will be smugly and imperiously asinine for the remainder of my born days, successful as ever in squelching open-minded consideration of any merit in Season 2 and patting itself on the back for having done so.
What the fandom of Space: 1999 has descended-to this year is the incessant lame invented dialogue "captioning" of screen captures of episodes. That is all that the Facebook groups for Space: 1999 are doing now. Comfortably "making light" of the television programme of their fancy of forty-plus years. Smugly confident as the fans are that all of the mystique of their favourite television show has been dispelled, they opt now to just make silly jest about it. The jesting being the upper limit of fan intellectualism (or quasi-intellectualism) today. It is saliently indicative of just how pathetic that Space: 1999 fandom is. Nobody is expressing tiredness with the inane "captioning" exercises that have been ongoing for months now. Nobody is asking for serious considered discussions on the subject matter. Not that considered discussions have been Space: 1999 fandom's forte, mind. Outside of complacently regurgitating David Hirsch's decades-old "Mysterious Unknown Force" observations. I suppose that I should be grateful that the fans have dropped the "plot hole" and "blooper" treasure hunts that had dominated Facebook postings of the past few years and have opted instead for insipid silliness. It does give to me nothing of any significance to which to respond, but I do not really feel like responding, anyway. Not anymore. I would much rather concentrate my attention upon positive developments in life and buttress my personability. So, maybe the latest preoccupation of the fans is for the best, then.
For purpose of "getting" something "off of my chest", I will say, though, that I am so tired, so very tired, of seeing screen captures of "Earthbound". Especially those showing Commissioner Simmonds hollering while inside a suspended animation cubicle. And every Christmas, the fans "trot out" a doctored image of such with a Coca-Cola-bottle-holding Santa Claus jovially standing behind Simmonds. Every Christmas. Yawn. Yawn. Yawn. This is a function of that tendency toward silly "light-making" that is inclining the fans to write lame dialogue "captions", day in and day out.
I am going to undertake another New Year's resolution to stay away from Space: 1999 fandom on Facebook. Maybe I will be successful this year at adhering to that New Year's resolution for 365 days.
December 23, 2018.
Some Facebook Space: 1999 group tripe to contaminate my Christmas spirit.
"It was difficult in season 1 to pick out a bad episode, unfortunately in season 2 it was hard to pick a good one!!!"
Fused sentence. Par for the course with these people who think that they are so very sophisticated.
Good. Bad. What defines that? "Plot holes"? Situations depending on stupid decisions? Improbable technicalities? Those exist in Season 1's more acclaimed episodes. They exist in bucketloads in Star Trek II- The Wrath of Khan. They exist in the Star Wars movies. They exist in Star Trek episodes pre-Star Trek- Season 3. Look for them, look exhaustively for them, and one will find them.
There are plenty of "good" episodes of Season 2 Space: 1999 if one is willing to make the same allowances for "ecomomy of detail" and suspension of disbelief that are applied to other works. And appreciate the concepts within the second season chronology.
Good grief! Good bloody, freaking grief! I am so damned sick and tired of these people and their blinkered arrogance.
Comments on the Eagle hangar fire scene in "Space Warp".
"Fire? How about evacuate the air from the hangar?"
"I thought the same thing. Only argument against it I could come up with is that's a huge amount of O2 to replace it."
"Yes or let their entire base be destroyed. That's one of the reasons I stopped watching it way back when."
Oh, how sweepingly condemning! Oh, how smug! And of course, there are "likes" to the comments.
Where in any episode is it said that a fire in a hangar would destroy the entire base? Nowhere.
Evacuate air from the hangar? What if there are Alphans working somewhere in there? There could be. Removing the air would kill them. Would not the removal of the air kill Maya in her current transformation? She still needs to breathe in order for her to be rescued from the hangar. I guess that these technicalities do not occur to the high and mighty dismissing critic. "Space Warp" must be rejected utterly as the excrement that it must so incontrovertibly be (and anyone who appreciates it rejected as a mentally incompetent nothing and garbage human being). This is what it is all about. Such is the purpose of the exercise. Erasure of Season 2 as a noted production of any merit, and erasure of the Season 2 fan as a person of any consequence. Who cares if the attacks can be rationally refuted? What does reason have to do with it?
Boxing Day, 2018.
The Space: 1999 Facebook groups are "at it again". Not content to just occupy themselves with lame and silly invented dialogue "captioning", the fans have returned to their serious bile-slinging, to their hate-mongering in ernest as regards Season 2 and Fred Freiberger. The Christmas season would appear to bring out the worst in these despicable people. The sorties started anew right after Christmas. And there are now as many as five discussions for disparaging the Season 2 changes and the man who, as producer, put them into commission.
The worst one is beneath a picture from "All That Glisters". Here is some of that.
"Nick in the background: Do I have to be a part in this sh..t of an episode? I really don't want to be."
"WORST EPISODE EVER"
"Right next to 'Brian the Brain', in my world. (Excuse me while I go fetal...)"
"I was quoting the Comic Book Store Guy from The Simpsons, not arguing that this was literally the worst episode, I would probably say that's 'The Rules of Luton' with this as second, but 'Year 2' has so many stinkers to choose from."
"Lucosite? Milganite? Nope, it's Bunchoshite!"
"'Rules of Luton' and 'AB Chrysalis' were worse."
And a very Merry Christmas to the garbage human beings that like Season 2, right? No peace and good will for us.
I have already defended all of these episodes against far more articulate and dignified angles of attack than this base slop. And I refuse to do it again. These contemptible louts in their oh, so vaunted "echo chamber" are the most adolescent of the adolescent adults, and the sorriest of sorry losers. And their behaviour is the only exhibit needed for such a determination. It speaks for itself. They are a disgrace to the quality production that is Space: 1999 and have been a pox upon my house for far, far, far too long. I have had way, way, way more than enough of it for one lifetime.
Oh, and I am damned sick and tired of reading that Martin Landau hated "All That Glisters". So, what? The man was not God. He was not all-knowing. He was not infallible. He was as inclined to blinkered thinking as anyone else who resented the changes effected for the granting of a second season to Space: 1999. He did not see the merit in the living rock concept and misconstrued the actions allocated in the script to Koenig as the rock's nature and purpose became better known. The "worlds beyond belief" motto of the television show was not to his liking, evidently, but it was the motto for Space: 1999. A planet on which a rock can be sentient and deadly is befitting to it.
New Year's Day is fast approaching. I have before made resolution to not look at Space: 1999's Facebook community. And failed to keep that resolution, it is true. This year, I think that I may indeed succeed, for I have abandoned any remote, flimsy hope of ever seeing any comeuppance for these awful people in the form of some righteous and steadfast backlash. Backlash from persons who, if they do not prefer or even particularly like Season 2, are sick and tired of all of the vulgar asininity. The fan movement as a whole is way too far gone. The theories as to why these people are the way that they are do not concern me. They just are- and, as I said before, things are only to become worse and worse and never "get better". I have done all that I can to to bring some reasoned argument to the table, to show that the detractors of Season 2 are often demonstrably wrong in their denunciations, and to direct some eyes to the beauteous aspects of Season 2. Such is all that I can do. And I will always lose because emotional ranting with a scapegoat and appeals to the urge to jeer at and ostracise "wrong-thinkers" will forever be more effective than reason and evidence, and numbers of people iterating in unison a certain blinkered opinion must always trump the loner's insightful alternate view.
I have had enough of it. I am ageing and need positivity in my life. My new friend is helping me to do so. He and I have chatted many more times. We spent some time together on Facebook on Christmas Day. To be worthy of his friendship, I need to cultivate and maintain a positive attitude toward life and the people who are part of that life. And these Space: 1999 fans are poison to that cultivation.
Therefore, I banish the Space: 1999 Facebook fan community from my life, from my considerations, for the hateful swill that it is. This means that from now on in this Weblog I will be addressing other subjects. There will not be as many Weblog entries as there have been in the past few years. I do have some things to say about the latest developments in the matter of Warner Archive and vintage cartoons. I propose to save those for another time.
December 30, 2018.
It is January 5, 2019. My birthday. My fifty-third birthday. I am a long way past the ages at which one is happy for one's years of age and past the age at which one starts to become reluctant to state one's age. But I am fifty-three. I cannot hide that. My autobiography gives my year of birth in its very first sentence. I was born into what would eventually be called Generation X. Worry not, my readers. Today is not a day for me to launch into that no-holds-barred verbal flaying of my generation. This is to be a happy day, and I am determined that it stay so for the full span of its twenty-four hours. My new friend reached out to me this morning on Facebook and most ethusiastically greeted me on my birthday, and I thanked him with the utmost, most heart-felt appreciation, and we chatted for an hour before I went to Pizza Delight for a free birthday lunch. It is a warm, overcast day today. High temperature is above zero, and the snow is melting.
I also do not intend to this day address the Warner Archive and vintage Warner Brothers cartoons subject. But that will come before too long. Not that what I have to say would be in any way groundbreaking.
I always enjoy it when my birthday falls on a Saturday. My most fondly remembered birthday of my childhood, that of 1974, was on a Saturday. The one on which I had a birthday party, with four friends in attendance, with my mother having prepared birthday cupcakes with candles for the celebration. Them and Coca-Cola. We all had a "sugar rush", for sure, as we played party games that afternoon and listened to Herb Alpert music off of the McCorry living room stereo. I have a handful of treasured photographs of that party, and the photographs have contributed to the retention of vivid memory of the special day's merriment. And I remember The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour that day at 6 P.M. and my most definitive, for wide-eyed impressionablity, viewing of its cartoons, "Devil May Hare", "Rushing Roulette", "Tweet and Lovely", "Piker's Peak", "The Foghorn Leghorn", "Apes of Wrath", and "Going! Going! Gosh!". It was my first memorable viewing of all of them, made all the more indelible by the accompanying feeling of effusive euphoria that I still had of a birthday celebration in my honour some hours earlier by true friends, friends being an only-child's brother surrogates and friends being a challenge for me in particular to find and to retain. I had them in Douglastown, and I left that village in 1977 with more friends than I would ever find in Fredericton in the totality of my latter childhood there.
But none of this is news to anyone who has read my autobiography. However, my outlook has changed since I wrote that autobiography fourteen years ago now. My rating of my Fredericton years, especially those of Era 4, has lowered substantially. Some "un-friendings" of me on Facebook have "let the side down" somewhat for Douglastown, also. That is sadly true. But Douglastown and Era 2 do still "come out miles ahead" of the Fredericton experiences of Era 4. I would prefer not to elaborate today, on this happy day, on why such is now the case.
Oh, yes, and I also remember my birthday being on a Saturday in 1991 and the Bugs Bunny cartoon, "Oily Hare", being first cartoon in that day's Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, "Oily Hare" having a scene with a birthday cake with dynamite candles. Somehow, my stars do cross with Bugs on some notable occasions.
And this is all that I have to say in a Weblog entry for today. One of my life's happiest birthdays, and my new friend has been of prime import in making this so. His birthday, by the way, is one week from now. Yes, we are both Capricorns. Another thing that we have in common. And I am so grateful, so very, very grateful, for that.
All for today.
The fourth Pink Panther cartoons Blu-Ray from Kino Lorber was released a couple of weeks ago, and I have it. I have watched all of the cartoons on it and listened to all of the audio commentaries. And the only thing that really "leaped out" at me was the slowing-down of "Gong With the Pink", slowing-down being the opposite of time-compression. The music sounds distinctly wrong in its tempo throughout the cartoon. The cartoon is without laugh track. Is a slowing-down the necessary "trade-off" for not having a laugh track, the only available film print lacking laugh track having a slower frame rate for some reason? Or is this just another case of Kino Lorber (or MGM) clumsily making a mess out of an audio track on a cartoon?
All right. I did say that I would comment on the matter of Warner Archive and its releases to DVD and Blu-Ray of cartoons. To be honest, I really cannot find much initiative to bother. Nobody listens to me. And I have already vented enough my frustration with the ill-fortune of the post-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons on digital videodisc media. But I will report what has been said, and comment on it. The Popeye cartoon Blu-Ray release by Warner Archive sold an impressive number of units. So much so, that future "projects" are assured. It is a very strange and sad state of affairs that the cartoons of Bugs Bunny and the other Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters that were on U.S. network television, do not shift sufficient stock on DVD or Blu-Ray as to merit further work on remastering and releasing those, but Popeye's cartoons do. What an upended world that I live in today, for this to be the case! Those future "projects" will no doubt not involve Bugs or his fellow Warner Brothers cartoon characters, but Popeye, Tom and Jerry, the Hanna-Barbera cartoon television show stable, and whatever else that Warner Brothers has attained rights to release. Warner Brothers does not appear to "give a flying flip" for Bugs Bunny anymore. Warner Brothers and/or certain individuals who have the ability to bend ears of the executives of the company. And it would seem that powers-that-be would rather put Bugs and the other vintage Warner Brothers cartoon characters permanently "out to pasture" than to promote their endurance within popular culture. And so, Popeye cartoons receive the attention of restoration, and the canned-spinach-eating, gruff-voiced sailor is the new darling of the cartoon aficionados. No one gives a damn about Bugs Bunny. To hell with him, right? Especially his post-1948 cartoons. And those of the other Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters. The future "projects" will be more Popeye. And Tom and Jerry. And Hanna-Barbera television work. Anything but Bugs Bunny. I say again, Popeye sells impressively, and Bugs Bunny does not (I mean, every DVD and Blu-Ray release of Bugs Bunny and the other Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters has had to be cancelled due to poor sales).
Suffice it to say that, by my reckoning, the success of Popeye on Blu-Ray from Warner Archive has damned Bugs Bunny. I wish that I could be proved wrong. Oh, how I wish that could be so! Time will tell. But I think that the buying public has seen the end of releases of Bugs Bunny cartoons (remastered and non-"double-dipped" cartoons) on digital videodisc media.
And I have to state that I find it difficult to sustain my interest in Bugs Bunny and the other Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters and their cartoon shorts in this environment. And in the Web pages that I have with regard to the cartoons and to their showcasing on television. My interest in the cartoons is definitely "flagging" and has been doing so for some time.
All for today, January 26, 2019.
I have broken my New Year's resolution (sigh!) and have had a look at the goings-on at the Facebook groups for Space: 1999. And what do I see? The same inane dialogue "captioning" that was legion at the groups in many weeks before January 1. Punctuated by the occasional cliched and smug sortie against Season 2. It just goes on and on and on. But such is the way with these people. Once they start doing something, they will not stop. The executive functions of these people's brains must be faulty. They evidently lack the self-awareness to judge that they have done something to excess and should quit, lest they look conspicuously like the utterly un-self-critical dolts that they are.
It was a brief lapse on my part, fuelled by a curiosity of the kind that tends to bring anguish. But I am not anguished in this case. I am just rolling my eyes and laughing sardonically at the ajbect lameness of the fans' latest unceasing and unproductive fixation. They are little more than school children "poking fun" and lacking any of the self-discipline needed to stop doing so.
I propose to leave this subject aside and to address the matter of Kino Lorber's DePatie-Freleng Blu-Rays. It has been brought to my attention that volumes three and four of the Pink Panther cartoon Blu-Rays suffer from an excess of digital noise reduction and low bitrates. I did not notice such in my initial viewing of the Blu-Rays, but now that I can see the flaws in the cartoons on them, I cannot "un-see" those flaws.
The cartoons, "The Pink Quarterback" and "Put-Put, Pink", have instances of the Pink Panther's running feet changing colour from pink to the colour of pavement or background. And the coin being chased by the panther in "The Pink Quarterback" loses its grey colour and matches the colour of background in numerous scenes. Such shoddy work! Inexcusable. Some people are insisting that Kino Lorber correct those Blu-Ray discs. Indeed the company should. But of course, it will not. Kino Lorber is skimping on bitrate and is using single-layered Blu-Ray disc for its Pink Panther cartoon releases post-second volume. Just to complete the collection as cheaply as possible. That being the case, a re-authoring of any of the Blu-Ray discs, to correctly synchronise audio with video, in the Ant and Aardvark cartoon, "Technology, Phooey", to restore the original credits music to two Inspector cartoons, and to rectify the problematic video in two (and possibly more) Pink Panther cartoons, is not going to be within question for the "bean counters" at Kino Lorber. I wish that Shout! Factory or Twilight Time and not Kino Lorber would have released the cartoons to Blu-Ray. But, alas, the facts are what they are. And I think it unlikely that there will be releases of the DePatie-Freleng cartoons to Blu-Ray in other parts of the world.
All for today, Saturday, February 16, 2019.
February 28, 2019.
It was "Hyde and Go Tweet" day again this past Saturday. Another year of February 23 falling on a Saturday, as it did that momentous Saturday back in 1974. This past Saturday, I watched "Hyde and Go Tweet" and all of the other cartoons of the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour first season instalment to which it belonged, at almost the precise time of day as my viewing of such on February 23, 1974.
I have had another look at the Facebook Space: 1999 groups. And guess what? It is still going. Yes, still. The fatuous "captioning" of pictures. And now, some of the "captions" are downright vulgar and profane. Precisely what would be expected from adolescents at a junior high school. And of course, periodic attacks on Fred Freiberger, including a slew of that beneath a birthday celebration collage of pictures of him, resorting to use of all of the usual cliches and out-and-out falsehoods, such as him producing the final season of The Wild Wild West, which is contrary to the fact that he produced the first season of such. And nobody "sets the record straight". I cannot be bothered responding to any of that tripe yet again. Expect the "captioning" to go on for the remainder of this year and thereafter. No heed paid to complaints to the effect that it is tiresome and pointless. If indeed any such complaints do surface.
All that the fans are doing is validating my assessments of them, every single one, beyond any reasonable person's possible doubt. They are half-adults (if even that). They are smug, quasi-intellectual, closed-minded, totally un-self-critical snobs in a group-gratifying "echo chamber". Motivated only by, defined only by, their blinkered, more-than-four-decades-old hatred for Fred Freiberger and Season 2. They are losers. I wear my exile of the past 24 years from their "movement" with a degree of pride.
The fifth volume of Pink Panther cartoons on Blu-Ray has been announced for April. I wonder how Kino Lorber is going to make a botch of it. Oh, probably by digital noise reduction applied incorrectly and/or badly synchronised audio and video on one or two cartoons. And low bitrate. After the Pink Panther cartoons, there is nothing more that Kino Lorber could release to Blu-Ray that I would want. So, after the final Pink Panther volume, I can desist from reaching into my wallet to give patronage to that company. Unless, of course, Kino Lorber makes a deal with Warner Brothers to "licence out" the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons. I think that I can safely say that there will be ice skating in hell before that would happen. Yes, even in these crazy times in which we are living.
Canada's leader is now embroiled in a scandal that some of my more optimistic fellow countrymen of non-political-Left inclination say will be the end of him as Prime Minister. I wish I could say that I share that optimism. But the anointed one with "dreamy" hair and dynastic surname has the mainstream media on his side, no matter what happens. And far too many of my fellow Canadians believe everything that the mainstream media says and have a fixation on the Trudeau family's supposed charisma. And they also lean to the political Left and will turn a blind eye to any and all corruption cogently indicated to exist in the Liberal Party of Canada. Because all conservatives are knuckle-dragging monsters, by their reckoning. Thoroughly evil for wanting to preserve traditions of Canada of generations past and to be fiscally responsible and prudent with regard to public safety. I fear for my country's future.
March 16, 2019.
Chris Dale has been busy again with a new YouTube video on Space: 1999. Apparently, he has "taken some time off" from that five-worst-episodes-of-Season-1 masterwork that he had pledged (sure!) a couple of years ago to make, to produce a YouTube video on the ten scariest moments of Space: 1999. A video that is called, aptly enough, "Space 1999's Top 10 Scariest Moments". Well, apt apart from the missing colon.
Here is the Hyperlink to it.
"Space 1999's Top 10 Scariest Moments"
My opinion on it?
An excellent job of editing and overall video and audio presentation, technically.
Is that all? No.
Actually, many "well-taken" observations, impressions, and statements are to be found in the video. Yes, Mr. Dale is correct about Season 1's capacity for frightening, unnerving, or disturbing the audience, and not in quick "shocks", but in built-up and protracted situations of sheer horror. Often body horror. Every commendation that he gives to Season 1's episodes (and even one Season 2 episode) for effectively scaring or unsettling the audience, is quite astutely conceived and quite articulately worded. It would be an excellent video, earning top marks from me, if he had not opted for "snarky", disparaging, and in one case even scatological, remarks by times, reserving most of them for his one concession to Season 2 in his listing. Remarks that would be quite abjectly befitting of the cockily irreverent and vulgar fans on the Space: 1999 Facebook groups who, yes, are still persisting with the inane "captioning".
There was a very apparent predilection for ceding to horror in the conceptualising and depicting of a number of the first season's episodes. There can be no question of that. But only "Dragon's Domain" and "The Troubled Spirit" and the ending of the fourth act of "Death's Other Dominion" really scared me. "Force of Life" did not frighten or even unsettle me. "Earthbound" had no effect of either of such nature. "Breakaway", definitely not. "Alpha Child", certainly not. "The Metamorph" of Season 2 did unsettle me. And some of the other early episodes of Season 2 had that effect.
But is horror objectively, qualitatively, in and of itself, better than, say, "space opera"? Is it any more meaningful or artistic? Not necessarily. They are different formulae for portraying otherworldly encounters. But nuance and symbolism can exist in either one, intentional or no.
I have nothing more of substance to say as regards Mr. Dale's video. I do wish that more videos like them could be made, but without the interjecting of glibly deprecating comment in some laboured effort to appear to be ever so developmentally above the material being discussed, or in pandering to persons of that bearing, or in just trying to be sardonically funny.
March 23, 2019.
I have done an update to most of my Televised Looney Tunes Web pages, to remove the hyphen between the words, million and hare, in all listing of and reference to "The Million Hare". I have also added an image of downtown Newcastle to my Era 2 memoirs.
This weekend, the weather is going to be rather less than pleasant, and I will be indoors and watching my arrived-in-my-mailbox-yesterday Doctor Who- Season 18 Blu-Rays. Already, errors have been reported on two of the Blu-Ray discs. Yes, here we go again.
This year, I am looking forward to a new Blu-Ray release of the movie, Earthquake, by Shout! Factory, with a never-before-released-on-home-video television iteration of the movie, along with the theatrical version. That Blu-Ray release is scheduled for the spring.
Yes, yes, yes. I would be remiss not to mention that still the Facebook Space: 1999 groups are almost nothing but inane "captioning". For how many months now has this been the case? A ridiculous number of months. I have lost count of the precise number, but it has to be at least four.
And oh, yes. It is punctuated by the occasional "let's-all-rag-on-Season-2-again" discussion "thread". Of course. Beneath all of the fatuous and often vulgar jocularity in "captioning", the defining essence and modus operandi of the fan movement, the incessant suppression of insights about Season 2 and the "echo-chambered" avowals of hatred for the second season and its producer, must persist. And will do so until the last person who remembers Space: 1999 has departed his or her mortal bonds.
And there is the continued obsession with the episode, "Earthbound".
Nothing more to see here on this time-worn subject. Shall I "move on"?
Word is that Warner Home Video was so careless and sloppy with the STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD releases, that the 1979 Bugs Bunny and Tasmanian Devil cartoon, "Fright Before Christmas", was put on the Tasmanian Devil DVD in this range, without the titles that had been made for it as an individual cartoon, and instead placed on the DVD with a Bugs Bunny Looney Christmas Tales segue to it, and then the end credits for that television special. The people at Warner Brothers did not even have sufficient interest in the content of the DVD to "rustle up" the constructed individual cartoon form of "Fright Before Christmas" (that was on the VHS videotape of STARS OF SPACE JAM: THE TASMANIAN DEVIL and was on LOONEY TUNES PLATINUM COLLECTION 1). Sheer carelessness rooted in indifference. Dark times indeed for Bugs and the other Warner Brothers cartoon characters. I have no hope for their future in the home video market.
Ah, but the cartoon aficionados have their Popeye Blu-Ray. With more Popeye to come. Popeye is ever so much more important than Bugs Bunny. Oh, of course.
On a much, much, much happier note, I had an afternoon of Facebook Messenger chatting with my young Vietnamese friend. It was like having a conversation in person. We chatted today about movies and about religious beliefs, those of Buddhism and Christianity. We have chatted about a great many subjects these past few months. Like myself, he is an aficionado of science fiction/fantasy and imaginative entertainment. Super-hero science fiction/fantasy and space exploration science fiction/fantasy. We have discussed Spiderman, Star Trek, and Star Wars.
All for today.
Shout! Factory has announced a Blu-Ray box set (and a DVD box set for people declining to upgrade to Blu-Ray) of Space: 1999. Both seasons thereof. Plus bonus features, a booklet, and a limited edition snow globe (with the Blu-Ray box set). Release date is July 16 of this year.
I knew about this release back in January and gave an oath of secrecy about it to one of the producers of the box sets until such time as Shout! Factory made the official announcement. I was in communication with one of the producers who approached me about using some of the content of my Space: 1999 Web page in the Blu-Ray box set. I agreed to the use of that content, and will receive in return a mention of my Website in the booklet. At least, this was what was planned in January. The producers of the box sets may opt not to include the content from my Web page. I am fairly confident, however, that the plans of January will proceed.
I do not know anything more about this release that has not yet been officially revealed. I am hoping that it will be the definitive Blu-Ray release, with all of the bonus features of the Network Distributing Blu-Rays plus "Message From Moonbase Alpha" and other A & E DVD bonus material not available on Network's Blu-Ray box sets. I am sure that Shout! Factory will do its best to acquire everything, for Shout! likes to be thorough, as Blu-Ray releases of other productions have indicated.
The packaging of the Shout! Blu-Ray box set is superior to A & E's past efforts in regards to packaging for DVD sets, in that the proper Space: 1999 logo is used and there does not appear to be any awkward mixing of colour pictures of television series characters against black-and-white backgrounds. But it is still rather bland. And I cannot say that I approve of the "Year 1" and "Year 2" terminology being used on the Blu-Ray and DVD discs to designate the two seasons. "Year 2" has come to be a pejorative in and of itself, flung at anything and everything second season in the incessant efforts of the first season "camp" to debase it, demoralise its admirers, and poison the well of intelligent discourse. I always cringe at the sound of it or the appearance of it. And the terminology is meaningless in the context of the timeline of the television show, for the second season chronology is several years' long. It was utilised by ITC executives back in the months of the second season's production and initial distribution. And the fans have since used it to excess, eschewing the more commonly accepted wording for two-television-season television programmes that is Season 1 and Season 2 (for North America) and Series 1 and Series 2 (for the U.K.).
I hope that the menus across all thirteen discs have a consistent layout. And with no spelling mistakes. Fonts that are aesthetically in accordance with those used in the television series. And I certainly hope that audio and video quality of the episodes is at least as impressive as that on the Network Distributing Blu-Rays. 5.1 audio is a must. I would like to discover there to have been some effort to ameliorate the "warbly" audio of some mid-Season-2 episodes and eliminate the traces of music from start of "The Exiles" from the first post-theme-music second of several episodes. But that may be too much to ask. At the very least, I want the episodes looking and sounding the same.
And of course. Of course, of course, of course. The reaction to news of this? "We want UFO! We want UFO! We want UFO! Who cares about Space: 1999?" Such is what is on Shout! Factory's own Facebook Web page. And a surge in anti-Season 2 sorties at the Space: 1999 Facebook groups, on discussion forums, et cetera. No rejoicing about Space: 1999's good fortune. No putting aside forty-three-year-old hatreds for celebrating the positive development for the television series as whole. No good will enough for people who can at last have Season 2 on coded-to-Region A Blu-Ray, to allow them to celebrate this development without a mean-spirited tarnishing of their good day. No. Just the same old bull's excrement from a thoroughly hateful group of people. Fred Freiberger is "the serial killer". Season 2 is a waste of film. All denigration and (from persons half-heartedly defending Season 2 against the hateful mob) disparaging refrains. And mixed with the ongoing "captioning" of screen captures foolery. How utterly and abjectly predictable! The fans are not deserving of this Blu-Ray release. Certainly not.
I will provide further information on the Blu-Ray and DVD box sets as it becomes available.
Saturday, April 13, 2019.
Further on the Shout! Factory Space: 1999 Blu-Ray release.
Rumours are that the episodes have had a further remastering, beyond what Network Distributing offered in 2010 and 2015. This is quite exciting, for it raises hope that the "warbly" audio on certain Season 2 episodes may have been corrected. I know that Shout! Factory does look at my Website, and in this Weblog I was quite thorough in my assessments of the audio quality of the episodes. It is quite possible that my issues with the audio quality have been addressed by the powers-that-be at Shout! and by Network.
This is an out-of-left-field development, if true. Someone by the name of Anthony Taylor is rumoured to be doing audio commentaries for some of the episodes. The name carried no significance to me when I saw it. So, I investigated further. His Facebook profile says that he is Licensing and Brand Manager at the Bram Stoker Estate, Commander at Shadow Arts Inc., and Great Chieftain of the Pudding at Heyday Productions, and that he studied at Art Institute of Atlanta and at Mr. Peabody's School for the Extremely Clever. On his Facebook Timeline is a picture of Santa Claus painting a Space: 1999 Eagle. And a photograph of him standing in front of poster art for 2001: A Space Odyssey. And an image of the surface of Altair IV in Forbidden Planet. What insights might I derive from this? Obviously, he has an interest in Space: 1999 and likes some works of cinema science fiction, has something of an artistic background, and appears to be an aficionado of the horror genre. I would guess that if he has been commissioned to do audio commentaries for Space: 1999, it would be for episodes of Season 1. I am going to reserve judgement on his bearing as regards Season 2. For now. But what is worrisome at this juncture is that Shout! Factory may be going to him for audio commentaries when commentaries by the late Gerry Anderson already exist for "Breakaway" and "Dragon's Domain". Was Shout! unable to acquire those? What might this mean for a "porting over" of the other Network extra features? Is the Shout! Factory release going to be without all of the Network bonus features?
Time will tell. I expect further information about bonus features and distribution of the episodes on the Blu-Ray discs will be forthcoming in the next few weeks. For the time being, there are hopes, and there are anxieties. I would so very much like for this to be the definitive release of Space: 1999 to Blu-Ray, and I am hoping so with all of my heart, but such may not be the case. Network may be asking too much money for its bonus features.
Sunday, April 21, 2019.
This past week, I joined a Facebook group called Fulton Heights Nashwaaksis on the possibility that there may be some old pictures of my post-1977 habitat available to members of that group. There were none to be found. Just Baby Boomer school and sports photographs from years before 1977. And, oh, yes, a delightful little "thread" of gossip about little old me after someone posted a Hyperlink to my Era 3 memoirs to the group. Gossip between people who knew me in junior high school. And nothing has changed at all in the past forty years. These people still label and deride persons who march to the beat of a different drum. Or at least me. I am remembered as that "eccentric, little guy" who, it is alleged, wore a Star Trek shirt every day to school. A Star Trek shirt on my back every day at school? Of course, that is not true. I only had one Star Trek shirt when I was in Nashwaaksis Junior High School. A red one (no "redshirt" jokes, please). I had a Captain Kirk one with short sleeves in summer of 1982, after Grade 10. My mother would never allow me to wear that same red Star Trek shirt five days in a row. I wore a Star Trek shirt occasionally at school. Maybe once or twice a month. And why should that be any less acceptable than dressing like the Fonz, acting like John Travolta's character in Welcome Back, Kotter, mimicking the learning-is-bad attitudes of school drop-out "burn-outs", refusing to wear a tuque or hood in cold weather, and obsessing over reefer, rock and roll music, and fights during hockey games, and ridiculing people who like fiction depicting a future in which man has broadened his perspectives and reached the stars?
And oh, yes. Someone says that I clearly have an unhealthy love for Space: 1999. Unhealthy? Unhealthy?! Maybe. Yes, maybe. Unhealthy in as much as it put me in contact with a despicably conceited, "echo-chambered" group of loutish, incessantly hating people. But in the context of my childhood, it was not unhealthy. It brought to me friendship in Douglastown. It gave to me something to which to look forward in my lonely first weeks and months in Fredericton. And so on. But of course, it would be branded unfavourably by these people, as it was sneered-at back in post-September-of-1977, 1978, 1979 by snide Frederictonians whose company I was forced to endure at school. The peers that I had have not adjusted their attitude toward imaginative, outer-space-situated entertainment one iota over the decades. Not even in response to "nerd culture" gaining a certain distinction of "coolness" in the Zeitgeist of today. They remain steadfastly adherent to a carrying of the torch of "burn-out" "culture". And think that they are so "cool", so very "cool", in looking down their noses at the "little guy" who liked the "space stuff". Quite typical of Generation Xers, really, the apathetic, imagination-poor nothings that these people are. It is no wonder that man has not progressed in expanding his horizons after the Moon landings, with people like them in charge of setting priorities for our society.
My enemy of my neighbourhood of those and later years, also contributed to the discussion, scoffing at me for considering him to be an enemy. Oh, no. I was just so wrong, so very wrong, to think him so. He just cackled with his friends after I fell on the street when a Frisbee being used as home plate in a baseball game slid under my feet. He just routinely "bad-mouthed" me to my associates and friends. And with his drunken buddies egged my house and aggravated my father with heart disease into a confrontation with them, in which they back-talked my father like the insolent delinquents that they were.
Going onto the Facebook Web page of this group is a most unwelcome reliving of bad old days of junior high school. I am not edified by it, needless to say. And I will be leaving the group. Just as I kept my distance from my coarse peers at Fredericton schools in the late 1970s. Nothing ever changes, when it comes to people and their attitudes. Or if anything does change, it is for the worse, as is the case for the fans of Space: 1999.
Yes. The assaulting of Season 2 of Space: 1999 at the Facebook groups has intensified now that Forces Television in the U.K. is inexplicably giving Space: 1999 a run on television. The antipathy, the disdainful sniggers and arrogantly cocksure guffaws, the unrelenting hostility is worse than ever. Why in God's name is a television station of today running such an out-of-date television programme as Space: 1999? I mean, really! Situations and events in it are an imagining of a future in a year that is now two decades in the past. For the general public and even for the wider community of science fiction aficionados, Space: 1999 should be as passe as the year in its title. Why continue to keep it in the public eye? As a currently telecast property? The answer would appear to be obvious. So that the second season can be laughed-at, ridiculed, jeered-at, its concepts and depictions slurred by person after person after person every single day. To keep the daily sorties against it ongoing in concentrated fury. It cannot be permitted to pass into the ether. It and its producer have to be pilloried and "made fun of" daily. In perpetuity. So that nobody dares to look at it aesthetically.
Everything about it is attacked. I mean, everything. Barbara Bain in the main title sequence. The skirts on the female Alphan uniform. The mathematical formulae on an an alien derelict spaceship's view screen. The helmet and moustache of an alien. And why be truthful when a lie totally uncontested can be put forth as truth? Oh, yes. Helena does not wear surgical gloves when operating on Michelle Osgood in "Catacombs of the Moon". That is what is being said. When in fact, she is wearing something on her hands. Something snugly fitting and see-through but clearly evident at her fingernails and fingertips. But nobody "sets the record straight", and the lie is accepted as truth. If it may be touted as giving substance (fake substance) to the group's biases and feelings, that is all that matters. Welcome to "Clown World", my readers.
Why, oh, why, is Shout! Factory releasing this ever so hated season of a television series on Blu-Ray? It has no fandom. Nobody "stands up" for it and "calls out" the liars.
This is enough ranting for today, I think.
Oh, yes. Warner Archive will be releasing more Popeye to Blu-Ray and nothing for Bugs Bunny. Surprise. Surprise. I thought that I would "get that in" too, before bringing this Weblog entry to a close.
Sunday, April 28, 2019.
Sunday, May 5, 2019.
There has been no announcement yet as to the bonus features on the Shout! Factory Space: 1999 Blu-Ray box set. The delay is concerning, because if Shout! Factory has access to Network Distributing's value-added material along with the remastered episodes, would not that material have been declared by this time? Time will tell. Hopefully, not much more time.
Yes, yes, yes. The animus toward Season 2 continues to increase on Facebook. Of course. An imminent release of it to Blu-Ray in North America has to be met with this. No way must anyone be allowed to view Season 2 with a favourable eye. There has to be a thick fog of besmirching negativity surrounding it, especially at times when it is receiving any renewed attention in the arena of the public taste. God damn it! I am so sick and tired of all of this! Any level-headed person should be. It is 43 years since Season 2 was made. 43 years!!!!!!
I am going to respond to one criticism directed against Season 2 episodes in which Eagle refuelling is of concern to characters, those episodes being "The Rules of Luton" and "Space Warp". The assertion is that because there is no drag in space, an Eagle should only have to accelerate to maximum speed and then coast through space with the engines turned off, with no further fuel expenditure. And that being the case, refuelling need not be a matter of any urgency. Of course, someone makes the haughty pronouncement that the episodes are Season 2 and lack of scientific consideration is to be expected.
My response is that it is not explicitly established through dialogue in Space: 1999 exactly how Eagles fly through space. Constant adjustments of speed and direction may be needed in computer-guided flight to compensate for random gravitational influences or to avoid potentially damaging space flak. Adjustments requiring a consistent alternating of forward and retro rockets and a steady "burn" of fuel for such. There's also the power needed for the electronics on the Eagle to function, to maintain the flight systems and the Eagle computer, requiring some rather considerable additional amounts of fuel "burn". And what about the life-support system, the oxygen recycling system, artificial gravity, et cetera.? All of this must be factored into what amounts of Eagle fuel are needed for prolonged Eagle use. So, if it is said that an Eagle has fuel for a million miles or less, the fuel expenditure formula must have all of this "factored in" in order to make the fuel-for-distance determination. Ah, but it is so much easier to "fire off" a "potshot" at Season 2 without thought to all of the particulars of the stated concern in an episode.
One could counter this criticism by asking why it is necessary for the Voyager One in "Voyager's Return" in Season 1 to have its Queller Drive engine constantly spewing fast neutrons into space as it moves about the cosmos. Would the Voyager not be able to accelerate to its maximum speed and then coast with its engine turned off, per the argument of the attacker of "The Rules of Luton" and "Space Warp"? It may require course adjustments, too, to compensate for random gravity pull, and its electronics require power, of course. I know this. I am just saying that these people are selective in how they employ their propensity for unending cavilling. Why attack the Season 2 episodes on this dubious point of contention and leave "Voyager's Return" alone?
"Economy of detail" and suspension of disbelief and the leaving of some technicalities to a viewer's imagination just cannot be permitted for Season 2, can it? Not by these people's reckoning. Because Fred Freiberger ruined their childhoods. Or whatever. How long has Fred Freiberger been dead now? 16 years. And still he cannot rest in peace.
Tuesday, May 7, 2019.
All that I have to constitute today's Weblog entry is a promotional advertisement for CBC Television for the 1972-3 television season, with The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour receiving mention and a somewhat less than accurate depiction. Here is that advertisement.
No news on the subject of Space: 1999. Other than the usual bile flung at Season 2. As soon as I have news about the Shout! Factory Blu-Ray release, I will provide it here.
It is May 18, 2019. The high temperature this past Wednesday in the Fredericton area was plus four degrees Celsius. I have not looked at the temperatures for other places in Canada, in Europe, or in Asia, but I have a suspicion that this was the lowest temperature for the latitude on which Fredericton lies, across the latitude around the world. The weather here has been consistently colder than what used to be normal, ever since early October. And there is no sign of any change. It would appear that the new normal for Fredericton and the whole of New Brunswick is six months of winter and six months of November. Who wants that? I certainly do not. The body needs Vitamin D from the Sun. The mind needs respite from cold and dreary weather to stay positive.
I have no news whatsoever about Shout! Factory's Blu-Ray release for Space: 1999. I am, however, feeling very despondent and irritable of late about the attitudes of fans. And the legion antipathy and outright hatred for the second season on all platforms on the Internet. So, what else is new, right?
Honestly, I have not seen anything, any other production, "come in" for such interminable and venomous contempt as what Season 2 of Space: 1999 receives. Every single day, one person after another attacking it. Nary a single refutation of any of the patently ignorant sorties against it, sorties of the most superficial of gripes, or stemming from the most abject refusals to grant any amount of suspension of disbelief, dramatic necessity, or "economy of detail". And it is just going to become worse and worse and worse.
Is Season 1 really so good, really so flawless, really so much the masterpiece as to warrant this incessant hostility toward the second season? I mean, really?
I propose to have another look at the vaunted Season 1 finale, "The Testament of Arkadia", for flaws. Why not? I am in the mood for it. Provoked as I am by the latest smug sorties against Season 2 on Facebook. I know that I have expounded before on what is wrong in "The Testament of Arkadia". But I was not quite as thorough as I will be here.
The man-in-the-Moon side of the Moon is shown, from a viewpoint in space, to be facing away from Arkadia and yet in a daytime scene on the surface of Arkadia, that same side of the Moon is clearly visible in the sky. Even though the Moon is said to have "stopped dead" (with the precise interpretation of such phraseology being not moving at all, i.e. not rotating). How is this possible?
The Moon's distance from Arkadia is shown, per two depictions at widely divergent parts of the episode (in the prologue and at start of the fourth act), to be constant, with the Moon said to be "stopped dead". Is Arkadia also not moving? Is it "stopped dead", too? Is it not orbiting its sun? If it is orbiting its sun and the Moon's position relative to it is constant (as is shown), then the Moon cannot really be said to be "stopped dead". It would have to be moving with Arkadia while Arkadia orbits Arkadia's sun.
30 hours round-trip to Arkadia for the reconnaissance mission. A ridiculously long time considering how fast Eagles reach planets in other episodes (of either season). Especially as the Moon appears to be rather close to Arkadia before it "stops dead" and is seen as quite large and clearly visible in Arkadia's daytime sky. Is the power loss affecting the Eagles too? Slowing them down? Such is not said. It might explain the slow travel time. And it would also explain why Eagle power units are not being removed from the Eagles and used to boost the power levels on Alpha. But there is no mention of this.
Koenig asks for two people with the "widest possible experience" to "round out" the reconnaissance team. Why Luke Ferro? A man with an antiquated film camera? What other experience does he have? He does not have much in the way of extensive experience with reconnoitring alien planets because he has not been to any, or at least has not been shown to be, in any previous episodes. Well, apart from Piri. Every Alphan was on that one.
One man and one woman (Luke and Anna) having sufficient genetic diversity to repopulate a planet? Very unlikely.
Morrow says that, "Travel Tube facilities throughout Alpha will cease. Effective immediately." Yet, later, Koenig's party, on landing on Alpha, use a Travel Tube to go from their Eagle to an Alpha section. "Plot hole". "Plot hole". Of course, Morrow likely allocated power to that Travel Tube for Koenig and company to use it. But this is not shown. And of course, by the reckoning of the fans, if a change of conditions is not shown being "called for", it is a "plot hole".
When Koenig, Bergman, and Carter try to reason with Ferro at the hatch to Ferro's Eagle, where are they standing? There is no Travel Tube behind them. Just a corridor wall and a regular Alpha room door. Exterior view shows a Travel Tube attaching to Ferro's Eagle on a launch pad. Interior view does not accord with that. And furthermore, the Travel Tube in exterior view connects with the port side of the Eagle, but Koenig and company meet Ferro, Davis, and Helena at the starboard hatch.
Helena reports to Koenig that with a permanent fifty percent power loss, Alpha could survive, albeit with difficulty. But earlier, Mathias hollers to Morrow that people cannot survive in temperatures on Alpha near to the fifty percent loss of power and that if Morrow does not give him more heat, he, "...might as well shoot (Mathias') patients." Mathias might have been exaggerating, of course. But the fans would declare such an allowance inadmissible for Season 2. Statements such as these would be harshly judged as inconsistency. There is shouting in that Mathias and Morrow scene, too. Are not shouting characters grounds for criticism, per the fans' carping over Koenig yelling in Season 2?
See? If one looks for things to complain about, one will find them in anything. Avengers: Endgame (which I saw last weekend at the Fredericton Cineplex), a huge box office success, is being found to have numerous "plot holes". And I have called attention to what might be said to be "plot holes" in Star Trek II- The Wrath of Khan and The Empire Strikes Back.
And in "Black Sun" of Space: 1999- Season 1, why should Koenig expect that the "survival ship" (with Helena, Carter, and others aboard it) would be able to escape the gravity pull of the black sun when Mike Ryan's Eagle did not? The Moon from which the "survival ship" launches is closer to the black sun than Ryan's Eagle evidently was before it was caught in the collapsar's gravitational forces, was distorted, and then destroyed. Ryan's death was a result of Bergman not sharing suspicions with Koenig as to the space object being a black sun. Koenig should be angry at Bergman for not being promptly forthcoming with his suspicions. A man has died. Further, why does Bergman not contact Koenig by commlock when his calculations on the object being a black sun are definite? Why waste time by running to Main Mission to deliver his news? That time could have made a difference in saving Ryan's life. And why do the Alphans not immediately recognise the black sun for being what it is? It looks like one. It acts like one (with its effect on an asteroid). They are supposed to be knowledgeable scientists. And the existence of black suns has been accepted as far back in the past as 1997 (when Koenig references black suns to Commissioner Dixon in "Dragon's Domain").
Bergman's force field covering Alpha should be judged as having no chance of preserving Moonbase if the entire Moon is obliterated as Ryan's Eagle was.
Koenig and Bergman have a surrealistic experience in which they think that they have communed with a deity. Does everyone on Alpha have the same experience? Morrow says that going through the black sun was "fantastic". But nothing more is said about the perspectives of Alphans other than Koenig and Bergman during passage through the black sun. Is this not unsatisfying? The Alphans on the "survival ship" who are somehow transferred to the other "side" of the black sun. What do they experience? A meeting with a deity?
I am going to say it. Why not? I, my good will for the "Mysterious Unknown Force" and its crowd now utterly depleted, now am of the opinion that Koenig and Bergman have a phantasmagorical hallucination. Caused by the brandy that they were drinking and the mind-distorting effects of being so close to the collapsar and the fact that they earlier were talking about interventions by a "cosmic intelligence". And other Alphans experience different hallucinations. I now think that the Moon actually enters into a space warp in close proximity to the black sun's "surface" mass, and it is the space warp that transports Alpha to a distant galaxy. And that space warp has a "fold" effect, "looping back" with eddys in the black sun's vicinity, with the "survival ship" slipping into one of those eddys and being moved to almost exactly where the Moon is displaced. There is no divine intervention. The Alphans were lucky that the Moon's trajectory did not carry it into the destructive sector of space in which Ryan's Eagle and the asteroid met their doom. This is what I think. Now. Today. And as for the mysterious force operating in "The Testament of Arkadia", that is the "indefinable" intelligence existing on the planet that is alluded-to by Koenig in his narration. Something residing on, specific to, the planet. Desiring re-population and to that end guiding Alpha to the planet. It has no association with "Black Sun" and the purported meeting with a deity in that. And as for Arra in "Collision Course", her people may simply have an ability for prescience. They foresaw that a wandering alien moon would someday touch their planet and move them up an evolutionary ladder, and a religion of a sort sprung from such, with talk of destinies, preordination, and so forth. Her people's interpretation of a foreseen event. Arra may also have foreseen Alpha's experience with planet Arkadia, and from that came her talk of Alpha populating the deepest reaches of space. Along with some mumbo-jumbo about an odyssey knowing no end.
"Black Sun" and "The Testament of Arkadia" are touted as perfect and used as brickbats against Season 2, but they are not perfect. I would also state that the special effects of the asteroid and Ryan's Eagle being destroyed in the gravitational forces of the black sun, using two-dimensional "cut-outs", are laughable. Some of the worst visual effects in the entire television series. I have much fondness and affection for "Black Sun". But I have to say that such fondness and affection is to the largest degree nostalgic. Not philosophical. Not religious. To some extent aesthetic, as I like the look of the black sun. But the black sun depictions are not my favourite visualisations of the television series. The sights of Arkadia and the "library music" used to accompany scenes on Arkadia account for most of my aesthetic appreciation of "The Testament of Arkadia". I am not fanatically adherent to some pseudo-religious, first-season-"arcing" analysis of its events applied to what is perceived to have happened in "Black Sun". The fans are "Mysterious Unknown Force" fanatics. I am not. I never really have been. I would say that the "Mysterious Unknown Force" is as irrelevant to my enjoyment and appreciation of Space: 1999 today as it was in 1976, 1977, and 1978 during the CBC full-network run. And if most fans of Space: 1999 were to be honest, they would admit that the "Mysterious Unknown Force" was not a factor in their ardour for watching "the show" in its first year on television.
Examining an episode for flaws is a practice that I do not relish. But I am sick, sick, sick and tired of reading that such and such a person cannot "get into" Season 2 because of all of the "plot holes" and happily denies that anything could possibly be wrong with the writing for Season 1. Or signals attention to "bloopers". Or inconsistencies. Or whatever. While Season 1 is touted as error-free. In one of our earliest conversations, Dean said to me that there are just as many "lapses" in Season 1 as there are in Season 2. "Plot holes", "bloopers", things that could be said to be contradictory. Whatever. And even back then, the idea of "bloopers at ten paces" seemed to be an unproductive, foolish, and unbecoming activity for purported aficionados of Space: 1999. But it persisted from the "Year 1" "camp", eventually provoking me into that inflammatory mid-1990s column in that newsletter.
The thing is, even if these fans will acknowledge that all was not perfect with their precious "Year 1", even if they will concede that "plot holes" and "bloopers" may exist in the episodes that they tout most vociferously to be Space: 1999's chef d'oeuvre, they will say that they do not matter. Because art. Because "Mysterious Unknown Force". Because "arc". Because science fiction/horror in a handful of episodes. All right. Fair enough. But the "lapses" in Season 2 should also be excused if Season 2 can be shown to have aesthetically interesting story material and artistic flourishes of its own. They refuse to accept any argument for such because Brian the Brain's voice, because "talking plants", because monsters. Even though there is quite an amount of subjectivity in judging any of these to be dubious hallmarks of "bad" science fiction. Brian's voice and glib way of speaking may not be to a person's liking, but it is an amusing affectation. And a superficiality. And if truth be told, my mother laughed disparagingly when she heard Gwent crying in Season 1's "The Infernal Machine". She thought that to be "over-the-top". She said nothing disapproving of "Brian the Brain". Not that my mother was necessarily an authority, an expert, on quality science fiction, mind. But what constitutes a science fiction expert, anyway? What makes these fans experts? What, indeed! Certainly not their immaturity. Isaac Asimov might be said to have been an authority on science fiction, and he hated Space: 1999, and its first season episodes most specifically. If monsters are incontrovertibly "bad", the Cantina scene in Star Wars should be universally "panned", the bounty hunters scene in The Empire Strikes Back should be derided as groan-inducing, "Arena" should be routinely judged to be among Star Trek's less esteemed episodes, and Doctor Who stories like "Doctor Who and the Silurians" and "The Sea Devils" should be lambasted as being awful. Ah, but such is not the case. Space: 1999 is accosted for its use of monsters, but not any of its fellow opuses of the imagination. People malign "The Rules of Luton" and compare it to the ridiculous "The Great Vegetable Rebellion" of Lost in Space (with rather chubby Stanley Adams in a carrot costume) and not to Doctor Who's acclaimed "The Seeds of Doom" (in which plants on Earth start killing people as the plants on Luton are inclined to do, and an alien vegetable creature is intelligent and uncannily communicative, as are the Luton trees, the Judges of Luton). Why? And "The Rules of Luton" should be more believable than "The Seeds of Doom" because it transpires on an alien planet, not on Earth, with the plants doing the killing being alien in nature. I have dealt with so many of the routine attacks upon Season 2 of Space: 1999 already, and I am not interested in saying much more on this subject today. Only that the fans are a perpetual disservice to their television show. A blight upon it. Provoking me into doing something I am not wont to do. Attacking Season 1. Their "echo-chambered", group-think, venomously cocksure attitude does not stand their preferred season in good stead. And they are the enemy to half of the episodes of Space: 1999. For forty-three years and counting.
The Shout! Factory Blu-Ray set of Earthquake arrived on Wednesday, and I have watched both of the Blu-Ray discs. The theatrical version of the movie has never looked better than it does in this Blu-Ray release. Vibrant colours and very vivid detail showcasing the sumptuous production values of the movie. It is gratifying to also have the television version, which was what I had on audiotape in 1980 and 1981, though I do wish that it was presented as one movie and not split into two parts. The bonus features are all very gratifying to view, with rare positive comment on the movie.
One of these days, I will put forth some curious observations on Earthquake, for example the interesting connection between Remy Graff being agitated, indignant, or furious and the start not long thereafter of one of the earthquakes. Indeed, the overall movie begins with Remy Graff bellowing, "God damn it!". And the "big one" strikes Los Angeles after Stewart tells Remy that he has cheated on her, and she is more enraged, with an immediate provocation, than she is at any other time in the movie.
One of these days.
May 28, 2019.
Still no news about the bonus features for the Shout! Factory Space: 1999 Blu-Ray box set.
I propose to comment further on the "cult" of the "Mysterious Unknown Force" that is the Space: 1999 fan movement.
Yes, I said that the "Mysterious Unknown Force", as a mooted "arc" of the first Space: 1999 season, is irrelevant to my appreciation of Space: 1999, both seasons thereof. To be sure, I have no nostalgia for it because in my first viewings of the television show in the 1970s, I was not aware of it. Neither were my parents or any of my friends. We all regarded Space: 1999 as a space adventure television series. Not some pseudo-religious opus. And I found Space: 1999 aesthetically fascinating because of its hardware, its visualisations, the readily discernible fundamental concepts of its individual episodes, and some nuances to what was in Season 2 (its early episodes, most especially).
The novelisations were not indicative of a "Mysterious Unknown Force" "arc". They "treated" the episodes as space adventures, with some thematic "thread" weaved through some of them without invoking intervention by deity. There was some mention of a "mystic streak permeating many episodes" in a letter printed in The Making of Space: 1999, it being disapproved-of by the letter writer as "offencive". But "mystic streak" need not be absolutely denoting of a deity's existence or influence. It could be interpreted as referring to the occult, the paranormal. And there was no specificity in the reference to "mystic streak", as regards episodes, scenes, or possible associations between certain episodes.
Even after I was made aware of the "Mysterious Unknown Force", in my viewings of Space: 1999 in the 1980s, I did not ponder on the breadth of the idea in Season 1's twenty-four episodes. I gave scarcely any thought to it at all. I immersed myself in the space-adventure way of regarding Space: 1999 and delighted in at last having Space: 1999 on videotape. Season 1 episodes. Season 2 episodes. I was at peace with the differences between the seasons, and I had a tremendous feeling of gratification at the acquisition of another episode of either season.
Now, having stated its irrelevance to my experience, I have to acknowledge that the "Mysterious Unknown Force" does exist. At least as an observable, potential "thread" connecting a number of first season episodes. But the fans, in being so resolutely and arrogantly obnoxious in espousing it, branding the second season as comparable to fecal matter, labelling people who see merit in Season 2 as mentally ill, garbage humans, misrepresenting Season 2 constantly with wilfully misconstrued interpretation or outright fabrication, and reviling or "making fun" of the deceased producer of Season 2 in perpetuity, have contaminated the well of discourse. This is how fans, imbued with "Mysterious Unknown Force" awareness, fixation, and worship, blinkeredly and hatefully conduct themselves. Daily. I can find in me now no good will for them and their pseudo-religion. If they want religion, they should go to church, embrace a real religion, and do some good in the world, instead of incessantly typing venomous sorties against the Space: 1999 season that they unfairly hate. A season of a television series produced more than forty years ago.
There are ways of looking at what happens in those vaunted Season 1 masterworks, that do not necessarily tie those episodes together in one, tidy pseudo-religious "arc". And that make a transition into Season 2 rather an amenable proposition. There need not be an uncrossable chasm between the two seasons. And much as the fans may try to brand Season 2 as non-canon, a bastardised "remake" that should be apart from genuine Space: 1999, I will say emphatically that the two seasons aired on television in the United States and parts of Canada in consecutive television seasons (1975-6 and 1976-7), as is the norm for continuing television series. They were subsequently distributed in syndication as one package of 48 episodes (and for a time only 40 episodes, with eight episodes, four from each season, removed from the package). They both bear the same style of receding typeface in their logo. And they both use the same font in their episode titling. They have the same setting, Moonbase Alpha, adrift in space, and the same spacecraft, the Eagles, and the same two leading characters (and some same supporting characters), and the same motivation for the people of Alpha, that of continued survival in a hostile universe ("hostile" being the word used by Koenig in a highly regarded first season episode). The style does differ, it is true. And quite sharply by times. Some characters do disappear without on-screen explanation (as do characters in UFO; I never see anyone whinging about that). But the two seasons do comprise one distinct television programme about a runaway Moon and a Moonbase commanded by John Koenig as played by Martin Landau. Deal with it, I say. Use imagination to "bridge" the "gap". Accept that Season 2 not only exists as canon but that it has appreciators, few or many, who are mindful of nuance and symbolism and patterning of episodes, and I will acknowledge the "Mysterious Unknown Force" concept of Season 1 with the admiration that is due. Even if it does require more invention to make the two seasons "fit". But as the former is not ever going to happen, evidently, I wish not to grant to those Season 1 "fundamentalists" reverence for their beliefs.
They are quite spiteful and morose. They are people who are drawn to darkness and horror and to characters who are grim and without much, if any, humour. Probably because they have a darkness, or a coldness, to them. And a mostly humourless nature themselves. Their only humour is the humour of their arrogant, cocksure snootiness, their "snark", expressed in a cosy "echo chamber". The "captioning" stems from a desire to appear sophisticated by making jest from their upturned noses of the incidents and character reactions to happenings of the episodes, and if the hated one name of Freiberger can be invoked, so much the better, they reckon. Or, as Dean once said, they do not understand their fascination with Space: 1999. And so do they try to assert authority over Space: 1999 by "making light" of it, with the inane "captioning", or whatever. They lack the sense of humour of most people who enjoy an unassuming, appealing-to-mainstream, broadly funny gag like those of animated cartoons. Humour such as that in Season 2 makes them peckish and belligerent. Oh, they hate cartoons. They routinely compare Season 2 pejoratively to cartoons. Or to comic books. Yes, they look down their snobby noses at cartoons and comic books, judging them to be ever so devoid of any artistic value. Yes, even in this time when super-hero movies are tremendously popular and aesthetically acclaimed.
No doubt, they regard my interest in cartoons as an indictment against my sophistication or my worth in being given any credence at all as an aficionado of works of the human imagination. To them, cartoons can have no value at all with regard to artistic expression.
Mentioning cartoons and comic books does give rise to a comparison of stylistic difference between television show seasons, that of Space: 1999's two seasons and the Grantray-Lawrence season and Ralph Bakshi seasons of Spiderman. Spiderman's second season, produced by Bakshi, came with a most considerable shift in style, in "atmosphere", in concepts, and in characterisation, from the Grantray-Lawrence Spiderman season that preceded it. The look of the television show had been drastically altered, and Bakshi opted to go back to the roots of Spidey and, in Season 2's first episode, do a Spiderman origin story, followed by episodes establishing Spiderman's crime-fighting and the Daily Bugle and J. Jonah Jameson. Bakshi portrayed Jameson as a hard-nosed editor, narrow-minded as regards Spiderman and some extravagant excursions, sometimes dreaming of acclaim or fame, but not the buffoonish hypocrite and glory-seeker to the falsified diminishment of others, that he was in Season 1. And tough as nails when it came to journalistic ethics. Unlike the first season Jameson, who was cowardly, Bakshi's Jameson, in the episode, "King Pinned", refuses to be intimidated by the Kingpin of Crime, even while a captive of the villainous mobster. And he stays resolute in his determination to print a news story implicating organised crime in distribution of fake medicine. Bakshi veered away almost entirely from the Marvel Comics-originating criminal elements of Season 1 and conceived of his own antagonists for Spidey. And some very far-flung adventures for the web-swinger, removing Spidey from New York City for a sizable number of imaginative episodes. Bakshi introduced a new love interest for Peter, one Susan Shaw, and reduced Betty Brant to nothing more than a cameo appearance in a few episodes. He chose to concentrate on Peter's high school and university life, something that was rarely addressed in Season 1. Peter/Spidey was portrayed by Bakshi as vulnerable, losing in romantic pursuits- and even in avoiding capture by the police. And he actually, out of ignorance and/or lack of scientific prudence, causes the start of a menace (as in "Vine"). In Season 1, however, Peter's expertise in science is impeccable and routinely supreme. The differences between Season 1 and Season 2 Spiderman are quite substantial, to say the least. And yet, Spiderman is regarded as one television series. It aired as such in its initial run on U.S. network television and in syndication for decades, sometimes, as as the case on CHSJ-TV in New Brunswick, mixing the episodes of Grantray-Lawrence and Ralph Bakshi. The are few people who would say it to be otherwise. And Space: 1999 is of a similar nature, with stylistically divergent seasons comprising one television programme.
All of this said, these days I often ask myself why I continue to be loyal to Space: 1999. It has brought invalidation and misery upon me in bucket loads. For decades. I have scarcely anyone in my life today who is willing to give to it an appreciative viewing. All of my old friends who followed it with me are either not in my life anymore, or are still present in my life (via Facebook) but really could not give a damn about it or my interest in it. It pains me to acknowldge this, but I do need to do so. Old friends had been so important in my initial viewing of Space: 1999 and the growth of my affection for it. But today, they do not care at all for it or my interest in it.
Ultimately, after all is said and done, I have to proclaim that nostalgia is the primary factor in Space: 1999's hold on me. Not just primary, but very much the largest of the factors. Space: 1999 was such a big part of my life for so much of my upbringing. From the age of ten in my final year in Douglastown along the river Miramichi to my first, lonely year in Fredericton, and through my teenage years to adulthood. Even during those "dark ages" of junior high school plus Grade 10 and Grade 11, when it was televised only partially in French for nine months and then gone from the television airwaves of Atlantic Canada for years (apart from Destination: Moonbase Alpha). Its rareness during those years made my heart grow fonder for it and gave to it much of its cachet for me. And its awesome return to my life in 1983 was very sweet indeed after those "dark ages". There are cherished memories of my late parents, of Douglastown and friends there, one of them deceased, and of times in Fredericton when I felt so very gratified to be seeing the television show again, that are inextricably conjoined with Space: 1999 in my mind, my psyche, my essence. My experience with Space: 1999 has contributed in a very large and integral way to shaping who I am. Leaving it behind is something I cannot do. Try though I have done, on occasion. Yes, I am conscious of the aural and visual aesthetic, the nuances of both seasons, the symbolisms (intentionally implanted into the episodes or no), the correspondences between adjacent episodes, the patterning to story elements within the Season 2 timeline. Certainly. I cannot "un-learn" any of that. Much as I sometimes wish that I could. And this comprises the television show's aesthetic appeal and its continued fascination for me, along with the hardware and the planet depictions and so forth. But I am so God damned sick and tired of all of the "aggro", all of the smug "circle-jerking", the pigheaded refusal to accept what I and others see (acceptance of that would make me more appreciative of the "Mysterious Unknown Force"), and now the incessant "captioning" by snobby people one after the other trying to be funny.
I honestly cannot see Shout! Factory expecting Space: 1999 to be a "top seller" and choosing to spend a substantial sum of money on bonus features. I would not expect so if I was a company executive privy to the fan attitudes. Most of the fans have their precious Season 1 on Blu-Ray already. They despise Season 2. Why should large numbers of them be expected to "double dip" on another purchase of Season 1 just to have Season 2 on Blu-Ray? I do not imagine a snow globe to be much inducement for purchase.
It should not be much longer now for the bonus features to be announced.
Sunday, June 2, 2019.
A different subject for this morning's Weblog entry.
I see that Warner Archive is near to releasing its Blu-Ray set of Jonny Quest. Further Blu-Rays of Popeye are coming. And now, more news. The Jetsons and The New Scooby Doo Movies are also undergoing film-to-high-definition-video transfer for Blu-Ray release, the former by Warner Archive, the latter by Warner Brothers Home Entertainment. It seems that everything cartoon-animated which Warner Brothers now owns, is either being released or is under consideration for being released to Blu-Ray by Warner Brothers except for (surprise, surprise) the cartoons that Warner Brothers itself actually made, in the "Golden Age" of cartoon animation. The cartoons with what used to be Warner Brothers' signature cartoon character, one Bugs Bunny. And other characters that were, once upon a time, a marketing gold mine for Warner Brothers. Tweety, Sylvester, the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, et cetera. Cartoons that dependably were on broadcast television for forty years.
There has not been a release to either DVD or Blu-Ray of a newly remastered Warner Brothers vintage cartoon since the MARSUPIAL MAYHEM DVD of spring of 2013 and the third volume in the Blu-Ray PLATINUM COLLECTION that contained almost no new-to-digital-videodisc cartoons. Since then, all that Warner Brothers has been doing is recycling ad nauseam the DVDs of the old GOLDEN and SPOTLIGHT COLLECTIONs, or the cartoons thereon, for some paltry continued representation of Bugs Bunny and the other Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoon characters. PORKY PIG 101 used the best available existing restorations, and it appears to me now to have merely been a ploy on the part of certain individuals to have more pre-1948 cartoons released to digital videodisc before Warner Brothers effectively abandoned Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies and concentrated on Hanna-Barbera and Popeye. The cartoon aficionados are not helping matters, because apart from me, nobody is saying anything critical of Warner Brothers' current Blu-Ray release plans. Said aficionados are "buying up" Popeye Blu-Rays to a such a degree that it is validating Warner Brothers' contention that its own vintage cartoons are not "sellers" in the twenty-first century home video market, but the cartoons of other studios are. I heave a heavy sigh. It appears to be really, "That's all, folks!" for Bugs Bunny and the other characters of the vintage Warner Brothers cartoons.
It is nice to have a couple of previously not on DVD cartoons, un-remastered, in the STARS OF SPACE JAM DVD release of last year. At this juncture, I would be content to have the remaining unreleased-on-DVD-or-Blu-Ray cartoon shorts on digital videodisc in un-restored condition. Just to have them. To complete my collection. To once more have every post-1948 cartoon. For my own posterity. However much longer that I live. But it is a forlorn hope.
Why is Warner Brothers, or the current regime at the helm of the company, so content to throw Bugs Bunny to the wind? Apart from the commercial failure of the latter volumes of the LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION, the answer that appears to be "staring me in the face" is that, in this era of political correctness in overdrive, the cartoons of Bugs Bunny and the other characters are judged to be inappropriate as a property to be distributed to the public. At least with any new restoration work allocated to them. One of the characters stutters. Four others have a lisp. One of them is Hispanic. Another talks with a Southern accent and uses the word, boy, rather frequently. And so many of the cartoons were edited for television in the 1990s to remove un-politically-correct content. They would probably need editing today for release to the home video market. And Warner Brothers probably does not consider the cartoons to be worth the bother. Bugs Bunny as a character is evidently judged to be too quintessentially American in the traditions of Americana of old, to be acceptable for today's audiences. Brash in maintaining his individuality and his liberty. A free spirit. Fighting City Hall and winning. Cannot possibly have that in today's push for collectivism and a docile populace that does whatever it is told and questions nothing.
Oops. I am veering into political commentary. It is a dangerous time to be doing that, and I would prefer not to do it. I have no desire to be "cancelled". But politics, it seems, cannot be divorced from commercial product marketing. Not in today's world. Culture (and, with it, consumerism) is downstream from politics, and the sad decline of Bugs Bunny has to be to some degree a result of the winds of political change, whether it be change for the worse or for the better.
All for today.
Monday, June 10, 2019.
The bonus features for Shout! Factory's Space: 1999 Blu-Ray box set have been announced. Here is the list of bonus items.
"Mission to Moonbase Alpha: An Interview With Actress Barbara Bain"
"Into the Uncertain Future: An Interview With Actor Nick Tate"
"Brain Behind the Destruction: An Interview With Director Kevin Connor"
"Moonbase Merch: A Tour of Space: 1999 Ephemera With Author John Muir"
Audio Commentary by author Anthony Taylor on "Dragon's Domain" and "The Metamorph"
Audio Commentary by Space: 1999 expert Scott Michael Bosco on "Ring Around the Moon"
Audio Commentary by Space: 1999 co-creator Gerry Anderson on "Breakaway" and "Dragon's Domain"
"These Episodes", nearly 100 minutes of reflections on some of Space: 1999's iconic episodes from the people who made them
"Memories of Space" featurette
Interview with Sylvia Anderson
"'Guardian of Piri' Remembered" with actress Catherine Schell
Vintage "Year 2" interviews
Vintage Brian Johnson interview
Behind-the-scenes footage with Brian Johnson commentary
"Concept and Creation" featurette
"Special Effects and Design" featurette
Martin Landau and Barbara Bain television promotion
Promotion for "Year 1" and "Year 2"
Trailers for Destination: Moonbase Alpha and Alien Attack
Blackpool "Space City" Exhibition advertisement
Lyons Maid Ice Lolly advertisement
Mono and 5.1 audio on all episodes
Photograph galleries
16-page episode guide
Most of the Network Distributing value-added content is included, with some notable omissions such as "Seed of Destruction" in first season format, the Clapperboard One interviews, the student film on the production of Season 2, and the stop-motion animation film. It is not known how the photograph galleries will be offered, if whether they will be in a format identical to that of the Network photograph galleries. And there is no mention of music-only audio tracks, which were on the Network Blu-Rays. I am surprised that there is not an interview with Catherine Schell, as I thought that Shout! might have interviewed her about Space: 1999 at the same time as she provided her remembrances of The Return of the Pink Panther. But the Barbara Bain, Nick Tate, and Kevin Connor interviews are very pleasant surprises. And it makes sense that John Muir would be involved in some capacity in this project.
I will comment further at a later date. It is an impressive array of bonus features, but is, alas, not definitive. And I must mention that again "Message From Moonbase Alpha" did not make the leap from DVD to Blu-Ray. It will remain one of the few unique extras on A & E's old DVDs.
And as I would have predicted, the fans are too busy with their idiotic "captioning" and their regurgitating of decades-old cliches (oh, Main Mission is so much more spacious than the oh, so cramped Command Centre, is it not?) to give much, if any, consideration to this news.
And this is how it is on this sunny day in June of 2019.
Sunday, June 30, 2019
It has been a bleak, drizzly, and chilly past few days in New Brunswick. Definitely not summer weather. But it follows the pattern of a colder-than-normal autumn, a long and snowy winter, and a cold and rainy spring. Is New Brunswick cursed to be the forever contrary outlier in the Global Warming scenario? Turning colder and colder while everywhere else warms and warms?
All right. Enough about the weather. What news do I have that is germane to the subjects of my Website? Firstly, I have updated my Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour and Littlest Hobo Web pages. And secondly, my interview with Fred Freiberger will be acknowledged and quoted in an upcoming book about Star Trek. In a section to be titled as "The Star Trek/Space: 1999 Connection". I am having a fairly good year this year as regards recognition of my work in commercially available merchandise. Not that I am going to gloat about any of it. Just mentioning the developments and stating the goodness that they bring to my year.
Of course, I am aware of the continuing assaults upon Space: 1999's second season. At Facebook and elsewhere. They will intensify, as expected, in the coming weeks leading to and following Shout! Factory's release of the television series on Blu-Ray and DVD. For reasons that I have addressed before. And it will not stop. Not even when the fans of Space: 1999 are living in nursing homes and sitting on commodes.
I cannot expect anything else but daily venomous vilification of half of the Space: 1999 oeuvre, everything in it, by people utterly blinkered to the merit in it and to the faults of their preferred season of dear old Space: 1999. I will be deliberating on this, no doubt, during my vacation, and wondering why, why, why I was cursed to have been immersed first in Season 2 in my initial viewing of Space: 1999 in my final, most gratifying year in the New Brunswick village of Douglastown along the river Miramichi. Why, also, was I introduced to the Warner Brothers cartoons of post-1948 via The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, against which the tide of popular opinion among cartoon aficionados has turned these past twenty years? Why 1967-70 Spiderman? Why did that have to be my introduction to super-heroes? Why did Rocket Robin Hood have to be one of my first mental imprints for the depiction of space? Why? Why? Why? What was the intelligent design in this? And why me?
I have not much else to say today. I will review the Shout! Factory Space: 1999 Blu-Ray set when I have it. Its release is at an opportune time, as I will be on a four-week vacation from work starting July 15.
All for now.
Sunday, July 7, 2019.
Southern New Brunswick was under a tornado warning last evening. Happily, the warning was soon lifted, and a couple of thunderstorms was all that southern New Brunswickers had to endure. It is just over five years since post-tropical-storm Arthur ravaged the Fredericton region of the province. No doubt, it has been on the minds of many a resident of the New Brunswick capital city.
Hopes that Shout! Factory might dispatch its Space: 1999 Blu-Ray sets in advance of the release date have been dashed, on account of the snow globes, which will not be ready until the day before the release date of July 16. With the sluggish pace of mail in Canada in the summertime, I probably will not have said Blu-Ray set until early August. By then, no doubt I will have thorough knowledge of everything on the Blu-Ray discs, from discussions in certain parts of the Internet, about the Blu-Ray sets. T'is ever thus. And Space: 1999 is always a particular source of frustration for me. The story of my life. The delivery of my box set will be as late as can possibly be. I may as well just accept this as an inevitability.
Ah, well. I am expecting a huge Jon Pertwee Doctor Who Blu-Ray set late this coming week. It will keep me occupied for awhile. I will be on vacation starting this coming Friday, and plan to be doing rather more than sitting at home watching Blu-Rays, in any case.
Below are images of Season 18 (with Tom Baker) and Season 10 (with Jon Pertwee) Blu-Ray box sets in DOCTOR WHO- THE COLLECTION. Both released this year.
I have not seen Spider-Man: Far From Home yet. I am debating whether or not I should go to the theatre to view it at all. Spider-Man: Homecoming was such a disappointment. I felt angry when I left the theatre that evening two years ago. And startled to discover how long the movie had been, as I stepped outside into post-sunset darkness. I do not hold with Hollywood's politics these days, nor with the inclination to change everything for the sake of change. Too much of the Spider-Man mythology was altered, and there was not enough story to justify the film's running time. And Michael Keaton as the Vulture (a casting triumph, for sure) had little to do in the story and was wasted. I have reviewed Spider-Man: Homecoming before and will refer readers to that. If I do go to the Fredericton Cineplex to see Spider-Man: Far From Home, I will write a review of the movie. I do like the fact that Mysterio is the villain. That much, I will say.
I have augmented my television listings project, adding Sunday listings for 1972, 1976, 1977, and 1978, Christmas Day listings for 1974, and listings for Friday, July 23, 1976. I will make some further additions to the project over the course of this summer. Now, every weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, from June of 1972 to May of 1979, is represented in the project. Including all weekends of my five years in Douglastown.
Nothing new about Space: 1999 fandom. The same old, same old. Inane "captioning" punctuated by discussions of how abysmal Season 2 oh, so obviously is (suspension of disbelief, imaginative licence, "economy of detail", and dramatic necessity, be damned), with nary a word of any conviction written in its defence. Even The Digital Bits invokes the usual slurs in its review of the Shout! Factory Blu-Ray sets. Not a very satisfying review. No images of the episodes or the bonus items, nor even much indication of what is said in the new value-added content. Though I can certainly guess about that and probably be right. Sigh.
I am deriving some renewed sensations of sweet nostalgia from the music and visuals of certain Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour cartoons. Nostalgia is definitely a huge factor in the continuing appeal of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour to me. A very large percentage of that appeal. There are memories of Douglastown, of my childhood, of my long unseen friends, and especially of my late parents, associated with all of the episodes and all of the cartoon shorts therein. I will never be able to "let go" of my love for The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, frustrated though I continue to be with Warner Brothers' persistent refusal to do any further remastering of the cartoons and release cartoons to DVD and Blu-Ray that were not released thereto before.
All for today. I know that it is not very substantial. But this is how it is.
July 16, 2019.
Amazon.ca yesterday shipped to me the Shout! Factory Space: 1999 Blu-Ray set. I should have it tomorrow or Thursday. Shout! itself has not shipped any of the Blu-Ray sets because of the delays with the ever so essential snow globes.
There are reviews on the Internet, of the Blu-Ray set. All of them are insufficiently detailed as to the video and audio quality of the episodes, and therefore unsatisfactory. Most of them "trot out" all of the usual cliches about Space: 1999 and Season 2. No new insights are to be gleaned from any of the reviews that I have read, to date. Four, in all.
There is a reversed photograph of Barbara Bain on the front of the box set, and all of the photographs on front and back are of Season 1. As too are the photographs of Landau and Bain on the cases for the two seasons. One wonders why.
I am on vacation from work this week and will have time to promptly delve deeply into the box set. It could not have been released at a better time for me, actually.
I think back to summer of 1983 and the lengths to which I went, to which I had to go, to acquire episodes of Space: 1999 on videotape from CBC broadcasts in Nova Scotia. To have the entire television series, with extras, on a vastly superior home video format, delivered to my doorstep all in one go, would have seventeen-year-old me astonished and druelling, to say the very least.
Anyway, it should soon be here. It does not need to pass through Customs, and that should mean a very short wait. I say, should. Not will. This is Space: 1999, after all. And I know my Karmic curse when it comes to Space: 1999. Oh, how I know it!
I see that Disney has decided to release The Black Hole on Blu-Ray. I am still picking my chin up from the floor at the discovery of this news. I did not think that I would see the day when this would happen.
All for today.
July 18, 2019.
I have the Shout! Factory Space: 1999 Blu-Ray box set. It arrived in my mailbox yesterday. Amazing. I was expecting a long wait. As is usually the case for me.
All right. I will not dally in expressing my disappointment over my Chronology having been dropped from the booklet (all that is there is the URL to my Website's main index Web page; people looking for the Chronology may not be patient enough to search for it). As the weeks prior to the release of the set lessened and lessened and as I read the first reviews of the box set, I had an uneasy feeling that this was going to be the case.
Because Shout! dropped plans to print my Chronology in the booklet and did not notify me of this, I do not feel like I am under some obligation to restrain myself from stating any criticism. It is my right to criticise, as it is for any consumer. I did pay the premium price for the box set. I supported the release. In fact, I bought two.
This box set is strange. Decisions made as to its look, most specifically its distribution of photography, are eccentric and bizarre. They are counter-intuitive. Contrary to established practice for DVD and Blu-Ray release of television programmes. There are almost no Season 2 photographs in the booklet to accompany the episode guide therein. Alongside the synopses of Season 2 episodes are mostly photographs of Season 1. And the Season 2 Blu-Ray discs themselves have Season 1 photographs on them. Even the "Year 2" cover has a photograph of Koenig and Russell from Season 1. The cynic in me is inclined to think that there was a conscious decision to downplay Season 2 as much as possible in the box set. I have to say it.
The first things that I watched were the content unique to this box set, items on the Bonus Features Blu-Ray disc. The Barbara Bain interview is excellent value. She is a classy lady, and I am so very happy that she contributed to this Blu-Ray release of Space: 1999. Her reminiscences are all Season 1. She remembers the foam in "Space Brain" and working with Christopher Lee, and she compliments the production design, the costuming, and the special effects of Season 1. If she did share memories of the making of Season 2, then they must have been dropped in the editing process. Nick Tate provides his usual reminiscences over how he was cast as Alan Carter, over the original intention for "Dragon's Domain" to be about Alan having encountered the monster, and over the changes for Season 2 and how Alan almost was not in it. He is surprisingly less vitriolic over Fred Freiberger than I expected him to be. But his memory is faulty. Season 1 was not coming to the end of its production when the first episode was being broadcast. There was a gap of several months between the end of principal filming and the first broadcast. He later says that it was a almost a year between the "wrap" of production of Season 1 and the start of filming Season 2. Nine months, approximately. Not a year, or almost a year. He says that all 300 Alphans other than Koenig and Russell, were replaced by 300 new people. No. Sandra was still there. Bob Mathias was still there. Quentin Pierre was still there as the Security guard. Other background Alphans from Season 1 were retained, like Sarah Bullen and Laraine Humphrys. Moonbase Alpha is an expansive installation. Characters like Tony Verdeschi, Bill Fraser, Yasko, and Dr. Ben Vincent, might have been on duty in some corner of Alpha and just not shown. Bergman and Morrow might have left Alpha in some unseen adventure. It does not require very much imagination to accommodate the changes. He does not mention Fred Freiberger's children as having any role in the decision to retain Alan for Season 2. He says nothing about Alan being in command of Alpha in some Season 2 episodes, a privilege never accorded to him in Season 1. But when all is said and done, I should be grateful that he is not as scathing as he has been at conventions. Director Kevin Connor had some interesting observations and opinions in his interview. They are at least not the usual fare of people disparaging Season 2, and the episodes, "Brian the Brain" and "Seed of Destruction", that he directed. I quite enjoyed John Muir and the "Moonbase Merch" featurette. It is the first time that I have heard him speak. People I have known said he spoke with a thick Southern accent. I did not notice the accent very much, and his enthusiasm for the television series comes across to the viewer very greatly. He shows to the camera the Mattel Eagle 1 Spaceship, the Moonbase Alpha Playset, the Dinky Eagle, the Remco Stun Gun, the lunch box, and the Space: 1999 game. It would have been more thorough for him to have shown also the Mattel Koenig, Russell, and Bergman dolls, the books, the comic books, the colouring books, and so on. Clips from episodes were used in the interviews and featurettes, and they have a strange judder in spaceship movement. Even though the footage was High Definition utilised in a High Definition featurette, it looks like there was NTSC pull-down, or something, in processing of the video. Bizarre!
Even more bizarre are the choices in the background music of the interviews and featurettes, the kind of wipes used to do video transitions, and the lower-third text in some cases. For instance, "The Last Enemy" is said to be episode twenty-four of Season 1. It may have been so in some broadcasts, but in production order (which this box set clearly states that it is adhering to) it is episode eighteen.
"Brian the Brain" and "Seed of Destruction" are used exclusively, or almost exclusively, for footage of Season 2 for the interviews and featurettes. It is as though the people making the value-added material wanted to deal with Season 2 as little as possible.
I should not carp too much, though. I am mentioned in the booklet. however fleetingly. And the new bonus features are most welcome. And they are, at the end of the day, the only real incentive for purchasing this box set, assuming that one has the capability to go multi-region for Blu-Ray, and that one already had the Network Distributing Blu-Ray releases of Space: 1999. The episode film-to-video transfers are, from what I can determine in visual inspection, the same. The codec might be different. I would have to do a side-by-side comparison to do a really accurate assessment. But it is the audio that "lets the side down" for the Shout! release. Early reports that the 5.1 audio tracks were doctored with further processing and made less dynamic, would seem to be accurate. I watched some of "A Matter of Balance" (the clapperboard "blooper" is still gone from that, thank goodness) and "Seed of Destruction" and, to my ears, the music lacks intensity. Flat as a pancake. The Shout! discs default to mono, and the mono tracks for several episodes still have that faulty transition from main title music to start of episode, with music from start of "The Exiles" heard for a half-second or so. There was no effort made to "clean that up", and the discs default to that audio track. There was an opportunity missed in not correcting those transitions. I suspect that the people involved preferred to work on Season 2 as little as possible.
Why the people at Shout! did not just directly coopt the 5.1 audio from the Network Distributing masters, without further processing, I have no idea. I think that this is a decision that keen-eared aficionados of Space: 1999 will lament for years to come. For my own purposes, the Network set is the one to have, with the Shout! bonus disc alongside of it. The Shout! discs of the episodes will not receive play in my home theatre. Why should they? When the episodes sound better on the Network Blu-Rays.
Oh, and I listened to Anthony Taylor's commentary for "The Metamorph" as far into the episode as Mentor addressing the Alphans over the communications system, and switched it off with an exasperated sigh. All that his commentary would seem to be, is a production "nitpicking" exercise (the usual fare of the fans), undermining any sense of wonder with statements about Landau hating his vest, Fred Freiberger being the person to blame for deficient continuity, titanium not being rare and not being credible as an element in the life-support systems on Alpha, and so on. He also mentions Brian Blessed being in Flash Gordon. Gee, I did not know that. Right. My sarcasm is showing, is it not? This commentary is unnecessary, though the Season 2-hating fans will love it, I am sure.
My verdict at this juncture is that apart from some quite worthwhile bonus interviews and featurettes, the Network Distributing set is the hands-down winner. I do not have the snow globe yet, but from the photographs that I have seen of it, it is awful.
This is all that I have to say today, for however much that it is worth. Not very much, probably, to most people.
I will conclude today's Weblog entry with an image of one of the menus on the Shout! Factory Blu-Rays of Space: 1999.
All for today.
July 19, 2019.
Further on Shout! Factory's Space: 1999 Blu-Ray box set.
I had to revise my yesterday's Weblog entry because I had missed my mention in the box set's booklet. What can I say? I blinked and missed it. It was so perfunctory, amounting to little more than a passing name reference in small print in the middle of a paragraph at bottom of a page. There is the URL to my index Web page, on which people see first a picture of me in the Rockies and then Bugs Bunny. They will just conclude that they came to the wrong Web page and click their mouse to go somewhere else on the Internet. A "far cry" from having my Chronology included in the booklet. I was not notified of any change in plans. It was quite disrespectful, actually.
I do not see any cause to moderate my review of the box set. It is fair and truthful. I have technical issues and aesthetic issues with the box set. I was thinking as I was languishing in bed this morning that even though A & E's DVD and Blu-Ray releases had much about them that was disappointing, there was more of an effort put into the overall package. The synopses for the episodes, for instance. The synopses in the Shout! booklet are mostly the TV Guide magazine's synopses, with some modification in the wording. For the A & E releases, Scott Michael Bosco wrote his own synopses entirely from scratch, and they were rather inventive and often aesthetically suggestive in how they elucidated events in the episodes. And the pictures used accorded with the episodes, unlike in Shout!'s booklet where it is just a series of scattershot pictures of almost entirely first season episodes.
The snow globe is worse than early photographs had indicated. It is abysmal. The Eagle in it looks like it is being corroded as in "The Immunity Syndrome" or being crushed by the "Space Brain" foam. And the Moon beneath the Eagle is just an unrecognisable mess. Maybe it, too, is being attacked by the foam. But this snow globe debacle puts the tin lid on the whole sad saga of Space: 1999 on home video in North America, that saga now being at an end. There will never again be a release of Space: 1999 on physical media in North America (or anywhere else, probably). This Shout! Blu-Ray set was an opportunity largely wasted. The episodes sound worse than they do on the U.K. Network Blu-Rays, the extras package is not definitive (though the newly produced interviews and featurettes have value despite some technical, aesthetic, and informational quibbles), the Anthony Taylor commentary for "The Metamorph" can be done without (I cannot be bothered listening to more of him, to be honest), and the whole set looks like it was put together with bias and an "it will do" amount of effort. And the snow globe is a disgrace. I am no lover of the Space: 1999 fan movement, but it is owed an apology for this snow globe. And refunds all around.
July 19, 2019. Supplemental.
Well, they are doing it. The Space: 1999 fans are even managing to turn the snow globe fiasco into attacks on Fred Freiberger and Season 2, saying that it must have been Freiberger who made the snow globes and that the snow globe can only represent Season 2.
All right, then. I wish to retract my earlier statement. The fans do deserve this snow globe. No apology. No refunds. It is precisely what they deserve to match their decayed and rotted attitude toward the second season. It is their Karma. "Good on" old Shout! for doing this for them. Or to them.
Monday, July 22, 2019.
All right. Out of curiosity, I watched the Space: 1999 first season episode, "War Games", with simultaneous playback of the Network Distributing and Shout! Factory Blu-Rays containing said episode, one on my Region B Blu-Ray player, the other on my Region A, both players being the exact same model of SONY Blu-Ray player, and switching back and forth from one to the other. Both players are calibrated the same with their output and with my SAMSUNG television's input.
So, what did I find? The Shout! version seems to have had its video levels or its contrast slightly turned down. The Network "War Games" is more vivid, as a result. The scene wherein Carter has the Hawks on target on his monitor has perceptibly less detail in the targeting graphic on the Shout! Factory "War Games" than on the Network, due, possibly, to reduced contrast. Colour appeared to be the same, to my eyes. If there is a difference, it is imperceptible to me, and I have a good eye for colour. Where the great divide was, was the audio. The main title sequence on the Shout! "War Games" sounded as loud as but less dynamic than that on the Network Blu-Ray. I do not have surround sound in my system and am unable to determine precisely where the difference is in the audio. It is just that dynamic range is less on the Shout!. During the episode titles, as three Hawks are shown approaching Alpha, the sound of the Hawks builds (as it should), and it drowns out the music over the Charles Crichton director credit on the Shout!, whereas on the Network, as the sound of the Hawks builds, the music can still be heard. This much I noticed. The explosions during the Hawks' attack upon Alpha sounded the same.
I only watched the two versions as far as the middle of the first act of the episode, enough to reveal to me that there are indeed differences, and on my judgement, the Network Distributing Blu-Ray wins. Which is not to say that the Shout! Blu-Ray is a slouch. To anyone not familiar with the look of Space: 1999 on Blu-Ray via Network Distributing, the Shout! Blu-Rays look very impressive. And if one is not used to hearing Network Distributing's 5.1 audio mix, one probably will not be carping. The audio quality is certainly better than on the old A & E DVDs. But in adjusting the Network Distributing 5.1 audio, Shout! did make a mistake that is going to adversely impact the company with reduced sales.
I do commend Shout! for the effort put into producing new bonus features. Seeking out Barbara Bain, Nick Tate, and Kevin Connor for interviews certainly is indicative of Shout! trying to make this Blu-Ray release rather special. Certainly to appeal to people who already had the Network Blu-Rays. The "Moonbase Merch" featurette is a fabulous corollary to the "Collectible Trek" featurette on the Star Trek Blu-Ray box sets. I had had that idea myself and was surprised that Network did not at least have a gallery of merchandise photographs in its Blu-Ray release of Space: 1999. I am feeling less irked now than I was last week about finding my Chronology excluded after being led to believe that it would be in the booklet. It is good that I at least merit mention in the booklet. It is recognition than has been long, long, long overdue for all that I have done for this television programme. I do not know why it was decided to drop the Chronology from the booklet, or whose decision that was. It might not have been the producer, but someone above him. It still was not good form to not notify me. When all is said and done, the Shout! Blu-Ray box set cannot supersede the Network. It is not an improvement on it as regards the most important items, the episodes themselves. It is satisfying, yes, to at last have "These Episodes", "Memories of Space", and other Network featurettes on a Blu-Ray disc with a superior codec. I do not know why those were put on a DVD in the Network Blu-Ray release of Season 1 in 2010. I am quite attached to the Network Blu-Ray release of Season 1, as my father was living at the time that I acquired that box set (in November of 2010). I remember very fondly the day that those Blu-Rays arrived at my house. My father was with me, as he had been on August 5, 1983 when I received my very first videotape with Space: 1999 on it ("Dragon's Domain" from its broadcast on CBHT). The inferiority of the Shout! release means that those Network Blu-Rays will continue to be my go-to media for viewing Space: 1999.
The interviews and featurettes newly produced for the Shout! release all have episode excerpts with episode-identifying lower-third text according with U.K. broadcast order, not production order, which is bizarre. "War Games" is indicated as being episode four of "Year 1", and "Earthbound" is designated as episode fourteen. And Nick Tate speaks of "Dragon's Domain" as the seventh or eighth episode, and not the twenty-third. This is the first DVD or Blu-Ray release of Space: 1999 by which the U.K. broadcast order (which is haphazard, by the way, and is no more definitive than CBC broadcast order or WPIX broadcast order) is invoked in any way.
This is all that I have to say for today. I still have not received the snow globe. The box set sent to me by Shout! itself is still en route to me. At the end of the day, there was no advantage in ordering direct from Shout!. Not even an early and expedited dispatch of product, which until Space: 1999 had been usual practice at Shout! Factory.
Tuesday, July 23, 2019.
Yesterday, I decided to watch "Dragon's Domain" on Space: 1999 Shout! Factory Blu-Ray. Here is what I found in terms of audio and video quality.
The audio was, to my ears, dynamic. Not quite as satisfyingly so as on the Network Distributing Blu-Ray, but all in all, a very effective mix. However, the video was lacking detail and overly saturated. Contrast was softened, colours boosted, and some digital noise reduction (DNR) had been applied also, apparently. And some darkening of the picture, too. The result was a distinctly less detailed image. The end credits had a strange fringing to them suggestive of DNR. There was a haze over the monster scenes. The facial hair and perspiration on Gianni Garko was not quite as noticable. The fabric of Commissioner Dixon's garment not quite as finely visible. Yet again, the Network Distributing Blu-Ray set is the clear winner.
I keep giving the Shout! box set another chance, and I keep being disappointed. Does "Dragon's Domain" still look better on Shout! Blu-Ray than it did on A & E DVD? Oh, yes. Definitely. But it is the Network Distributing Blu-Ray containing same episode to which it is being compared. I also watched the first minute or so of "The Infernal Machine" on Shout! Blu-Ray, and the audio on that is deficient compared with the same episode on the Network Distributing Blu-Ray release. I think I have seen and heard enough.
The people at Shout! doctored the audio and video on the beautiful High Definition film-to-video transfers provided to them by ITV. Why that was done, I can only speculate. Someone probably was thinking that he or she was improving on those film-to-video transfers, based on his or her own subjective judgements. But when it comes to watching something in High Definition, a maximum amount of detail is desirable. Even if there may be some grain or some amount of visual noise. It was compromised in the processing of video for this Blu-Ray release.
And there has been no uptick in visits to my Space: 1999 Page since the Shout! Factory Blu-Ray box set's release last week. There would have been such an uptick, I think, if the precise URL had been put in the booklet. That much I will say.
All for now.
Friday, July 26, 2019.
Believe it or believe it not, my shipment from Shout! Factory containing the Space: 1999 Blu-Ray box set with snow globe still has not arrived. Almost everyone else has received theirs. Typical. It is a good thing that I anticipated this and ordered a second box set (one without snow globe) from Amazon.ca, one which I received on July 17. Nine days ago. The slowness of the shipment from Shout! can only mean that the package is being "held up" at Canada Customs. On account of that snow globe, no doubt. It is the only explanation for the protracted time period of transport. Well, if Canada Post or DHL or whoever "turn up" at my door expecting me to pay even more for this package, I will refuse delivery, and it will go back to Shout!. I am not paying a nickel more. I already paid an insanely high price of $130 American dollars (do not ask me what that is in Canadian), on the belief that by ordering direct from Shout! that I would be receiving the box set a week or two before it was available elsewhere. Pah! I do not want the snow globe anyway. I have the bonus disc that I extracted from the Shout! set that I did receive from Amazon.ca, and that is all that I want. Maybe a second unit of same for back-up purposes. I will wait for the box set to come down in price, purchase another set for a bonus disc back-up, and sell the episode Blu-Ray discs if I can find a buyer.
Shout! is evidently holding firm to its conviction that decisions made in different look and sound of the episodes, were correct. There will be no replacement Blu-Ray discs offered. And that would appear to be that. By the way, I had a look at "The Rules of Luton" on Shout! Blu-Ray and compared it with Network's release. The details on Koenig's jacket are much more abundant and much more vivid on the Network than with the Shout!. I reiterate. That would appear to be that.
This is the end of the road for me as regards collecting and writing about Space: 1999. It is obvious that no one is ever going to improve upon the Network Distributing Blu-Ray releases. They will be definitive Space: 1999 presentation for the remainder of my days. And I am finished writing responses to the asininity of the wretched fans of that ever put-upon television series. Those people are wrong. I know that they are. I am privy to the aesthetic qualities, nuances, symbolisms, that they stubbornly will not see under any circumstances. Their opinion is based on ignorance. Mine is not. Even if I would like to be ignorant of their "Mysterious Unknown Force", I cannot be. But I will forever be the outcast, in their minds the garbage human. I have not "won over" anybody, and I never will. Not ever.
There are pleasant and fulfilling things in my life upon which to rely for morale. My new Vietnamese friend who is messaging with me every day now, sharing with me photographs and videos of his home country, where he is now for the summer, reunited with his family. It is a gorgeous country, Vietnam. I had never seen pictures or video foootage of it before. My friend and his family are trekking the north-to-south span of the country, visiting many cities and tourist attractions. I look forward very, very much each day to my friend's messages to me. And their photograph or video attachments.
And I have decided to go some extra miles on my vacation travels this year. I was in the Miramichi region yesterday, and, while there, I drove my car down Highway 11 to Kouchibouguac Park yesterday, and visited Kouchibouguac Park for the first time since 1976. I walked around the place and was very near to the boardwalk area where my Douglastown Elementary School classmates and I frolicked more than four decades ago.
It was a long drive yesterday in a car whose air conditioning is not working. And I am tired. I bring this Weblog entry to a close.
Sunday, July 28, 2019.
I was at the Fredericton Regent Mall this afternoon and found this sight. Space: 1999 Blu-Ray sets on display at the front of the Sunrise Records store.
I never thought that I would ever live to see Space: 1999 on Blu-Ray being sold in prominent sight at a store in my city. It is a pity that it has Anthony Taylor's commentary on it essentially telling people to hate "Year 2" because Fred Freiberger ruined the television show. This is what people are saying is the refrain of the commentary. I only listened to about seven minutes of it, and from what I did hear, this would seem to be precisely what to expect. No way must Season 2 be presented to the buying public without someone telling the buyer not to give to it any favourable regard. "Here is 'Year 2'. Switch brain off. Watch it condescendingly. Dismiss it utterly." The bias of the fans must be front and centre as the only legitimate opinion possible. Correspondences between episodes? Irrelevant. Words with interesting etymology? Poppycock. Carl Jung and the "collective subconscious"? Rubbish. Monsters, bad. Sentient rocks, bad. Robots, bad. Et cetera. Et cetera.
I am finished trying to tilt at the windmill. I have wasted enough of my life in this futile effort. Hate Season 2, everybody. Revile it, everything in it, for all remaining born days. Call people who steadfastly like it defective pieces of human garbage. My only hope now is that there is an afterlife wherein justice will finally be served as regards the merit in Season 2 and the unfair endless befouling of the name of its producer and the few stalwart persons who thought it to be of artistic interest.
Sunday, August 4, 2019.
I am just going to make a brief statement this morning. Thank-you to the individuals who e-mailed me with words of support for my dedication to Space: 1999. It has weathered the tumult before and will do so again. It is so dispiriting to see the blinkered poison of the asinine fans acknowledged and represented in an official, licenced product being sold to the public in retail stores. But this Blu-Ray release was made first and foremost for the "Year 1" pundits and for the lemmings (all too many of them) among the public who will follow the opinion put forth by Anthony Taylor that Season 2 is a bastard work of no artistic import for which people must be blamed. Such is all that any Internet-based discussion about Space: 1999 descends toward, whenever Space: 1999 is the subject of attention at Internet forums. The total lack of Season 2 photography on the outer box truly is indicative of the slant that Shout! opted to pursue, and the finger-pointing Anthony Taylor commentary is there on the very first Season 2 episode to tell to the public that Season 2 is there in the box set only for completeness' sake and should be regarded with contempt, along with its producer. It is definitely a Blu-Ray release for Season 1 and people who hate Season 2. It is not for me, though I did in good will support the release with two purchases, including one for that ugly snow globe. As was the case with PORKY PIG 101, my good will in support of a product has been to the detriment of the oeuvre that I love. And wasted. Along with the money. Not entirely, though. I am keeping the bonus Blu-Ray disc. Still, the Shout! release is a disappointment. The episodes do not look as good or sound as good as they do on the Network Distributing Blu-Rays. And they are the most important consideration. Word now is that Network did not allow Shout! access to the 5.1 audio tracks produced by Network, and that Shout! created its own 5.1 audio and chose for the discs to default to mono. Whatever. At the end of the day, whatever. And the "wrong-think" admirers of Season 2 must have our eternal slighting as irrelevant nothings "driven home" with editorialising commentary in an official release.
I have certain knowledge that Season 2 is objectively, qualitatively "good". It is not simply my opinion from a unique perspective. The production values are much higher than of anything else made at the time. Doctor Who. The Tomorrow People. Logan's Run. The sense of deep space discovery and the imagination in space phenomena, astral bodies, and alien life depiction are far and beyond what other works of the science fiction/fantasy genre were offering in the 1970s. This includes the likes of Logan's Run, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and, yes, even Star Wars. I have been made aware of distinct phases or "regions" in the storyline spanning the second season. Correspondences between episodes in those "regions". Similarities in the first episodes of each "region", the second episodes of each, and so on. And symbolisms in the episodes and meaningful word origins indicative of Classical Greek and Latin. They are (or should be) universally recognisable truths, and I cannot "un-learn" them. And I frustratingly cannot elaborate because they are discoveries that are not mine to share. It is frustrating and disheartening to watch the injustice of this poison-moss-gathering boulder that is the hostility toward Season 2, and to see it reach an official product sitting on a shelf in a store in my city. And to see the attitudes of people like that person I stayed with in Calgary in 1995 being given validation in a product being sold in stores. The very last release to home video of the television series.
Tuesday, August 6, 2019.
I propose to add to what I said in my Weblog entry for this past Sunday. On the matter of Season 2 of Space: 1999's aesthetically compelling qualities.
Do I believe that these patterns, these nuances, these word origins, et cetera were deliberately implanted into the Season 2 episodes? Of course not. No more than I believe that every single interesting peculiarity and correspondence between adjacent (in production order) episodes in Season 1 was deliberate. No more than I believe that what is in "Hyde and Hare" was "mapped out" by director Freleng and writer Foster with conscious design. I believe that these things were manifest in the productions through osmosis with the involvement of Carl Jung's "collective unconscious". It is the only salient explanation that I have encountered. And a very intriguing one. By my reckoning, anyone who thinks that the unconscious has no influence whatsoever over human creativity (most particularly works of the imagination), that for anything made that has any nuance, patterning of subject matter, symbolism, et cetera, such things have to be deliberate (and that if they are established not to have been deliberate that they can have no basis in fact), is a fool. Our subconscious minds are working all of the time. When we are asleep, they are at their most active and creative (indeed, Robert Louis Stevenson's ideas for "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" came to him in a dream), but they are operating in our wakeful hours also. And if the unconscious minds of many people are concentrated around some central idea, they can operate in unison. I do not find that incredible. Ideas for names, chronological ordering of episodes, whatever, do not just "pop into" people's minds solely through conscious consideration. And people can be "in tune" with one another.
Somehow, the collective unconscious' power for instilling aesthetically compelling and meaningful substance found an ultimate expression in Space: 1999, and especially its second season. And people en masse are wilfully determined not to cast an appreciative eye over that season. Whether such is powered by decades of resentment over the changes from Season 1 and the cancellation by Lew Grade of Space: 1999 subsequent to Season 2, or a lack of flexibility in imagination, or a slavish adherence to some vaunted assumed standard for judging "quality" science fiction (men in monster suits, bad, anything used in Lost in Space, bad, et cetera) or a wilful refusal to ever admit to possibly being wrong about their television show, or a combination of all of these, the result is the ever worsening rancour. And the buying public, could, alas, not expect an objective Blu-Ray release. At least not in North America. Yes, Network's Blu-Ray releases have Sylvia Anderson saying that "the second series" did not work. But she was critical of almost everything and everyone she mentioned, especially with regard to Space: 1999. I can accept her opinion being on the Blu-Ray release. I, of course, think that she is wrong. And Landau did give his usual spiel about why he disliked "Year 2" with some French interviewer calling it "kiddie stuff". I "put up" with that. It is the man's opinion. I do not have to like it, and I certainly do not agree with it. But commentaries by someone professing to be an authority on the works of Gerry Anderson blaming people for Season 2 and "nitpicking" this, that, and the other thing in "The Metamorph", giving a voice to the fan culture's hostility on the Blu-Ray release in North America, is especially disappointing and dispiriting to me.
But it is a done deal. Assessment of Season 2 as terrible is as canon as the television show itself, evidently. People who think otherwise are garbage. People who saw Season 2 first and were not guided by dislike of its differences from Season 1 are hopeless outliers. I have been told numerous times to just appreciate the television show in my own way in my isolation, as an outlier. Accept that I am the outlier and spend the remainder of my days of appreciation for my favourite television series in solitude. I am afraid that this is asking too much. Humans are social creatures. We seek people of kindred spirit. We need to see validation in some way of our interests in our interactions with others. Indeed, my love for Space: 1999 did originate in a community in which it was supported and shared. At least at the time of the television show's heyday, this was so. Nowadays, it is cared for as little there as it is elsewhere. I need people to converse with about why I enjoy the television show. People who are not going to reject me for that. Why else do fans join clubs?
It does occur to me to ask. Was northern New Brunswick the only place on God's green Earth to have seen Season 2 first? It does seem so. Were I and Dean the only northern New Brunswickers to have been so touched by the Space: 1999 television series in its second season as to care deeply for it after its passing from the television airwaves? It does seem so. Actually, my old friend, Sandy (died, 2014), rediscovered his love of Space: 1999. Okay, make that three. Three people. One of whom is deceased. And the other I am just not compatible-with on an interpersonal level.
Does this "break my heart"? Yes. Frequently. I cannot and do not expect the vast, vast majority of people to care about this. Certainly not the fans who have the empathy of a school yard clique of bullies. My cat, bless his heart, has more empathy than they have. Yes, fan culture is truly toxic, and with the Shout! Blu-Ray release, it is being disseminated to the general population. By the way, one of the Space: 1999 Blu-Ray sets at Sunrise Records in Fredericton's Regent Mall, has sold, evidently. Ah, well.
Oh, I know that fan culture is toxic. Space: 1999 fan culture. Warner Brothers cartoon fan culture. I know that from bitter experience. Suggesting the Termite Terrace Trading Post was one of my most regretted blunders of my tenure on the Internet. Oh, I am not going to rehash all of that again. It is enough these days to "deal with" the sad state of affairs with Space: 1999.
Why do the constant, daily attacks upon Season 2 bother me so much? First of all because they are slights upon my taste, calling something that I like garbage or feces. Proclaiming that only "dumb kids" liked it is reaching back in time and insulting the sensitive eleven-year-old that I was and affirming the attitudes of my detractors in Fredericton. I object to what is essentially an ignorant and loutish push for a cheapening and debasing of what was the best year of my schooling, my best year of my "Golden Age" that was Era 2, a year in which friendships formed and flourished with Space: 1999 and its second season the main catalyst in bonding me with friends. A year in which I found a degree of social prosperity that I would never have in Fredericton. It pleases the people who presided over my leaving of fandom in 1995, and anything that pleases them, displeases me intensely. And these people are unfair and often wrong, as any truly considered look at what they are reviling, what unforgivable "bloopers" or "plot holes" or whatever, that they are using as grounds for slurring Season 2, will show. And yet, they are never challenged by anyone in their group, whose "hive-mind" outlook is acknowledged as being as canonical as the television series itself. I also hate the weaponising of Season 1 against Season 2. It is impairing my enjoyment of both. Anything that might be touted as validating my ostracism and friendlessness at school in my teenage years, the repudiation of me by my friends of Era 4, and my "drumming out" of fandom with the gloating imperiousness of its Lord-of-the-Manor, accentuates my indignation at the unjust treatment of half of my favourite television programme. And yes, I do equate the "warm" and even effusive sociability of the Season 2 Alphans and their acceptance of Maya with my place in my Douglastown youth habitat, in that final, treasured year of Era 2, surrounded with more friends than I would ever have at any time thereafter. The smug, crude, heartless rejection by the fans of that rendition of Space: 1999 is anathema for me. For sure. And Dean is proved right in his predictions that the fans would be this way in the face of any positivity toward Season 2, and the more that I see him proved right, the more that his denunciations of me appear likely to be right. This is the huge enchilada that comprises why the incessant and worsening sorties of the fans bother me.
This is how it is, and it will be ever thus. With more people no doubt joining the bandwagon, with the commentary on the Blu-Ray set. The last one that will ever be authored. Futility. That is another thing that I cannot un-grudgingly abide.
But somehow, I will "carry on" and watch the episodes in my isolation and connect with my younger self. Somehow. And I have aspects of my life unconnected to Space: 1999 for solace if I do have to struggle to find connection with my younger self. My new friend's dedication to me inspires and heart-warms me very, very much. He is with me in chat every day and expresses his appreciation for my friendship. This is restoring my faith in friends and in my ability to be a friend. It counters the disparagement of me by my detractors, grows my self-confidence. And I am finding again my capacity for being a best friend. This is what true friendship is.
Friday, August 9, 2019.
My vacation from work is almost finished. I return to work on Monday.
On the subject of the unconscious mind influencing creative decisions, I would report that this past Sunday, I posted to my Facebook the Space: 1999 episode, "The Troubled Spirit", and hours later the 1970s Beachcombers episode, "Invisible Relic". And it was later as I was watching "Invisible Relic" that I found a reference to a troubled spirit (those precise words) spoken in the episode by Nick Adonidas (Bruno Gerussi). So, I had posted two episodes of disparately different television programmes on the same day, both containing the same two words. I had not watched "Invisible Relic" in years. I was not consciously aware at the moment of posting it, of any association between it and "The Troubled Spirit", but unconsciously, I must have been aware. I must have made the connection in my unconscious. If anyone is saying that it was just coincidence, it is quite an astonishing coincidence. What would be the odds against those exact words (not exactly a commonly used pairing of words), out of all of the words in the English language, just happening to be coincidentally in two episodes of two very different television programmes being posted by me to my Facebook on the same day? The odds against it would be practically astronomical. Somehow, my unconscious put "Invisible Relic" into my consideration for a Facebook posting when I was viewing "The Troubled Spirit" that day. And it did it when I was fully awake. My unconscious was working and influencing me not in my sleep but in my wakeful hours. This is one example of something that, I believe, happens all of the time with we humans. It is not the only time that it has happened with me. Certainly not. Years ago when I was compiling Warner Brothers cartoons onto videocassettes, I would discover, after doing the compilation, associations between the chosen cartoons, associations that I was not aware of when selecting the cartoons to be on the videotapes. I think that the same sort of thing happened, sometimes at least, when episodes of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, et cetera were being assembled by the good people at Warner Brothers. There may have been conscious decisions involved in some cases, but I think that many of the correspondences between cartoons in same or adjacent episodes were arrived-at unconsciously.
On the subject of the Warner Brothers cartoons, word is that Warner Brothers may be considering doing something home-video-related in recognition of Bugs Bunny's eightieth birthday next year. Word being from some cryptic statement that Jerry Beck made, something to the effect of home video possibly being involved in a celebration. Wishful thinking is starting to spread among cartoon aficionados on Facebook, but not to me. I very much doubt that anything will come of this. Anything of interest to me. Warner allowed Bugs' seventy-fifth birthday to pass without any new release of his cartoons to home video. And after the success of PORKY PIG 101, Warner Archive is committing itself to releasing to Blu-Ray everything from Popeye to Jonny Quest to The Jetsons to Quick Draw McGraw, and has since then ignored Warner Brothers' own vintage cartoon library. Since the last PLATINUM COLLECTION in 2014, there has not been a single release to DVD or Blu-Ray of a newly remastered post-1948 cartoon. I refuse to raise my hopes one iota at this. Assuming that Bugs' eightieth birthday will indeed be recognised, and assuming that there will indeed be a home video release, the probability is that Warner would just rehash the same tired batch of cartoons already on DVD and Blu-Ray, assembling them onto new digital videodiscs, or possibly just using existing glass masters and repackaging the discs with different artwork on them. Warner has been loathe to spend money on further restorations of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. And even if, by the wildest stretch of imagination, some more restorations are commissioned, they will be of pre-1948 cartoons. Because those are what Jerry Beck prefers, and his preferences must be supreme. It is also entirely possible that Warner may only release newly made cartoons like the ones currently in production. That would be the ultimate slap across the face. I say again that I refuse to "hold out" any hope.
I saw Spider-Man: Far From Home yesterday afternoon. I liked it so much more than Spider-Man: Homecoming. I am still not sanguine about the choices made for the Marvel Cinematic Universe iteration of Spidey, but the movie was action-packed, featured one of my favourite Spider-Man villains, Mysterio, and rendered him and his illusion-projecting talents faithfully to the original concept, and very dazzlingly in spectacle. J.K. Simmons' return as J. Jonah Jameson was a very pleasant surprise, although I cannot say that I like the capacity in which he was brought back to the world of Spider-Man. As a bombastic alternative media personality clearly purveying mostly false news. And with what he says, now everybody knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Was it not enough that Peter's best friend, his aunt, and his girl-friend, plus the Avengers and Nick Fury's people all know? Even that was too much. Anyway, it was an enjoyable two hours and more in a movie theatre with popcorn and Coca-Cola. I still cannot resist the temptation of popcorn and soda pop in a movie theatre. Even though I know that such is very unhealthy. I do not indulge myself very often with it, though. Only twice this year and not once in 2018.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019.
I have found an eBay seller offering The Black Hole on Blu-Ray and have purchased the Blu-Ray from that person. Apparently, he or she is acquiring it through Disney Club membership and is reselling it. This is my best option for buying The Black Hole, as I have no desire to become a Disney Club member with requirement of purchases of other Disney titles. The only other Walt Disney Productions movie that I would like to have on Blu-Ray would be Island at the Top of the World, and it is only available on DVD.
A U.K.-based production company specialising in audio dramas on Compact Disc (CD) has acquired the rights to Space: 1999 and is "re-imagining" that television series for a series of audio dramas. The first effort in this undertaking is a re-creation of the first Space: 1999 episode, "Breakaway", as a "feature-length" (i.e. two-hour) audio drama. Word is that some other episodes will be "re-made", and some original stories will be penned, also.
And here it comes. My readers knew that it was coming, right? Yes, I must sadly report that someone asked on a Podcast what season of Space: 1999 would be the basis for the audio dramas, and the response was Season 1, of course, because "people don't like" the second season. Well, well, well. This has soured this latest, what should be rather awesome, development for me, as one ought to expect that it would. Well, here it is, my readers. A telling that toxic fandom speaks for everyone interested in Space: 1999 and that there is, to powers-that-be, categorically nobody anywhere who likes Season 2. At least nobody worth considering. Only garbage humans who belong in the "dustbin of history". This is precisely what I have been railing against, for all of the past few decades. People who like the second season, illegitimate Space: 1999 aficionados they have routinely been touted as being, have become "un-persons". They "un-exist". They are "outside of history". They have been wiped clear of all consideration. My indignation over the injustice of this ought to be understandable. I and others (however many there may be) are that human face being stamped upon by that Orwellian boot. It is "wrong-think" to fancy Season 2. The conformity of the fan movement has now become the stance of mass market product creators. "People" only like "Year 1".
Lest anyone condemn me for being a "snowflake" who cannot cope with the free speech of the toxic fans, I will emphasise that this is not a matter of free speech or any opposition by me to freedom of speech. It went beyond the principle of free speech many, many years ago. It is a matter of endless, endless repetition of a blinkered point of view arrogantly touted as being factual, conformity to it being rigorously enforced, each newly-coming-forth person stating it used by the imperious arbiters of collective "truth" to bully, stifle, and treat as absolutely irrelevant any alternative ways of looking at the television show, all the while slurring the experiences and insights of the persons not in the majority. It is not the free speech, per se, of that new spokesperson of the majority bias that I object to, but the use of that person's free speech to add further buttressing to the argument being daily propagated that there is nothing of any value in Season 2, and that to like Season 2 unapologetically is to warrant censure. Everybody has to be in agreement that Season 2 is not only inferior to Season 1 but is an abomination that should be hated by all. No, I say. No! Aesthetic appreciation should not be majority rule (or the "tyranny of the majority", to use the words of de Tocqueville). And I have coped with or weathered more, far more, than what most people have to incur in one lifetime, for happening to appreciate something that others sneer at and malign on a daily basis. Products like this are further slaps to an already smarting face (or boot stomps upon such) over way, way, way too many years. Enough was enough a long time ago.
Well, this "un-person" will not be supporting this series of audio dramas with his wallet. Nor will he promote this range of product on his Weblog. Invalidate my existence (and my worth), and I will not validate yours, I say. I still have that right. And I will exercise it.
Not that this should really come as any surprise, mind. These audio dramas, although mass market, are being made for the fans, and they will be pandering to fan prejudice. The fan prejudice against anything and everything Season 2 and the garbage humans who are so damnably perverse as to actually like it, much less love it and want to see it (or hear it) represented in some capacity in any revisiting of Space: 1999.
Anyway, as I say, I will give this new Space: 1999 venture no promotion. If any of my readers are interested in it, the information can be found in just about any corner of the Internet that is focused on that emnity-plagued work of 1970s imagination that is Space: 1999. I have never bought an audio drama from this company. Though I have been interested in its work with regard to Doctor Who, I have never gone ahead and purchased one of the Doctor Who audio drama CD sets. I think that it is an opportunity missed, anyway, to "re-imagine" Space: 1999, when a continuation of it within established canon would add to, not replace, that which was produced those many, many years ago.
Reconnecting with my younger self and regaining my enthusiasm for Space: 1999 has been dealt a major setback.
I have lately been doing more work on my television listings project, with focus on the mid-1970s.
Sunday, August 25, 2019.
Warner Brothers continues to neglect Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, giving priority to Popeye, Hanna-Barbera, and Tom and Jerry. Disney has managed to do a "botched job" on a "bare-bones" Blu-Ray of The Black Hole (which I do not have as yet but about which I have read extensively), authoring the Blu-Ray disc to skip the movie's overture. A split between Marvel (Disney) and SONY has put further Spider-Man movies in some doubt. And I am in the midst of the darkest times that I have ever known for Space: 1999- Season 2. It is under assault everywhere. On all of the Facebook groups (including the one that exists supposedly to honour it). At the Roobarb Forum. In Amazon.com reviews of the new Shout! Factory Blu-Ray box set, and in reviews of said box set at Websites such as The Digital Bits. And now at Home Theatre Forum, too. Everywhere. All episodes. Every God-damned one (yes, they are damned by God; they must be). It is now being condemned as blame-worthy, irredeemably contemptible, on a mass market Blu-Ray release. A most unlikely revival of Space: 1999 as audio drama will be ignoring it utterly as the bastard that it must so obviously be. Does anyone ever "stand up" for it? Hell, no! Of course not. Just Kevin McCorry, that useless, worthless, eternally exiled piece of trash who deserves to be in misery for having his imagination powered by that accursed television programme. I wish to God I had not ever heard of it. That I could have been like most everyone else and come to the science fiction/fantasy genre through Star Wars and through Star Trek repeats. Why was I damned by God to be subjected to this for forty-two years? Was it the move to Fredericton? Was it not "getting along with" everyone I knew as a youngster? What was it that brought the Karmic curse down upon me?
There is no regaining my love for viewing Space: 1999, I reckon. But I am inextricably conjoined to it through decades of life experience and oh, so many sullied fond memories of my parents and friends and happy times that were predicated oh, so obviously, on love for a damned thing. My torture must continue. And yes, it is torture. Someone said recently that being ostracised triggers the same brain circuits as physical torture. Not having been physically tortured (yet), I cannot vouch for this. But I know how awful that it feels to read these attacks and to sense my detractors' satisfaction in reading justifications for their treatment of me. If indeed they are privy to any of this animosity. I am sure that some of them are. Somehow, I sense it. And it galls me. Oh, how it galls me.
In these God-awful times for Space: 1999, can I turn to Bugs Bunny and the Warner Brothers cartoons for hopes for better fortune for an entertainment interest? No. They are being pushed into obscurity, and I seem to be the only person to find that distressing. And there is no love in the Zeitgeist for Krantz Films' Spiderman. With Spider-Man movies reaching new summits of box office earnings, there appears to be less interest than ever in the web-swinger's 1960s labours. I did view Avengers: Infinity War last evening, having bought the Blu-Ray thereof, and enjoyed it. But these Marvel movies are movies for another generation. I am aware of that constantly as I watch them. The aesthetic is definitely that of post-2000 Hollywood. I still enjoy them because I enjoyed Spiderman and The Marvel Superheroes way back when and can appreciate the newfangled iterations of the super-heroic characters and their foes. But they will not be to me what those entertainments of my early life were.
And summer will soon be gone, and I will have an autumn to contend with, and another brutally snowy winter thereafter. An autumn with a dreadfully divisive election with a horrible outcome. An autumn in which I have been summoned to jury duty, for the trial for the man who killed those four people in my part of Fredericton last August. Yes. I have been summoned for jury on that trial that is expected to last two months. This does not exactly give to me cause to look forward to the coming weeks.
One more thing before I end this Weblog entry. Awhile ago, I said that there was a snowball's chance in hell of there being a revival of Space: 1999. Was I wrong? Maybe not. These days, a snowball laced with long-lived radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima nuclear disaster (I have not forgotten about that) would perhaps have a chance in hell.
September 1, 2019.
Summer is slipping away. I do not want to lose it.
Rearing its ugly head yet again is the Bob Clampett-is-God Warner Brothers cartoon fan faction, the very faction whose attitude precipitated my departure from the Termite Terrace Trading Post. As if I did not have enough "aggro" to contend with as regards Space: 1999.
The latest incarnation in the denigration of the post-1948 work of Freleng, Jones, McKimson is in the form of audio commentaries by someone calling himself "The Self-Appointed Looney Tunes Critic". Do the eyes just not roll at the sound of that while it is read aloud? I do not have much, if any, use for "critics", self-appointed or otherwise. They concern themselves with the nuts and bolts of storytelling and expect "air-tight" "plotting" (leaving nothing ambiguous or unexplained), and with quality of technical production as the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to judging a work's value, and using some vaunted work of polished outward presentment as an absolute yardstick against which all other productions should be compared. They are not interested in the subtle aesthetic "touches" of a work, nor even the visual beauty of the depictions, or the beauty in concepts and in how concepts are chosen by writers and producers to be manifest.
Anyway, this "critic" is posting audio commentaries for various Looney Tune and Merrie Melodies cartoons to YouTube. I first came upon him when I discovered that he had done an audio commentary on "Hyde and Hare". I watched the oh, so erudite concoction and was bored with it within the first minute. The "critic" has the drony voice of a ho-hum-I-am-ever-so-bored, jaded "burn-out". He even calls himself a "stoner". Within the first minute of the cartoon he is struggling for words to make an observation (not a very highly sophisticated one) that the cartoon looks to him like a Robert McKimson cartoon, and not a Friz Freleng cartoon (which it is), and says that no one from the McKimson animation unit worked on it. Wrong! Ted Bonnicksen was one of the animators for "Hyde and Hare" and several other Freleng cartoons of 1954 and 1955, before working in the McKimson unit for the remainder of his time at the cartoon studio. So, Bonnicksen did some of the animation. Not that this is so compelling a fact about the cartoon as to warrant pausing for doddering searches for words (with "like" and "I don't know" peppered into the monologue) for dozens of seconds about it. I mean, there are only seven minutes of audio commentary time to regale people with this person's oh, so intellectual observations. Why let any of them go to waste? He then, quite unenthusiastically, asks if anyone is familiar with Robert Louis Stevenson's original story, which, he says, eventually was made into a movie. Just one movie? It was made into several movies. Some basic research would have revealed that. For awhile, he talks about a Sean Young movie of the 1990s, saying nothing of any substance about what is happening in the cartoon (Jekyll drinking the potion and turning into Hyde) and how it is depicted. He laughs as Hyde approaches Bugs at the piano, then rambles about the element of surprise for a character not being particularly surprising to a viewer, remarks about "choppy" video quality of the cartoon, and gives information about Hyde Bugs being in a video game and then mutters about his reasons for not playing video games. There are about ten seconds of no commentary as Jekyll emerges from the closet and searches for Bugs. And then, the "critic" staggers through a mention of the joining, in The Bugs Bunny Howl-Oween Special, of "Hyde and Hare" with a certain Tweety cartoon, the name of which, he says, escapes him. I am not joking. He has forgotten the cartoon title of "Hyde and Go Tweet". Going into this audio commentary, he did not do any reading to refresh his memory of relevant information for "Hyde and Hare" and Friz Freleng's works pertaining to "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". He evidently has not looked at my article on "Hyde and Hare" which has been available on the Internet for more than twenty years. He does not reference a single observation that I have made. He finishes the protracted ramble with a statement that Freleng was repetitive and that combining his cartoons on the same idea is very easy to do. And then laughs with a statement that he, "...kid(s) the Friz."
Just under seven minutes, and what an ordeal it was to listen to this person. But I further listened to his audio commentaries on "Rabbit Rampage" and "Sahara Hare" in order to gain a more extensive, more layered opinion of him, beyond that he is boring and not very observant or knowledgeable. And that nuance and subtlety in cartoons would appear not to be his forte. He would have read my article if they were so. And he reveals himself in his commentary for "Rabbit Rampage" to be yet another of the people who put Clampett's cartoons on a pedestal and who regard Jones as overrated, citing how Bugs is portrayed in "Rabbit Rampage" as some indication that Jones really was not as astute at characterisation as many people think that he is and that Clampett deserves some commendation for the cartoon, "Falling Hare". What is so great about "Falling Hare"? As a definitive Bugs Bunny cartoon? It could as easily have been a cartoon with Daffy, I reckon. Clampett's Daffy, that is. "Rabbit Rampage", preceded by "Hare Brush", works, as I have said, as part of a grouping of 1955 cartoons. It was an attempt to do something different with Bugs, as a "follow-up" to the acclaimed "Duck Amuck". To show what might happen if Bugs were hoisted with his own petard, and is within that distinctive cluster of 1955 cartoons. Whether or not it was a "misfire" can be debated. But let Clampett's cartoons stand on their own merits without making sweeping judgements on the other directors.
He goes through his commentary on "Sahara Hare" disparaging Freleng, even going so far as to say that Freleng was not the master of timing that he has been acclaimed to have been. Even Freleng's non-admirers have tended to concede that he was quite effective at timing. He lambastes Freleng again for being repetitive. So there was a number of Bugs and Yosemite Sam cartoons with Bugs in a fortress and Sam trying to gain entry to the fortress. So, what? They are not all the same. The milieus are different. The ploys used by Sam are different. The dialogue is different. They are variations on a theme. As are Freleng's three Jekyll-and-Hyde cartoons. "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide" revisits the characters and outcome of "Tree For Two" using some Jekyll-and-Hyde tropes and is quite different from what is done with Jekyll-and-Hyde in "Hyde and Hare" (Bugs as the adopted "pet" and finding that his new "master" has a monster lurking about). And "Hyde and Go Tweet" brings Jekyll-and-Hyde into the Sylvester-and-Tweety chase dynamic. Freleng does not just outright do the same cartoon again. He does different things with the concept. Yes, he does sometimes repeat gags, like circus pigeons flying out the window, or the Endearing Young Charms gag, or a character thinking that another character has fired a gun at him, or the gun with the ribbon in the two holes gag. But they are repeated with different characters to different comedic effect. I do not see why Freleng's work must be damned for it. Jones' Pepe Le Pew cartoons and McKimson's Hippety Hopper cartoons are as much, if not more, repetitive, I would think. Not that I intend denigration upon them. They are still much more enjoyable for me than Clampett's cartoons.
This "Self-Appointed Critic" is gaining an appreciative audience as he comments on more and more cartoons. And from what I have experienced of him, he may as well be Michael Barrier or John K. or that awful person at the Termite Terrace Trading Post with the assumed name of a Burt Lancaster character. They each have a different voice (or typeface) outputting the same spiel. Clampett, Clampett, Clampett, Clampett. Freleng a hack. Jones not as good as people think. McKimson? I have not gleaned much of an impression of the "critic"'s opinion of him, but I suspect that it is the same as that of the other men mentioned here. That McKimson was only a good animator while working under Clampett. Yada. Yada. Yada. Blah, blah, blah.
"Self-Appointed Critic" does give a continuing voice to this faction of cartoon fandom, and on a platform that has become mainstream. And it irks me to see someone of this persuasion gaining a following within the dwindling ranks of Warner Brothers cartoon aficionados. Irks me and confounds me. Perplexing blinkeredness to the merits of the post-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons is becoming more and more the norm, it seems, for people who have an interest in the Warner Brothers cartoons. And here as with Space: 1999, I am the outlier. And I am so God-damned sick and tired of being the outlier.
September 23, 2019. First damned day of autumn. A bleak one, too.
I have been keeping busy on expanding my television listings project. I have vastly increased the television listings of the 1970s. There are now Sunday television listings from 1970 to 1979.
Keeping busy is needed now to keep myself distracted from the current federal election cycle. Not distracted enough, unfortunately, as I have to behold the lunacy of Canadian voters for still being willing to vote for that epitome of privileged poor judgement and sanctimony. Even after the SNC-Lavalin affair. Even after his disastrous journey to India. Even after his disgusting reaction to the Danforth killings last summer. And what he said to veterans about their asking too much while he doles out money like there is no tomorrow to anyone and everyone whose allegiance is not to Canada (including someone I dare not name). And his saying that Canada has no core culture. And his changing the national anthem without a mandate to do so. And his reneging on his promises of electoral reform (I never believed those promises for a second). And his laughable "peoplekind" remark. And, yes, even after his blackface, or brownface, or whatever, performances, to which he never admitted until they were finally revealed in the media (why were they not public knowledge in 2015 when he was first campaigning to be Prime Minister?; the public had a right to know about them then, no?) and his feeble excuse for an apology, blaming privilege among people in general. The man reeks of privilege and lectures the common people about their supposed privilege. He is branding people all over Canada with the r-word while he himself has done blackface, or brownface, multiple times. Is he also apologising for his hypocrisy? Hell, no.
He will win again. Oh, yes. It is a sad testimonial to what has happened to my country. I am ashamed to be a Canadian. Although I did not vote for him in 2015 and I never will, the fact that I am a product of this same nation as those people who are going to cast their ballots for this sanctimonious, hypocritical child of tremendous privilege who has several ethics violations to his Prime Ministership, does make me lower my head in shame.
No other Canadian politician would ever be allowed to continue his or her political career after behaviour such as blackface (or brownface) was revealed (he or she certainly would not be allowed to be Prime Minister), and J.T. himself would be calling for any other politician's hide over something half as egregious as this. It goes to show how much privilege that he has. Rich, pretty (I do not think that he is pretty, but many people do think so), of elite French-Canadian "blue-blood" with a recognisably dynastic surname, and federal Liberal. I will probably be sent to the Canadian equivalent of a Gulag for saying all of this (J.T. admires dictatorship; yes, he has said that, too- and still he "gets a free pass"). This country will disgust me when it re-elects him in another month's time. I can kiss my retirement good-bye, as the country will be bankrupted and there will be no C.P.P. and my R.R.S.P. savings will be devalued when the Canadian dollar crashes. I would not be surprised if private property becomes outlawed, and I can no longer own my house.
This is my political spiel before the election. I have no hope of convincing anyone not to vote for the entitled one with the hair and the finger-wagging, holier-than-thou bearing and smug smirk and no qualification to lead a country. I cannot even convince people that my favourite television programmes are good. What hope have I in persuading people not to vote for someone I do not believe to be the right choice to lead the country? My parents sure are fortunate not to have to see any of this. My father would be livid at what the "pot-head" son of Pierre Trudeau is doing to the country that he served in the military to protect.
Word is that the audio drama version of Space: 1999- "Breakaway" contains foul language and an implied "F-bomb". All the more reason for me to give to it "a wide berth". It is a sad state of affairs indeed when the television show that helped me to "get through" the rude language of school in Fredericton should descend, in its "re-imagining", to the use (or implicit use) of the words of my disagreeable and ridiculing peers of my worst years of school. No, thank-you. Not today. Not ever.
Of course, the fans all love it. I knew that they would. Just heaven help the producers if they ever introduce Tony Verdeschi or, horror or horrors, Maya, into the continuing series of dramas. Not that such is likely ever to happen, mind.
October 1, 2019.
I reported to jury selection yesterday at the Grant Harvey Centre near Fredericton's Industrial Park, along with some 800 other people. After an afternoon of nervous tension as numbers for people were randomly drawn from a box, I was, to my enormous relief, not among the persons to be jurors, and I was free to leave that place and to re-enter my life with a dinner at Mary Brown's Fried Chicken. I feel most thankful for my young Vietnamese friend's wishes and hopes. Somehow, my luck which had almost never been robust and dependable for me in the past, was vastly improved today, and I feel like my friend's positive energy did carry me through this day to best possible, luckiest outcome. He is an awesome, awesome friend. I am most profoundly thankful to have found him.
A couple of postings at a Space: 1999 Facebook group in the past couple of days have caught my attention. I prepose to respond to them.
"Folks, this infighting between the two seasons is not healthy. If anything, it is becoming toxic as both Star Trek and Star Wars fandom. Part of the reason why I left both Star Trek and Star Wars behind indefinitely.
I enjoy Space: 1999 and for what it is. And thankfully, the Powys Media books (which are canon, by the way) explains what caused the changes between Season 1 and Season 2.
So on that note, let's quit the feuding and the fighting. Too much cool science fiction has been ruined by out of control fan politics and franchise fatigue. Let alone reboots and remakes.
Space: 1999 SHOULD NOT be the next victim of such fatalities."
Yes, the "infighting", as this person calls it, is not healthy. Becoming toxic? It has been toxic for decades now. It was toxic back in the mid-1990s. And it has been becoming more and more toxic over the passage of time. It is, in my estimation, far, far more toxic than any animosities that may exist between fans of different persuasions in the fandoms of Star Trek and Star Wars or Doctor Who. One need only look at the hate-filled amimus that is expressed daily toward Fred Freiberger, a Jewish World War II soldier and a good man. People who appreciate Season 2 are bullied daily into an obsequious verbal self-flagellation if they dare defend their favourite episodes, scenes, or characters to any potentially meaningful extent. If they will not self-flagellate, and if they unapologetically express aesthetic apprciation of anything Season 2 and say that they will tolerate no "guff", they are accosted as being delusional and having the tastes of a "dumb kid", with full ferocity of the group's conformity-enforcing herd mentality.
I do not think that "infighting" is the right word. The Season 2 side of the matter does not "put up" much of a fight at all. Apart from me and from Dean's all too brief forays into the fold. There is no balanced "debate" of which to speak. Only a "pompous ass" streamroller of "opinion-mongering" against Season 2 by intransigent masses of people, their blinkers pridefully and resolutely attached to them.
The Powys books may be licenced by Granada, the current Space: 1999 rights holder, but that does not make them canon. Any more than licenced (by ITC) products of the 1970s like the Power Records stories, the comic book stories, and the original novels by E.C. Tubb and John Rankine were canon. Those were not. The only things that are incontrovertibly canonical are the 48 episodes as broadcast. I do not regard Alphans using foul language as canon. I do not regard Koenig and Russell having a sexual relationship during Season 2 as canon. I do not regard Bergman being killed by a faulty spacesuit helmet as canon. I do not regard Powys Books' Space: 1999 as canon.
And the fans are onto the old "tack" again of Season 1's "The Full Circle" being suited to Season 2 for silliness.
To which someone says this:
"Script wouldn't have been out of place in Season 2 because literally every 1999 script is full of hand-waving, pseudoscience, and technobabble. People who think Season 1 is 'real sci-fi' are basically getting played by portentous music and the idea that they're smarter than everyone else."
Rather harsh, but essentially a correct summation on the Season 1 pundits. I concur. Not that pseudoscience is damning, mind. I think that the ideas used for Space: 1999's particular deviations from the limits of "real science" are quite lovely. But anyways. What do I know, right? I am just a garbage human by these people's oh, so vaunted estimation. And they are never wrong, of course. Of course, of course, of course.
It is "the day after turkey day". For Canadians. That being the day after Canadian Thanksgiving. I must say that I am so very tired of Stove Top Stuffing. Oh, do I wish that my mother could have taught me how to make turkey dressing! I do roast turkey effectively and produce quite appetising gravy. It is the dressing that I always have to resort to a mass-market product to supply for my Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter turkey feasts.
I am thankful to have avoided jury duty, solely by the "luck of the draw", for my juror number was among the last to be pulled at random from a box. I am thankful for pleasant weather so far this autumn. I am thankful for the friends that I currently have. And especially my new friend whose positivity and his dedication to messaging with me every day on Facebook has done wonders for rejuvenating my belief in the quality of friendship and in preventing me from succumbing to the irascibility that I have exhbited over the many years prior to 2018 as regards frustrations with fan attitudes, et cetera. I am thankful to have on Blu-Ray or DVD almost everything that I could ever want. And I am thankful to have a roof over my head and money in the bank. For now. If Canada chooses as I expect that it will next Monday, I doubt that I will have the last two of these things for much longer.
My Website and this Weblog is again in a deep trough as regards visitors, and as a result of that, I have lacked motivation in recent weeks to add to this Weblog.
Besides, nothing ever improves where attitudes toward my favourite entertainments are concerned. They just continue to worsen. Space: 1999's second season in particular is the most hated work of modern science fiction/fantasy on film. It is hated more than Season 3 Star Trek, Season 2 Buck Rogers, Galactica 1980, The Starlost, Lost in Space, late 1980s Doctor Who, Blake's 7's final season, the Star Wars prequels, Alien 3 and Alien 4, the short-lived Logan's Run television series. Everything. The Facebook group dedicated to it, small as it is with only 3000 members, consistently attacks its episodes. And now, of course, Blu-Ray and DVD sets sold to the general public are declaring it blame-worthy and fit only for existence for completeness' sake, to be regarded with utter condescension. Everything about it is attacked. Daily. All of those professionals who worked on it, many of whom were "the creme de la creme" of the British film industry, apparently decided to forsake their talents and their professionalism and to do thoroughly shoddy work of zero aesthetic import and damnable for all time because they hated Fred Freiberger. Right? That is the only possible conclusion to formulate from the attitude that everything about Season 2, every episode, every concept, every dramatisation, every scene, every character, every visual effect, is awful. All of those people decided to do their worst work. And we few people who liked it and continue to like it belong in a rubber room, if not in the gutters of the darkest alleys as the garbage humans that we so obviously are.
This is what things have come to now. Not that I am being choleric about any of it, mind. I am just stating facts. I am doing so as I am about to segue into another rigorous response to assaults upon the second season of Space: 1999. Rigorous, yes. Irascible, no. These days, I just sigh as I read the latest sorties, then collect my thoughts for a as non-indignant a response as possible. Again, I am compelled to respond as insightfully and as articulately as I can, for my own peace of mind in knowing that I did so. For that reason if for nothing else. If for no availing outcomes of my iterated defences of Season 2, for either me or for second season Space: 1999 in the public arena.
Recently, "A Matter of Balance" came under assault again for the character of Shermeen Williams. Why, the fans groan for the hundred-thousandth time, is there a teenager on Alpha? How come I did not have this reaction to the episode when I saw it for the first time on Saturday, January 8, 1977? Was I just a "dumb kid"? Was it "dumb" of me not to search for fault with the episodes of a television programme that was capturing my imagination like nothing else before ever did? For what it may be worth, I viewed Shermeen not as a teenager but a very inexperienced and naive young woman whose infatuation with Tony Verdeschi was likened (by Maya and Helena) to a teenager's "crush". The word, teenage, was descriptive of the "crush", not a literal statement of the age bracket of Shermeen. An adult can be said to have a "teenage crush" on someone, and in that case, "teenage" is meant to be descriptive of the "crush", and not literally of the person. That was how I interpreted the dialogue. How I interpreted it for many years before I became privy, alas, to fandom's objections to the episode. It was, to my surprise, voted as the worst episode of Space: 1999 in a poll in 1986. That was the first time that I was aware of animus toward "A Matter of Balance" in the fan movement. On January 8, 1977, I intuited that Shermeen was not a teenager because I knew then what teenaged girls looked like, and she did not look like them. Lynne Frederick was 22 years-old when she played Shermeen, and she looked at least that old. It is possible that a minor could have been on Alpha when the Moon broke out of orbit (an illustrated book printed some years ago depicts this) and that said minor could have reached eighteen years of age before "A Matter of Balance". But this was never necessary in my mind because I interpreted "teenage" to be a descriptor of the character's infatuation, and not literally of the character herself. And that she could have been of age of the majority during reconnaissance missions of which she was a part (and experienced enough in her duties as botanist to be allowed to do her work on a planet without constant supervision), for some time before "A Matter of Balance". It is not said in the episode exactly how old Shermeen is. Michael Butterworth's novelisation of the episode says that she is 18 years-old, but it also gives her surname as Goodwood, not Williams. The novelisation departs from the episode televised in other ways. It is not canon. Butterworth may have been working from early draughts of the episode's script, not the final one. Only the final one is canon.
I conceded fully some years ago to the illustrated book's explanation for Shermeen's presence on Alpha and incorporated it into my chronology for Space: 1999, but in admittedly tetchy reaction to the latest round of slighting of the episode, I have re-thought this and am going back to my original interpretation. Shermeen is a young woman of her early-to-mid-twenties who is naive and inexperienced in the interactions of adult life and in romance, because she was a prodigy who was on Alpha at age of 18 when the Moon left orbit and spent her early adult years concentrating upon her studies and her work because the survival of Alpha in its first years in space required her to sequester herself to her professional development. I still accept the World Science Fair explanation in the illustrated book for there being some young people on Alpha, but they were, in my conception, all at least 18 years-old when they came to Alpha.
Doubtless, the fans would outright reject the idea of "teenage" not being a literal descriptor of Shermeen's age, because those people only think literally. They criticise the "Irish cowboy", Dave Reilly, of "All That Glisters", on the grounds of there not being cowboys in Ireland, because they are regarding "Irish cowboy" literally. It cannot, to them, be a fanciful descriptor of an Irishman living in Texas who loves Texan lore and coopts it into his persona (this was how I always interpreted it). But then, what do I know? I was just a stupid boy who oh, so obviously lacked the sophistication of his cynical, F-word-spouting and ostracising school peers who thought reefer, talk of sex, violent sports, and rock-and-roll music to be the be-all-and-end-all. And who deserved to be the outlier at school and ultimately rejected by his friends around home. Oh, yes. Of course.
I am not being irascible as I say this. Just rolling eyes exasperatedly and plaintively as I state facts.
I propose to "move on" to something else. Another recent target of the usual fan hostility has once more been "The Rules of Luton" and the naming, by writer Freiberger, of the planet (Luton) in the episode. Luton is a municipal jurisdiction in England, and a road sign for it gave to Freiberger the idea to use it for the name of his planet in the script for "The Rules of Luton". The late Gerry Anderson would routinely invoke this particular inspiration of his producing colleague when wanting to "pooh-pooh" the second season of Space: 1999 and spark another go at the pejoratives flung at Fred Freiberger, the man solely to blame for there not being a Season 3 of Space: 1999. Anderson would denounce the selection of the name as not being eruditely considered and deserving of the scorn heaped upon it. Alien planets cannot share the same name as communities in Britain, though alien character names such as Gwent (in Season 1) can, apparently.
But contrary as I persistently am, I propose to delve into what may have prompted Freiberger to use the name of Luton for the planet in the episode. The fans already hate me, anyway. My old friends prefer to keep their distance. What do I have to lose?
Okay. Luton. In ancient Rome, the Latin word, ludus (plural, ludi), had meanings within the semantic range of "play", "game", "sport", and "training". Ludus was also referred-to as a training school for gladiators. This is what is revealed in Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludus_%28ancient_Rome%29). I am not just pulling it out of my posterior.
Now, then. Combine l, u, and d with the o and n of Space: 1999 planet names of Psychon, Archanon, Kalthon, and the word would be "ludon", rather closely resembling Luton. Fred Freiberger saw Luton on a road sign and thought it somehow applicable to, somehow right for, his episode about a fight to the death, like those those of the gladiators of Rome, between John and Maya and aliens. The Roman fights to the death were called games, which would invoke the word, ludi. Did Freiberger's subconscious influence him to judge the name of Luton to be appropriate for his planet in "The Rules of Luton" where combat comparable to that of the gladiators would transpire? It is an interesting conjecture. A curious one, given the Latin word resembling somewhat the L and u and t of Luton. Ah, but Gerry Anderson and his legions of followers have contended that Freiberger's choice of Luton was poorly considered and should be derided, ridiculed, flatly rejected. I dare to delve into the word's potential aptness for use in the episode.
This was the approach that Dean had for studying the words used in Space: 1999 second season. As regards Luton, however, he shared with me and with the fans in a newsletter a different etymology tracing for Luton from the one that I am elucidating. One that is equally, if not more, potentially significant. My delineating from simple search by Google of the possible origin of the word's appeal to Freiberger, is not an act of plagiarism of Dean's work, but I propose to stop. I have at least given to the open-minded reader of my Weblog, potential cause to doubt the "official line" that Freiberger's choice of Luton for a planet name for his episode, is devoid of any artistic import or of any cause to gaze upon it as anything other than a garbage choice by a talentless, "show-killing" "hack".
Tuesday, October 15, 2019.
It is Saturday, October 19. The leaves are flowing off of the trees now. It is amazing what a difference a week can make. Last Saturday, the leaves were almost all on the trees, exhibiting their lavish autumn colours. Now, they are mostly on the lawns and streets. It will not be long now before there is snow.
I have brought my latest work on television listings to a close. What to do now? Possibly work on my Spiderman chronology, or finally finish work on Eras 6 and 7. Time will tell.
Disney has released a corrected Blu-Ray of The Black Hole, but I cannot procure an improved Black Hole Blu-Ray because I bought mine off of eBay, and only people who bought directly from the Disney Movie Club are eligible for the replacements.
The final Blu-Ray of Pink Panther cartoons will be released on November 26. That and a Blu-Ray release of Fawlty Towers constitute my purchases for the remainder of the year.
This is all that I have to report to my Weblog's readers at this time.
Remembrance Day, 2019.
A bleaker Remembrance Day than most. Dark grey skies all day, the temperature never rising above zero, traces of snow from Friday's snowstorm remaining on the ground, and a chilly afternoon walk as I contemplate some particular subjects. Canadian politics. My lack of kindred spirit in fan movements. The intransigence of the purportedly sophisticated.
Fans of Space: 1999 are bemoaning again the changes to the Alphan dress from Season 1 and Season 2 and assailing the latter for opting to put identification tags on tunics and badges on jackets (along with tunic collars, new seams, et cetera).
Where did the different Alphan attire come from before "The Metamorph", and why the changes? Oh, the identification tags are so unneccessary and stupid, are they not? Oh, sure. There can be no rationale behind the wearing of them. Right? Right. And no possible way for the different uniforms to have been on Alpha. Blame Season 2. Blame Fred Freiberger. Yada, yada, yada. Blah, blah, blah.
Poppycock. The jackets with some of the badges on them and a version of the identification tag were introduced in Season 1. In "Dragon's Domain", in the flashbacks to a pre-"Breakaway" Moonbase Alpha. It should be reasonable for the reasonable person to suppose that sometime prior to 1996 and 1997, the variety of uniforms seen in Season 2 was the original look to the Alphan dress. The name tags were for Alphans on different tours of duty to be able to know each other's name, specialisation, and Alpha section place of posting, and for people visiting Alpha from the World Space Commission to also readily identify individuals encountered in an official visit to Moonbase. There may also have been an emphasis in those years on awarding to people jacket badges for achievement in the founding of the Moonbase. And sometime before the 1996-7 Ultra Probe, a decision was made to go with a unisex style of uniform, with the original sets of tunics and the jackets put into storage, the jackets with badges and the identification tags worn by Koenig, Bergman, and Cellini in "Dragon's Domain" being some vestigial remnant of the old dress code. And in "The Testament of Arkadia" with power losses requiring the wearing of jackets or coats, someone in assembling those jackets or coats for all Alphans found caches of the original uniform in storage, and Koenig later decides to return the Alphan attire back to the original style, for practical and aesthetic reasons. The identification tags reveal Alphans' identities and specialisations to visiting aliens walking about the Moonbase, and the more flattering necklines of the old tunics and the jackets concealing men's paunches are a fashionable choice conducive to a boost in morale. As too are the skirts for the women. The seams provide some additional colour coded to the collar and sleeve. The pockets of the jackets are a practical accoutrement for Alphans wanting some place on their person to put their portable electronic gadgets. All of this is reasonable supposition. And it just requires some amount of imagination and open-mindedness.
All for today.
Here is something from rather far out in left field. Warner Brothers has announced a DVD for February 4, 2020 called THE LOONEY TUNES PARODIES COLLECTION. And while someone thinking in terms of the halcyon days of the 1990s when there was much care and thought put into themed laser videodisc releases of the Warner Brothers cartoons, would expect this to be a comprehensive compilation of all fairy tale, legend, and literature parodies, the sad fact of the matter is that today, the bean counters are just stuffing compilations with reiterated releases of "Rabbit of Seville", "What's Opera, Doc?", and (oh, not that again!) "I Love to Singa" and marring them with cartoons made in the 1990s and 2000s and of all things a television special. There is no thought to the collectors who already have most of these cartoons on DVD and Blu-Ray in duplicate if not triplicate. Why would anyone want How Bugs Bunny Won the West instead of uncut versions of all of the vintage cartoons comprising it? Why not remaster "The Fair Haired Hare", "Wild and Woolly Hare", "Bonanza Bunny", and "Aqua Duck" and offer them in a Wild West-themed compilation of Warner Brothers cartoon classics? And if there is to be a parodies compilation, why not include "Beanstalk Bunny", "A-Lad-in His Lamp", and all of the Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs, and Goldilocks spoofs, and, yes, even the Jekyll-and-Hyde cartoons of Friz Freleng? Yet again, "Hyde and Go Tweet" is ignored. It is gratifying, certainly, to finally be able to have "Rabbitson Crusoe" on shiny digital videodisc. I am not an aficionado of either of them, but "Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk" and "Hare-Abian Nights" are new to DVD also on this release. It is not known yet, however, whether they will be remastered. All of the others are tired "multiple-dips". Some of them are on Blu-Ray, making further DVD release of them quite pointless from the standpoint of best possible quality. Indeed, there is no excuse for this not to be a Blu-Ray release. In this day and age, DVD is an outmoded format. Every new release should be on Blu-Ray. I am loathe to buy DVDs these days. And it further irks me that I must pay more than twenty dollars just to add a couple of cartoons to my collection, surrounded by a plethora of redundant cartoons.
Anyway. No one in authority is going to listen to me.
Here is a listing of all that is in THE LOONEY TUNES PARODIES COLLECTION.
"I Love to Singa"
"Hollywood Steps Out"
"Super-Rabbit"
"Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk"
"Little Red Riding Rabbit"
"Rabbit Hood"
"Rabbit of Seville"
"Rabbitson Crusoe"
"What's Opera, Doc?"
"Hare-Abian Nights"
"Apes of Wrath"
How Bugs Bunny Won the West
"The Duxorcist"
"Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers"
"Chariots of Fur"
"Carrotblanca"
"Pullet Surprise"
"Little Go Beep"
"From Hare to Eternity"
"Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas"
There is mention at Blu-Ray.com Forum that "Upswept Hare" is undergoing a remaster. That is excellent news, to be sure. It is another cartoon not released on DVD or Blu-Ray as yet. But as to what this may be "in aid of", I have no idea. It could be that more cartoons are being remastered for Webstreaming services. Indeed, it is quite possible given Warner Brothers' twenty-first century indifference toward Bugs Bunny, that the PARODIES COLLECTION will be the one and only release to DVD or Blu-Ray of vintage cartoons to celebrate Bugs' eightieth birthday. I would not be at all surprised.
This is all that I have to say for today, Saturday, November 16, 2019. Sunday, December 1, 2019.
My Website really is "bottoming out" as regards visitors. I am seeing no traffic to any of my Web pages other than the ones in the Televised Looney Tunes section. My Space: 1999 Web page has totally "tanked" where visits are concerned. So much for the effect of my mention in the booklet in the Shout! Factory Blu-Ray box set. It has not led to an increase in readers. Quite the opposite, in fact. And this is really perplexing. For twenty years having been the recipient on my Website of the most consistent daily traffic, my Littlest Hobo Web page has not been accessed for weeks. My statistics for Web page traffic indicates no visits to the Littlest Hobo Page. It is a jarring change in Website fortune. And my hunch as to the main reason in this steep downward slide is that my comments on Canadian politics in Weblog entries this year have caused my Website to be blacklisted on whatever Internet search engines had been directing people to my Website's various Web pages. The problem befalling my Space: 1999 Web page may be partly attributable to the same, but is mostly the ultimate direction of the proliferation of hatred toward Season 2 and of me for defending it.
Ah, but people always tell me that my Website and all of the work on it is for me only. That I am the only person for whom it can possibly have any value. My autobiography would appear to be the truest manifestation of this of late. I have updated my Era 2 memoirs with more images, more text, more memories, because such augments the nostalgia surge that I experience when I go onto that particular Web page and scroll through it. The synthesis of all of the old photographs of mine, from that time of my life or sometime later (e.g. the late 1980s or 1990), and the photographs, from other sources, of locations in the Miramichi region as seen in the 1970s and images of my favourite entertainments and images of comic books, vinyl records, audiocassettes, snacks, et cetera, yields an experience very much like looking back in time through a time machine. It brings that time period of my life alive again in profoundly stirring ways. Of course, it cannot have that value for anyone else, which is one reason, perhaps the central reason, why people are not looking at it. I suppose the time has come to finally acknowledge that everything else on my Website is valuable only to me, that nobody else is gaining any appreciation of any of the entertainments from what I say about them. Of course, this has been true for a long time in the case of Space: 1999, but it may indeed to be true for everything else too, now. A blacklisting of my Website for political censure might just be the final nail in the coffin for my Website's notability for the public, in a downward spiral that my Website has been in for some time. And whether people are right or not about my work being valueless to anyone but me, circumstances have made that to be so.
I could recant my Weblog entries that "touch on" politics, delete them, purge them, and henceforth be politically neutral. There is a definite sense in doing such, as there is nothing that I can possibly say or do to change the direction into which my country is going. And maybe if I do, my Website's visibility on the Internet will return to the old normal. Maybe. Maybe not. In any event, as I say, my Website's traffic has been trending downward for quite awhile now. But if my political writing does disappear, that will indicate my decision in this particular matter.
Monday, December 8, 2019.
Although it is receiving no visits at all of late, I have updated my Space: 1999 Page, expanding the CBC Broadcast History section to now include information on the CBC 1976-8 run of the television show for the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and adding two more television stations to the Radio-Canada Cosmos 1999 broadcast history (television stations of eastern Quebec that were available to New Brunswick's northern cities). The Ontario and Quebec television stations used for the expansion of the Space: 1999 1976-8 broadcast history are CBOT of Ottawa, CKMI of Quebec City, CBMT of Montreal, and CKWS of Kingston. All CBC broadcasts in the Eastern Time Zone would have been at the same time as those of these four broadcasters. This would include CBLT, Toronto. From where the originating Eastern Time signal was sent throughout Ontario and Quebec.
I would note that "Alpha Child"'s rerun on April 15, 1978 was preempted in Quebec for Quebec Liberal Leadership Convention. There is no indication that it was videotape-delayed. It just did not air in Quebec.
My information is incomplete as yet for the western provinces, but someday, I will add their airings of Space: 1999 too, to the CBC Broadcast History. I would certainly love to "put paid" once and for all to the falsehood being dissemenated that Space: 1999's second season aired on Saturday morning in Canada on its initial run. As my information indicates, the earliest on Saturday that Space: 1999 ever aired in the 1976-8 window of time in the eastern half of Canada, was 1:30 P.M. on December 10, 1977, and that was for the Season 1 episode, "The Full Circle", on its Eastern Time Ontario and Quebec telecast. In New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, the airtime was 2:30, Atlantic Time.
First season did air on Saturday morning at 8 A.M. on CBKT, Regina, in 1975-6. That was what I was told by my erstwhile friend in Regina. I have no documentation to confirm it, but I believe him. It is a crazy notion, for Season 1 with its horror elements to have been shown on Saturday morning. I wonder if there were any complaints from parents of traumatised children.
I have made further updates to my Era 2 memoirs, adding more text and more images to them. I have also endevoured to make the pictures as chronological as possible in their appearance.
All for today.
Further updating has been done to my Era 2 memoirs. I expect that I will be making some additions to Era 3 too, in the days ahead.
Going into Christmas of 2019, I have "given up" on the hopeless cause that is Space: 1999 in the public arena. Although 2020 will be Bugs Bunny's eightieth birthday, I am not anticipating any significant attention given to his cartoons in the home video market. Only the usual repackaging of those tired old GOLDEN COLLECTION cartoon remasters. Jerry Beck has said that he is working on something, but one can be sure that it will not involve previously unreleased to digital videodisc post-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons. I do not give a damn anymore about Star Wars. The latest Star Wars movie produced by Disney is now in theatres, and I have not the slightest desire to see it or to discuss it. I seldom socialise with colleagues at work anymore, and I do not know what their verdict is about The Rise of Skywalker, whatever agenda-driven, concocted-from-weary-tropes (shall we destroy the Death Star again, dear friends?), old-character-debasing, deux ex machina-harping balderdash that it is. J.J. Abrams will not receive another penny of my money, and he deserves not a micro-second of my valuable time. I have wasted enough of it already in writing about him and his handiwork in this paragraph.
I have the final volume of Pink Panther cartoons output on Blu-Ray by Kino Lorber. The "Pink Links" documentary on the Blu-Ray disc is mildly amusing. New cartoon animation was done of the Little Man, now a "surfer" of the Internet, and the Pink Panther. It reconsitutes much of the "Good-Bye, Warner Bros., Hello, DePatie-Freleng" documentary on the Inspector and Ant and Aardvark Blu-Rays and has some other content, including an "over-the-top" Social Justice Warrior "spin" on gender in the Pink Panther cartoons. I do not know if it was meant to be serious or if it was a parody of Social Justice Warrior preoccupations ("Smash the patriarchy!!!"). I would need to know Greg Ford's politics to have the definitive answer on this question.
Anyway. Merry Christmas to my dwindling number of readers. Time will tell whether the slump that my Website is in, will "turn around".
December 24, 2019.
Friday, December 27, 2019.
I have added broadcast information for Space: 1999 in 1976-8 for the CBC television stations of the central Canadian province of Manitoba, to my Space: 1999 Page's CBC Broadcast History section. Specifically CBWT Winnipeg and CKX Brandon. This would comprise the airtimes for the Central Time Zone. "The Testament of Arkadia"'s telecast on February 25, 1978 certainly was bizarre. 10 P.M.. After Hockey Night in Canada. In Ontario and all provinces east of Ontario, Space: 1999 was shown that day at its regular time (5 P.M. in Ontario and Quebec, 6 P.M. in the eastern Maritimes, and 6:30 P.M. in Newfoundland). Special news coverage of a Liberal Party convention (there sure were a lot of them that year, the dratted disruptive things!) was what caused the delayed airtime in Manitoba (and in Alberta and presumably Saskatchewan, also; I have access to Alberta television listings for that day too).
I will note also that the earliest that Season 2 Space: 1999 aired in Manitoba in 1976-7 was 1:30 P.M. on July 2, 1977. That day only. The repeat of "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 2", moved up the day's schedule due to CBC airing of women's golf and Wimbledon Tennis.
From all of the research that I have thus far done, the worst place in Canada for seeing Space: 1999 and Cosmos 1999 between 1976 and 1980 was undeniably New Brunswick. Or those parts of the province (the majority of them) whose only access to CBC Television was through CHSJ-TV and whose only access to Radio-Canada was via CBAFT. I was certainly in the centre of that unlucky area of the country after moving to Fredericton. And while in Douglastown before gaining the knowledge that CBCT- Charlottetown might be receivable if CHSJ was opting out of showing Space: 1999 on a given week, fortune had been elusive there. But there is truth to the old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder. And that was definitely the case for me regarding Space: 1999. I longed to be able to see it on those weeks when there was a CHSJ preemption, and those many months of 1979 and 1980 when CBAFT was no longer transmitting Cosmos 1999 were tortuous for me, as I ached to be able to see my favourite television show. Had I remained in the Miramichi region, I might have had access to CHAU of Carleton, Quebec and ability to continue to watch and audiotape-record Cosmos 1999 until its final removal from Radio-Canada. Possibly. With our antenna-tower, I might also have been able to "tune in" CBCT on September 24, 1977, October 8, 1977, May 6, 1978, and May 20, 1978, and been able to watch and audiotape-record the preempted-on-CHSJ CBC broadcasts of Space: 1999 episodes on those days. I recall the weather conditions on all of those days to be calm and probably favourable to receiving CBCT in Douglastown- if I were still living there. I might have been able to see and audiotape-record "Death's Other Dominion" and "Force of Life" on their autumn of 1977 CBC showings and not have had to wait until the following March and April to finally experience them. Oh, that move to Fredericton sent my Karma into a nosedive! In so many ways. Indeed, Fredericton was way, way out of range of CBCT or CBHT and was totally reliant upon CHSJ for CBC programming. A condition that was still very much the case in 1983-5 when CBHT, CBCT, and CBIT were airing Space: 1999 on Sundays.
I have also added a photograph and some more text to my Era 3 memoirs.
All for today.
I am working on a broadcast history for The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour for the Manitoba CBC television stations, CBWT and CKX. I am hoping to have that completed early in the new year.
2020. I cannot believe it. I vividly remember when 2000 was far into the future, back in the twentieth century. I miss so very much that century's thirty-three years in which I lived. I miss my youth, my parents, the company of friends in my home, in my garage, on my street, on the baseball diamond, et cetera, how I saw the world and entertainment back then, the carefree, un-jaded way in which I enthusiastically embraced just about every imaginative work to come my way. School in Fredericton? I do not miss that. But the rough must be accepted as going with the smooth, I suppose. I miss the sanity of the previous century, the sanity in how people were rightly afraid of radiation, carcinogenic isotopes, and nuclear power, the sanity and practicality with which people dealt with a wide range of human problems, the sanity of my parents' generation in setting reasonable standards of human behaviour, and the sanity in the restaints upon newscast opinion-mongering and there being little or no brainwashing repetition of one-sided news coverage. I miss living in a world free from "identity politics" and a rampaging "cancel culture" of today. I miss being able to buy a videotape or videodisc without being subjected to oppression-is-everywhere, smash-this-and-smash-that politics in the bonus features. I miss being able, in the late 1990s, to go on the Internet with reasonable assurances of liberty of individual expression. I miss the availability of Bugs Bunny and his cartoon cohorts on television. And I miss the overall common sense attitude of my parents' generation. And my grandparents' generation. My parents and grandparents would think that the world today has lost its mind.
I imagine that I will spend the remainder of my life longing to have those twentieth-century years of my life back again. Yes, even the 1990s, unavailing decade though it mostly was for me. I would prefer those years to the "Clown World" of today.
My Website's fortunes of late have not improved. I checked Google's Hyperlinks to my Web pages, and they are all still in existence. Maybe some countries have blocked access to my Website, countries from which my Web pages for The Littlest Hobo and Spiderman and Rocket Robin Hood and Space: 1999 had garnered most of their readership. That is quite possible in this day and age. But it is also very possible that public indifference toward or wilful unawareness of twentieth century entertainment has followed some natural course over the past couple of decades and is now at near totality. If that is the case, as I suspect that it is, my Website's traffic will never rebound, and I have to consider my options. Whether it is worth spending my time writing Weblog entries and updating Web pages. And indeed whether it is worth the money that it costs me every year to maintain the Website.
My mother's last words to me were that I "make something" of my life and be happy. I have not forgotten that and never will forget. I reinstated my Website not long after her death. Of course, I doubt that dissemenating my observations and interpretations and personal histories vis-a-vis imaginative entertainments of my youth was what she had in mind for "mak(ing) something" of my life. She was not thoroughly and unreservedly supportive of this effort of mine. She was a more practical woman than that. She wanted me to work toward expanding the horizons of man in the universe and making the world a better place. Not to waste my time trying to convince stubbornly and often truculently blinkered people that there was artistry in the works that I grew to love. Even my old friends will not be convinced that there is merit to those productions and to my enduring adherence to them. But this Website is my life's work. Much, much more so than my job, my career. That just "pays the bills". My mother also wanted me to be happy. And the frustrations surrounding my Website and my un-listened-to considerations of my favourite entertainments do run contrary to my wish for happiness. These are the often contradictory considerations that I "mull over" as 2020 beckons. My Website and updating it does give me some feeling of satisfaction, and as I say, looking at my autobiography does oftentimes serve as a comforting mental time machine. But is the cost and the frustration "worth it"? I continue to ruminate on this.
For now, I will "press ahead" with my additions to CBC broadcast histories. And if I come upon a picture from 1970s Miramichi or 1980s Fredericton that would be a good fit for my autobiography, I will insert it into one of my life story's Web pages. I have no desire to address the unending daily assaults upon second season Space: 1999. Surely I have done enough on that. Surely I have paid my dues. And then some. Others are not doing their part, and that is "on them". They will have to account for their apathy or for their obsequiousness "in the face" of the smugly arrogant ones' systematic slurring of anything and everything Season 2. The fact that all of this is still ongoing 43 years later is "Clown World" in and of itself. My mother would say that these people have mental issues, in not being able to "let go" of their resentment over the cancellation, timely or untimely, of their childhood favourite television programme and their animus toward a producer who died nearly 17 years ago. For what it is worth, I do not think that Space: 1999 had a full third season in it, either in Season 1 format or in Season 2 format. I have not seen "treatments" to a possible additional twenty-four episodes that involve much more than repetition, or bringing back old antagonists. I do not think that the "Mysterious Unknown Force" had much more mileage in it as a subtly expressed and elegantly nuanced concept. I am prepared to be convinced otherwise, of course. As long as I see "treatments" that do not involve it becoming the overblown, fixation-for-major-characters, storyline-dominating thing that "the Force" of Star Wars has become.
Anyway. All for today, December 29, 2019.
Friday, January 3, 2020.
I hesitated as I was typing 2020. Again, I just cannot believe it. I cannot believe how fast that time is passing.
It is now more than twenty years after 1999, that year that seemed far enough in the future that Earth-to-Moon travel might be commonplace. I am still very much adherent to twentieth century ways and sensibilities, and my tastes and most cherished memories are from the decades that I experienced in the twentieth century. And I continue to add to my autobiographical record of those decades. I have updated my Era 3 memoirs again to include more remembrances of the weekend of November 11-13 of 1977 and my stay that weekend with my best friend, Michael, in Douglastown, and I have added some memories of the wanting of myself and my friend, Tony, in 1979 to see "Dragon's Domain" in French and elaborated further on Tony's love for Star Wars. I wonder what he would think of the latter-day trilogy of Star Wars films. Would the aesthetic of the movies and a feeling of transferred nostalgia from the old films to the new, "play" him to not notice and deplore the debasing and subsequent "killing off" of the two male leading characters, Luke Skywalker and Han Solo, and the undoing of the heroic and celebratory ending of Return of the Jedi? One wonders. Tony was the most avid Star Wars fan in my life. Some amount of his ardour did "rub off" on me for quite some time. Today, not so much.
I see that Powys Media is close to releasing its Space: 1999 Year One Omnibus. It seems like forever since I first had in my hands the Space: 1999 Year Two Omnibus. I will definitely purchase one, as I am interested in seeing how the episode novelisations of the 1970s Space: 1999 books have been reworked. And how the authors justify their placement of some of the early episodes. I do not agree with their putting "Earthbound" before other early episodes in which Alphans are more formal with each other than they are in "Earthbound". In my conception, the next filmed episode after "Breakaway" has to be "Matter of Life and Death". But I am interested in seeing how they have tooled their particular chronology. I hasten to add that I am not a fan of Powys' Space: 1999 expanded universe. I have explained why in the past. But it will be nice to have the two Omnibuses side-by-side on my bookshelf.
All for today. Is anyone "out there" looking at this Weblog?
Sunday, January 12, 2020.
It is a morning of freezing rain for the Fredericton area of New Brunswick. I pray that there is no outage of power.
I have added still more text and images to my Era 2 memoirs and have done more work to make the images as chronological as possible. Work continues on the CBC broadcast history for The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour. I have verified airtimes for Manitoba for 1973, 1974, and 1975. And based on everything that I have seen, it is clear that New Brunswick was the worst province of the country for viewing The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, as it was also so for watching Space: 1999. Not only did New Brunswick not have a CBC-owned-and-operated television station like CBWT, CBOT, CBMT, CBHT, CBIT, and CBCT, but its two CBC-affiliated television stations did not give to The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour the consistent run from 1969 to 1975 that was afforded to it by every other CBC affiliate that I have researched. And CHSJ with its videotape-delay procedure was horrible. No other CBC-affiliated broadcaster in Canada did that to Bugs and the Road Runner, to my knowledge. What was wrong with just airing the television show at the same time as every CBC television station outside of New Brunswick was transmitting it? And like CKCD in northern New Brunswick was transmitting it? Why was it so important to show Talent Parade at 6:30 and to stuff Bugs and the Road Runner into the 5:30-to-6:30 time slot? Such that videotape-delay of a week, or more, was usual practice? What was Talent Parade but a Gong Show done on the cheap? Could it not have aired at 5:30, with Bugs and the Road Runner at 6 synchronous with the CBC broadcast? Why not? I do not know. CHSJ was a weird television channel. It did some strange things with Walt Disney too. And its treatment of Space: 1999 was all too often frustrating. I am so glad that the Miramichi region where I lived had CKCD, even if CKCD did drop The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour from its schedule for several months in a row in 1970 and 1971. From 1972 to 1975, CKCD gave to northern New Brunswick the CBC broadcasts of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour at the same time as they were seen on CBHT, CBIT, and CBCT. And it would probably have treated Space: 1999 so much better than did CHSJ, if it had continued being the northern New Brunswick CBC affiliate from October 9, 1976 onward. It certainly would not have inserted 90 seconds of its own commercials into a CBC 60-second advertisement interval.
But then again, as I say, absence does make the heart grow fonder, and though I do not thoroughly remember 1970 and 1971, I feel certain that not being able to see my then favourite television programme, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour, made me long for it and appreciate it so much the more when CKCD broadcasts of it resumed.
I came upon a YouTube video that lambastes the fans of the Star Wars sequel trilogy (as it is now called) as being wilfully uncaring about glaring inconsistencies in characterisation and the way of things in the galaxy far, far away, and as being willing to uncritically accept anything with the Star Wars title branded to it- and immaturely intolerant of any challenge to their contention that the movies are good. The person narrating the video does argue his case very persuasively, and I agree with just about all of it. Ah, but here come the accusations of hypocrisy levelled at me for not rejecting Season 2 of Space: 1999 because of it having departed from Season 1 in a number of ways and for being peevish and resentful of the fan base for its daily slighting of Season 2. I propose to examine this proposition.
Yes, there is a parallel. Season 2 of Space: 1999 does not follow Season 1 in much of its style or particulars as referenced in dialogue. Having established the "Mysterious Unknown Force" in Season 1, though not as saliently as might be desired, Space: 1999 did, in Season 2, run contrary to that facet of first season stories (some of them) by not addressing the "Mysterious Unknown Force" at all and in some instances appearing to overwrite it with a less destiny-oriented view of situations. Characters were no longer there, replaced by other characters. Bergman, a male, was replaced by Maya, a female, with advanced scientific knowledge. All of this is a given. For me to deny it would be delusional. But unlike Star Wars, the changes were not rung because of an "identity politics" agenda. The dominant males of Koenig and Carter were not debased as disaffected losers, absentee fathers or failed mentors, and pointlessly and perfunctorily "killed off", so that they could be replaced with a woman who struggles not and who never loses. Rather, they were given further episodes to develop their characters. They were still likable and admirable people who did always prevail in the end and whose loyalty to Alpha was unwavering. Koenig, as he had been in Season 1, was a leader with beleaguered humanity, and he always strove to do what was right for his people (he did not "bail out" on them and go to do something mercenary with his life), even when circumstances seemed hopeless. He did not like having to fire a gun at Cantar, but he needed to satisfy himself that he (or Security) could stop Cantar and Zova if they were to prove to be treacherous- as they eventually did. He reluctantly had to kill Zova and to gamble that she was lying when she said she could destroy Alpha's life-support systems through mental concentration. If he had allowed more of the Golosian exiles to be revived and transported to Golos, Alpha would have been finished anyway. Yes, he was first to attempt to transfer to Earth, because the risk was to first be his. Once he had transferred successfully, he would authorise all other Alphans to undergo the transference procedure. The characters were not turned into despicable losers who abandoned their loved ones to be hermits or smugglers. And Bergman, Morrow, and the other characters of Season 1 who did not appear in Season 2, were not degraded and "killed off". Their fates were untold, and fans could imagine for themselves what became of them. It was not made mandatory canon that they were dead. Nor was it mandatory canon that they died in some senseless circumstance. The "Mysterious Unknown Force" was not stretched into doing things and bestowing powers that had previously not been at all possible. It just was not addressed. And Alpha was still adrift in space, the Alphans were still engaged in a struggle to survive and to try to find a new home, Eagles still flew to bizarre alien worlds, Koenig and Russell were still the people in charge of Alpha, and so on. The style was different, but the episodes still were nuanced with that aesthetic that was quintessentially Space: 1999. An aesthetic of definite symbolisms and meanings (yes, even in Season 2), and with a subtle and intricate patterning to chronology. Patterning that was not mere obvious and scarcely differentiated "plot" repetition, one episode after another.
And Maya was not the all-important super-woman that Rey is. She failed sometimes and had to be rescued. In many episodes, her powers were not the decisive quantity in resolving an episode's main crisis. Koenig and Russell did in fact resolve the crisis of the week in numerous episodes. And in some episodes, it was a team effort.
I still acknowledge the parallel, but the degree of change and the motivations behind it are not the same. And the attitude of Space: 1999 fans is very, very wrong, deeply distorted, and smugly vitriolic in its narrow-mindedness, wilfully ignoring intriguing observations and constantly "doubling down" on criticisms that, to a large extent, can be rationally contested and overturned. They misconstrue things. And sometimes, they out-and-out lie. It has to be said.
It long, long, long ago became tiresome and cliche and downright galling to an enormous degree to one who had his upbringing with all 48 episodes of Space: 1999 and for whom Season 2 does have special nostalgic significance. What real nostalgic significance do these new Star Wars movies, in and of themselves and not just because they look and sound like the original trilogy, have to their fans? Real nostalgia for Star Wars is for the movies of 1977, 1980, and 1983 (and I suppose, for the people who were youngsters in the prequel years, the movies of 1999, 2002, and 2005). And for the experiences of seeing them in movie theatres so long ago. And one's life condition at the time. Such is the essence or real nostalgia. Not whatever it is that J.J. Abrams is peddling.
All for today.
Sunday, January 19, 2020.
Warner Archive's big project for 2020 is a Blu-Ray release of MGM Tex Avery cartoons. And that is that. Yet again, the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons, notably those of post-1948, have "gotten the shaft". Of course they have. And they always will. Because after the death of Chuck Jones, there is no one advocating for them in the hallways of home entertainment decision-makers in Hollywood. People like Jerry Beck are concerned for the cartoons made at other studios and after that the pre-1948 Warner Brothers cartoons. And the result is releases of Popeye, Tom and Jerry, Tex Avery, and Hanna-Barbera, while Bugs' cartoons not restored for the old DVDs, must languish in vaults, or be distributed to Internet broadcasting services with video transfers from dire-looking film prints, many of them with PAL "speed-up". I have nothing more to say to this. I have ranted and raved enough about the treatment of the catalogue of hundreds of cartoons produced from the late 1940s through the 1950s and into the 1960s, that were popular network television attractions of over four decades. If the DePatie-Freleng cartoons can be released in their entirety onto Blu-Ray, the only thing, it seems to me, preventing the same privilege being granted to the Warner Brothers cartoons of 1948 to 1964, is a will, or lack thereof, of the powers-that-be.
"Hyde and Go Tweet" will never be on DVD, much less Blu-Ray. Beyond the parts of it that are in Daffy Duck's Quackbusters.
This is all that I have to say today.
Thursday, January 23, 2020.
My research on broadcasts of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour in Manitoba is now complete. And my Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour Web page has been updated accordingly. I am also thinking of further additions to my Era 2 and Era 3 memoirs. I want to add a paragraph on how the James Bond movies captured my interest in 1979 and 1980 and 1981, and to remember more about my art gallery project in 1975. I have added to the Era 3 memoirs a paragraph with an attempt to explain why I am not always complimentary about some of my erstwhile friends of Eras 3 and 4. And to emphasise that I do not intend judgement for all time upon anyone. That everyone in my life back then, including me, was in a developmental stage of life, and any less noble characteristics in any of us in those times were not necessarily integral to our defining-for-life personas. I really ought to have said this from the very beginning of my autobiography's availability.
I came across this little gem, and I feel inclined to respond to it. It pertains to some comparison between the guest stars of Space: 1999's "Death's Other Dominion" (of Season 1) and "The Taybor" (of Season 2).
"John Shrapnel was an absolute tour de force as the in and out of mind Jack Tanner, who just about stole the show from Brian Blessed's Dr. Rowland, no small feat. Willoughby Goddard deserved better. But this is what happens when you write your aliens into cartoon characters."
What does that mean? Cartoon characters. What makes one character cartoonish and the other not? And what is wrong with cartoon characters, thou highfalutin, posturing snob? I call a spade a spade. This is precisely what this person is. Someone who thinks himself superior to anyone who appreciates the characters of Season 2. And this person's view is so outmoded in this day and age. There are movements of people high-mindedly dedicated to the artistry in cartoons. Cartoons can be art forms. I think that more of them are than have been acknowledged as such to date. The creativity in imagining their milieus and drawing those places is to be lauded in and of itself. And cartoon characters can have a complexity, a depth all of their own. It used to be that these pretentious Season 1 fans, cockily and abrasively confident about themselves in their "echo chamber", would use a pejorative of "walking comic book" to describe Season 2. I notice that such has been largely dropped now that comic book characters are the focus of many commercially successful and critically acclaimed movies. They do not gripe about comic books as much anymore. Now, the go-to slur, apart from excrement, is cartoons.
Tanner and Taybor are different characters. One is an ally, the other an antagonist. One of them is erratic as a result of an experiment gone wrong, and the other went astray by indulging his baser instincts and became physically unattractive. These differences have to be acknowledged by any rational person attempting to make a comparison of the two characters. Allies and antagonists are portrayed differently, on principle.
For what it is worth, my friend, Tony, laughed at John Shrapnel's portrayal of Jack Tanner when he saw "Death's Other Dominion" in French in 1979. I was with him. We were in my living room on that Monday evening in early July of that year. But Tony was who he was. As for me, I appreciate the Jack Tanner character. Very Shakespearian. But this ought not to diminish my regard for the characterisations of other episodes, including those of Season 2. There may be a theatricality in the portrayal of both characters, Tanner and Taybor, by their actors. But so what? Old movies have theatrical performances and a great many of them are hailed as artistic works. As are stage plays. Taybor as enacted by Willoughby Goddard is a tragic character, one whose sins of gluttony, sloth, covetousness, and lust have made him distinctly less than handsome, and who surrounds himself with things of beauty to try to avoid having to confront his ugliness. He likes Tony's beer (which was likened in "Journey to Where" to Dr. Jekyll's formula). He is a representation of what becomes of someone who concedes for a lifetime to the temptations of vice. He "ends up" alone, surrounded with trinkets, with idols. A lost soul. Adrift. There is a pathos to him even though he is a schemer and is as such not a man (or being) of his word. He is untrustworthy, and the Alphans are rightly glad to be rid of him. And I quite like the seafaring references in his dialogue, comparing space to a wide, wide sea. There is beauty to the concept that space may be like the oceans of old Earth during the times of global trading over the waters of Earth's seas. Of course, these people in their forty-four years of blinkered hatred for the second production block of their favourite opus, are devoid of any ability or willingness to recognise any beauty in Season 2. Any at all. Everything about it is wretched, from the first scenes of "The Metamorph" to the end of "The Dorcons", and I am garbage for thinking otherwise. I know. I know. The same-old. The same-old.
Not that I am being irascible about it, mind. Just saying it with a tired, aggrieved resignation.
Wednesday, February 5, 2020.
I have THE LOONEY TUNES PARODIES COLLECTION on order, and it should arrive at my door later this week. But The Bugs Bunny Video Guide has all of the details, and as is par for the course these days, the details are unrelentingly disappointing. No, Warner Brothers could not be bothered to remaster "Rabbitson Crusoe", "Hare-Abian Nights", and "Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk". Not even three new-to-DVD cartoons was a small enough amount of work upon which for Warner Brothers to spend a tiny amount of money. Not even for the rabbit whose eightieth birthday is this year. And to "top it all off", Warner Brothers pulled the wrong "Super-Rabbit" out of its vaults for this DVD release. It is not the 1943 Chuck Jones cartoon but an episode of The Looney Tunes Show of 2014. Yes, really. This just goes to show the complete lack of interest and care being invested by Warner Brothers in releasing the vintage cartoons of its own cartoon studio. No doubt all of the other "multiple-dip" cartoons on the DVD will be from the same old GOLDEN COLLECTION remasters. And I could do without the latter-day cartoons and the incongruous television special being foisted into this DVD release. But as I want "Rabbitson Crusoe" and "Hare-Abian Nights" on DVD, I have no choice but to accept this slipshod DVD release into my collection. But I do so under protest.
I see that Warner Brothers has seen fit to distribute an image actually recognising Bugs' eightieth birthday. How nice! It seems that this is all that Bugs merits nowadays when it comes to effort. Here it is. To use the immortal words of Tatum O'Neal in The Bad News Bears, "Big wow!"
All for today.
I have added an image of a SONY Chrome C-90 audiocassette and a paragraph about that audiocassette, to my Era 3 memoirs.
I have THE LOONEY TUNES PARODIES COLLECTION. The menu is as plain as can be. The listing of titles is set against a black background. No effort whatsoever to make it visually appealing. "Rabbitson Crusoe" is indeed un-restored. The colours are dull. It sways back and forth like a buoy in a high wind during its opening credits, with aliasing all over the text. "Hare-Abian Nights" has a more stable but softer image. "Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk" looks like it did on MGM/UA laser videodisc. "Super-Rabbit" from The Looney Tunes Show is as incongruous as one could imagine. I hate the look of it. I have no love for the 1990s cartoons ("From Hare to Eternity", et cetera) made by Chuck Jones. I watched a couple of them and waited impatiently for them to end. "Hare and Loathing in Las Vegas" is a harshly lurid and patently unnecessary latter-day cartoon with only a couple of moderately funny gags. How Bugs Bunny Won the West is actually a competently assembled "clip show", probably the only 1970s Looney Tunes television special that works as a coherent "piece", but it would still have been better to just give to us, the collectors, the cartoons, "Aqua Duck", "Bonanza Bunny", and "Wild and Woolly Hare". Anyway, I have watched most of what is on the DVD and put it on my shelf, and am unlikely to revisit it any time in the foreseeable future.
To add insult to injury, Warner Brothers has announced a further release of cartoons for this year. THE BUGS BUNNY GOLDEN CARROT COLLECTION. Containing seventy-four cartoons, and all of them (yes, all of them) from THE LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION. Not only has not a single cartoon been newly remastered for this release, but the DVDs (yes, DVDs, not Blu-Rays) will all be identical to the first DVDs of the first five GOLDEN COLLECTIONs, manufactured from the same, tired glass masters. Right down to the same bonus features. This worthless piece of tripe really does not merit further comment from me. So, this is how Warner Brothers chooses to celebrate Bugs' eightieth birthday? What a disgrace! Bugs' birthday should merit a Blu-Ray release containing new-to-digital-videodisc cartoons and several others released for the first time in High Definition, comprising a large fraction of his filmography. Anything less is disrespectful to Bugs, to the supremely talented people who made his cartoons, and the stalwart aficionados of the vintage cartoon shorts. Would someone please drop those GOLDEN COLLECTION glass masters into a vat of acid? I am so damned sick and tired of them!
All for today, Saturday, February 8, 2020.
My copy of Powys Books' Space: 1999 Year One Omnibus arrived at my door yesterday morning. It is a magnificent book. It is a limited edition of 198 copies, and I have copy 33. It is autographed by Brian Ball and the late E.C. Tubb and the late John Rankine (Douglas R. Mason).
I read the adjusted novelisation of "Dragon's Domain" and was very impressed by how John Rankine's original text was revised to better match the televised episode, while still retaining much of the John Rankine writing style. It better describes the encounter with the monster by the Ultra Probe crew. They are not dressed in spacesuits in a depressurised cabin, which had been the case in Rankine's Astral Quest. The cabin has air, which makes the noises of the monster scientifically accurate (sound does not travel in a vacuum). And the monster does come into form in the aft section of the Probeship, as happens in the filmed episode. I appreciate the way in which the novelisation now describes the monster and its eye and its hypnosis of its victims. The novelisation retains Rankine's prologue with Koenig and Bergman discussing sources of energy for some future colony and their talk about past time.
I also skimmed through Powys' original post-"Breakaway" episode, "Operation: Deliverance", and very much liked what I was seeing. I had myself long postulated the existence of a second Lunar base whose people were added to the personnel of Alpha, thereby accounting for discrepancies in population numbers between "Breakaway" and later episodes, and I am pleased to discover that Powys is of a similar mind. In "Operation: Deliverance", there is a Moonbase Beta, whose existence had been classified and which was working on some Top Secret scientific experiments, and following "Breakaway", Koenig meets the Commander of the Betans, and not unlike the Adama-versus-Cain situation in Battlestar Galactica's "The Living Legend", the two Commanders are not in tandem with one another, with conflict ensuing. I see that the writers have chosen to introduce Sanderson of "The Seance Spectre" as one of the Betans, and for there to be immediate tension between him and Koenig. It is an interesting "take" on the material. It is at variance with what Helena says to Sanderson in "The Seance Spectre", that he was one of the first people assigned to Moonbase Alpha, but Powys is not entirely adherent to the canon of the filmed episodes, and I am prepared to allow this a "free pass". I view the Powys timeline as alternate anyway to the filmed episodes. The story also deals with the disappearance of the Ouma character and his replacing with Kano. There is a short story, "Breaking Ground", with Koenig meeting Patrick Osgood (of "Catacombs of the Moon") and James Warren (of "The Troubled Spirit") and discussing with them the opening of an underground chamber serving as both a burial site and a Hydroponic garden for recycling of organic compounds. It is very nice to see characters of both seasons together in collaboration with Koenig. I see also that the writers have brought James Warren into the opening scene written by E.C. Tubb for "Death's Other Dominion", wherein Koenig talks with a Hydroponics technician about food quality. The "one-off" Tubb character of Emil Kranz was changed to Warren for some added continuity. And there are references to the Rankine and Tubb original novels that are part of the Powys Space: 1999 timeline, which regards Season 1 as lasting several years and having many more adventures for Alpha than were filmed, and does not coopt the dates of the Season 2 episodes.
Reading the book is giving to me much pleasure and is reawakening my long dormant love for Season 1 (I preferred it for several years in the late 1970s and early-to-mid-1980s). Happily, there are no harsh words uttered toward Season 2 in any of the prefaces or supplemental sections of the book. It is quite a bulky publication. Substantially larger than Powys' Year Two Omnibus. Holding onto it as I am reading can be quite a task. But I am impressed very much with what I am seeing. Might this improve my opinion on Powys' other Space: 1999 books? Maybe. My mind is not closed. It never was. I am prepared to accept salient, non-condescending argument on the aesthetic merits of any production. Which is more than I can say for some people, but I will not "go there" today. My every heartfelt plaudit to Powys Books for a job magnificently done. I know that I will have many days of reading pleasure ahead.
All for today, Saturday, February 15, 2020.
Sad news. British actor John Shrapnel has died.
For persons unfamiliar with Space: 1999, John Shrapnel played Captain Jack Tanner in Space: 1999's episode, "Death's Other Dominion". One of the immortal inhabitants of ice planet Ultima Thule. And billed as Soothsayer in TV Guide listings for that episode. He was also a Russian factory worker in Nicholas and Alexandra, sharing scenes with Julian Glover (also of Space: 1999) as Father Gapon (one of those rare times when Julian Glover was not playing a villain).
Rest in peace, Jack Tanner. Death sadly still has dominion.
February 18, 2020.
I have delved further into Powys Media's Space: 1999 Year One Omnibus and have read the story, "Operation: Deliverance", almost fully. I am enjoying it. It is a very credible contrivance for adding to the Alpha population, and the particulars of it in the context of Powys' literary canon, are quite rationally thought-out. I would like to incorporate it into my Chronology for Space: 1999, but cannot. In the canon of Space: 1999 television series-proper, Sanderson was assigned to Moonbase Alpha, not Moonbase Beta. The mass reduction for space travel experiments on Moonbase Beta, are too similar to the Wilding Field proposition that I have coopted in my Chronology to explain the runaway Moon's movement. If the Wilding Field is in effect after "Breakaway", then the Betans' experiments would not be rejected by Bergman and Koenig as decisively they are in the story. And for Simmonds to have been in cahoots with the Betans in their attempt to seize control of Alpha, Koenig should bear more animosity toward Simmonds and be much more wary of him, than he does and is in "Earthbound". The filmed episode, "Earthbound", that is. Within Powys' own canon, the particulars of "Operation: Deliverance" may fit, but I cannot conceive of such particulars fitting the canon of the television series-proper. I like the Moonbase Beta idea, nevertheless. As I say, I had an idea along the same lines myself for many years. I have not elaborated very much about it and have not thought at length about the particulars or tried to "flesh out" the particulars. Certainly not as much as has the writers at Powys Media.
Here is an air-headed remark that I saw yesterday at that den of haughty quasi-intellectual snobbery, the Space: 1999 Facebook group. As soon as I saw a posting acknowledging the birthday of Fred Freiberger, I knew that the vitriol would be gushing and asinine things would be said all over the Facebook group's daily musings. And the fans of Space: 1999 will never "pass up" an opportunity to descend to their nadir of behaviour.
Anyway, here is what was said.
"Season 2 was Monster of the Week. Just like Season 3 of the original Trek. Wonder why that was? Hmmmm."
Oh, do tell. Do not "hold back".
Ridiculous! Not only was Season 2 of Space: 1999 not monsters in all weeks, as I have argued in the past, but Season 3 Star Trek definitely was not! Where are the monsters in "Elaan of Troyius", "The Paradise Syndrome", "The Enterprise Incident", "Spock's Brain" (yes, "Spock's Brain"), "The Empath", "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", "Plato's Stepchildren", "Wink of an Eye", "That Which Survives", "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield", "Whom Gods Destroy", "The Mark of Gideon", "The Cloud-Minders", "Requiem For Methuselah", "The Way to Eden", "All Our Yesterdays", and "Turnabout Intruder"? And the entity of "Day of the Dove" was a non-corporeal being rather than an actual monster. The beings of "The Lights of Zetar" also were non-corporeal. This accounts for the vast majority of the third season episodes. There are monsters in some of the episodes, as is also the case in Seasons 1 and 2. The Gorn and the Mugato are the more obvious examples in the two prior seasons, but there is also the Horta, Jack the Ripper, and the vampire cloud. What this person says is a bold-faced lie. Season 3 of Star Trek is mostly encounters with humanoid aliens. And it has gone without any challenge from the thousands of other people in the group. It just shows how far gone that they are. And what is wrong with there being some occasional monsters? Why is that some taboo for engaging science fiction?
And then there are these pearls of mature wisdom from one of the ever-so-intellectual fans.
"He sucked"
"Gerry Anderson should have fired his ass. On the spot"
Really, these should not merit the attention of a rebuttal. They do, however, serve as proof of my contention that these people are half-adults adolescent in their thinking (and turns of phrase) with a pretentious posturing of sophistication. Oh, sure. They "get" the "Mysterious Unknown Force", and Victor running his hand through his hair and making philosophical comment. Anyone can "get" that when it is explicit and has been highlighted by columnists at Starlog. It might have been recognisable for me too if the CBC had not cut so much of it. Maybe. Yes, maybe. But I digress. Why should Gerry Anderson have "fired him on the spot"? His contributions had been key in crafting The Wild Wild West (rest in peace, Robert Conrad). He had a long record of writing scripts for an eclectic mix of television programmes. He did not "kill" Star Trek. That was NBC's decision, and a foregone conclusion with the airtime given to Season 3 Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry opting to distance himself. Yes, some of his Star Trek was sub-par, but so was some of Roddenberry's and Coon's Star Trek. The ideas that he presented were good enough to persuade Lew Grade to grant another season to the cancelled Space: 1999. And Anderson himself said in Starlog that the higher proportion of letters that he received seemed to prefer Season 2.
These remarks are just empty-headed belching to impress a herd of blinkered, conformist louts. And they are indicative as ever of Generation X's undignified, downright appalling lack of veneration for their elders, and the imagination and considered work of their elders. Generation X thinks that it can tout itself as important and superior by branding people like Fred Freiberger as abjectly inadequate and beneath contempt. Overlooking of course that he was a World War II veteran. Disrespecting one's elders is never an indication of a quality attitude. And a disrespect and out-and-out hatred spanning forty-four years with no end in sight. What in heck is that? God help me, I hate my generation.
Saturday, February 22, 2020.
February 28, 2020.
The people of the Space: 1999 Facebook crowd are maintaining their daily sorties. Of course they are. It will never, ever, ever end. They are committed to bringing their hatred for Season 2 and Fred Freiberger with them to their senior years and to all of the time remaining to them. It is blinkered garble, of course. Reconstituted crassly, vulgarly for the hundredth million time. "Cheap shots", routinely. With new people constantly coming out of the woodwork to belch out the same bile, to the approval of all of the usual ignorant boors.
Anyway.
Yesterday, there was some discussion of Powys Media's Year One Omnibus and Year Two Omnibus and a moaning about Season 1 being ostensibly tainted and debased by being tied to Season 2 in "the Powysverse", in efforts made to conjoin the two seasons by adding some second season characters and considerations to some first season stories. The assertion is to the effect that Season 2 is an abomination that should be kept as far away from the ever so perfect and sacrosanct Season 1 as possible. And of course dismissed daily along with that oh so minuscule number of people not worth considering, who like it, love it, or venerate it. We are trash. We are garbage. Powys was wrong to tool its universe to be inclusive of us. Oh, of course. It is as ever, "'Year 1' aficionados welcome. Everyone else, go to hell, or 'shut up' and just accept your irrelevance. Be alone in liking the television show in your own insignificant way."
Okay. I have ranted enough. Now, for the specific passages of on-Facebook discussions that are causing my agitation this morning.
"Well, I just heard that all the original novels have been bound together in this one book, and then the stories were re edited with fan wank to connect both seasons. In my opinion that's simply the dumbest idea. I have read some of that fan wank cross over connect and it's simply disrespectful and degrading to some of the original year 1 stories. You simply cannot dumb down 'Year 1' to explain 'Year 2'. They are 2 different shows!"
No. They are not different television shows. Season 2 was not touted as being a totally different, and separate, television show when it aired on television. There was no literature that I know of that branded it a remake or "reboot". It was not announced as such like The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) was declared a "reboot" of Spider-Man (2002), or Battlestar Galactica (2003-9) was said to be a re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica (1978-9). It aired in the immediate subsequent television broadcast season after Season 1, which was and still is the norm for continuing and continuous television series. Licenced products in the latter half of the 1970s, in Space: 1999's heyday and some time thereafter, from the novelisations to Starlog's Moonbase Alpha Technical Manual, positioned Season 2 after the Season 1 timeline. Yes, the seasons are stylistically different. Doctor Who of the Pertwee years is stylistically different from the Hartnell years. Very much so. But it is still Doctor Who. No one disputes that. Ralph Bakshi's Spiderman is stylistically different from Grantray-Lawrence's Spiderman. Yet, they are still the same Spiderman television series, broadcast and on DVD as one package of television series episodes. Yes, continuity is not exactly "air-tight". But Space: 1999 is an episodic, not serialised, television show. How much past-episode-mentioning-in-dialogue for continuity purposes was done in Season 1, or Season 2? Apart from referencing of "Breakaway" and "The Metamorph", very little. Space: 1999 was syndicated in one package. It aired on CBC Television as one package.
I am offended by the use of the expression, "dumbing down". It implies deficient intelligence in anyone who appreciates the beauty in Season 2 and finds that season intellectually stimulating in an aesthetic way. It is the typical pretentious, our-way-or-the-highway or our-way-or-the-dunce-cap attitude of the first season pundits. Doubtless, my many detractors would love to rub my nose in that, and I resent it very much.
"But 'Year 2' is a total remake. It is not a continuation of 'Year 1'. There are too many discrepancies between the two series to connect them. 'Year 1' adventures never happened for the 'Year 2' universe characters."
How does this person know that the Season 1 adventures never happened for the Season 2 characters? Does someone step out of a shower and say that they never happened? I said above that Space: 1999 is episodic. It is not a serial. Yes, some of the things said might be interpreted as not being in accordance with Season 1. But the statements could be interpreted differently, or something might have happened to change a character's outlook.
"The whole of 'Year 1' happening in the span of 342 Days after leaving Earth is just rediculous to accept."
Why? If one accepts the premise that the Moon could be moving at relativistic speeds, with time dilation, the events of Season 1 could have fit, maybe with acceptance of some episodes occurring in the same solar system, or the Moon being adrift in an area of space popular with space-faring civilisations. "Earthbound" occurs in 1999. "Voyager's Return" and "Death's Other Dominion" occur in 2000. In Moonbase Alpha time. Those episodes fit into the 342 days. The only one whose date is in conflict with Season 2 is "Dragon's Domain". Yes, it presents a problem. But what of the U.N.I.T. dating conundrum of Doctor Who? There are discrepancies there, also, that cause some fans to express fuss. Ones that are wider-reaching within the long run of Doctor Who. But most Doctor Who fans have decided that they are not going to concern themselves about them and to accept that something unseen and unexplained is responsible for the discrepancies.
"Had Helena's status report in 'The Metamorph' stated it was 1000-plus days after leaving Earth, then 'Year 1' adventures could easily connect the two seasons. Especially with Helena stating it is 877 days since leaving Earth in 'Dragon's Domain'. The writers wrote it as 877 days since Area Two blew the moon out of orbit. They did not write 877 days as the number of days since Cellini's Earth file had been updated to fit within the 'Year 2' 'Metamorph' status report. It is 877 days since leaving Earth. Period. Therefore, any connection between the two series is non existent."
One discrepant date does not nullify any possibility whatsoever of connection. It would have been nice if Season 2 had been dated as starting post-1000-days-after-"Breakaway", but it was not, and so be it. It would have been nice if Doctor Who did not have its U.N.I.T. dating conundrum. It does. And that is that. But it is still all Doctor Who. Space: 1999 is still all Space: 1999. Season 1's metaphysical happenings do not need to be negated. They can just be looked upon differently by Alpha. And maybe later on, outlook on Alpha might return to that of Season 1. It is possible.
If these people choose not to regard Season 2 as canonical and to dismiss it utterly, that is their choice. But is not the only choice. It is not the most open-minded and considered choice. There is that undying aversion to everything Season 2 and hatred for Fred Freiberger that fuels it. This along with the use of derogatory language like "dumbing down" makes me still less inclined to give to these people deference for their position.
I will come to the defence of Powys Media. Powys Media sought out the authors of the original novelisations and novels and brought them aboard on the project as key contributors, in addition to gaining official licence for the original works to modify them with the participation in that of the original authors. The authors were not working to the final scripts and the episodes as filmed when they wrote the novelisations in 1975 and 1976, and would have written them differently if they had had the benefit of seeing the finalised episodes in script or on screen. Powys' novelisations are a more accurate representation of the episodes than was offered by the original books, though they have retained as much of the authors' original text as possible, and even some scenes not in the episodes (Alan being attacked by a beast on Ultima Thule, for instance). I think that Powys is within its rights to modify the novelisations for consistency in its own proposed universe, it having done so with the participation of the authors. I may not like everything that Powys has done (and I have not read everything), but all power to the writers there for their efforts at attaining the official licencing and reviving Space: 1999 in literary form. In any case, the original books still exist, albeit as long out of print publications, and have not been disavowed by anyone in the Powys Books Space: 1999 project. And the filmed episodes are canon. All forty-eight of them. They all bear the title of Space: 1999 in that distinctive font.
Besides, "Year 1" was not always internally consistent. It did not always adhere to itself. In "Space Brain", the Moon "tears through" the titular space brain, killing it and bringing calamity and probable death to inhabitants of an untold number of brain-dependant worlds. How can this "square" with a notion of a Moon odyssey blessed by God (or whatever)? Or with the idea propagated my many a fan that the runaway Moon is a force for good in the cosmos, an "agent" of the "Mysterious Unknown Force"? Does God (or whatever) not like to preserve life on a multitude of planets? And Alphans are dying needless deaths in many of the Season 1 episodes. How is this consistent with the proposition that something is "looking after" Alpha and guiding the Moon and its inhabitants to destiny? Alpha cannot function without a great many trained men and women to operate it, right? So, why is not the "Mysterious Unknown Force" intervening more often to save Alphan lives? With every death of a specialist that Alpha records, the less chances that Alpha has for long-term survival. Three people from Hydroponics (vital specialists for the sustaining of the people of Alpha) are killed in "The Troubled Spirit" alone.
Several of the changes for Season 2 make "narrative" sense as an extrapolation from Season 1, from Koenig and others fretting about Alpha being "wide open" and vulnerable (hence the move underground and the increased emphasis on Security and defence), from Koenig being given cause to think aliens or alien apparatuses (like Gwent) to be a threat to Alpha's survival, and there being a logical need to be vigilant and to have coded directives, from the Alphans having an understandable misgiving about the fanaticism of Luke Ferro and Anna Davis, leading perhaps to some anxiety about fanaticism becoming transmittable over time among the Alphans, and a wish on the part of Koenig and company to be sceptical about the idea of intervention and destiny and even choosing a more secular approach to the survival imperative.
I acknowledge and can respect the "Mysterious Unknown Force" story arc idea. Really. Even though it did nothing for me in the many 1970s and 1980s viewings of Space: 1999 that established my particular fandom. Even though it was not discerned or elucidated by anyone in my life at the time of Space: 1999's initial run. To my family and friends, Space: 1999 was an engaging and sometimes exciting space adventure opus. Or it was nothing of any significance to some of those people in my life. I "took my lumps" for my fidelity to Space: 1999. Not only from coarse peers at school but even from my friends and associates in Fredericton. But that is another story.
At the end of the day, I am not a Season 1 "fundamentalist". I have not placed it on the loftiest pedestal as the holy and pure, only possible quality rendering of the Space: 1999 concept. And I am not sure that anyone involved in the making of Season 1 was of such persuasion at the time. Space: 1999 was being "made up" as it "went along". Evolving. There was a critique done of the first season by (if I remember rightly) Johnny Byrne sometime in mid-1975, and it was quite scathing even of some of Byrne's own stories. There was a general feeling among the production team that there was room for improvement, and indeed that there should be improvement. And from this, Space: 1999 could be allowed to evolve in a different direction as Doctor Who often did, even if the motivating force behind that evolution was expediency on the part of television company executives, and their wish to broaden the appeal of the television programme.
There are people who enjoyed Season 2 very much and continue to do so. Deal with it, Space: 1999 fans. Deal with it. Powys Books decided to be inclusive of second season for the benefit of those of us who want Season 2 represented in any revival of Space: 1999, and I appreciate that. Whatever my opinion may be of some of Powys' writers' choices in original novels. And no, I do not agree with making Arra an evil quantity who was using Alpha, or with having her people be responsible for the "Dragon's Domain" monster. I would prefer to leave the interpretation of "Collision Course" as ultimately indeterminate and open to rethinking. And to not revisit the "Dragon's Domain" monster at all. Once was enough. Have Maya say that it was the last of its kind and dead, have Maya perfect Alpha's sensors to detect creatures like the monster, and Alpha need worry no more about encountering it or others like it, again. The more relaxed Alphans in Season 2 could be a natural extension of a feeling of greater security, with Maya's addition to Alpha bringing a wealth of knowledge that contributes to Alpha's less daunted psychology post-"The Metamorph".
And at the Facebook group supposedly respecting and celebrating Season 2 comes this pearl of incontrovertible wisdom.
"I cringe every time I see a cowboy hat in a Sci-Fi movie."
Why?
Faulting something because a cowboy hat appears in it, is an aesthetic quibble that is subjective and idiosyncratic. It is not an empirical fact that cowboy hats are antithetical to quality science fiction/fantasy. Westerns are a legitimate entertainment with its own highly acclaimed examples. Why cannot there be a blending of genres sometimes? Who is to say that a cowboy hat cannot be representative of anything with an appearance of it in a work of science fiction/fantasy?
All right. This is all for today. It is probably far from my best Weblog posting. I have not been sleeping very well lately.
March 1, 2020.
Now, the Space: 1999 fans are quipping about constipation in describing Guy Rolfe's performance as Magus in "New Adam New Eve" of Season 2, comparing Magus' strained effort to keep Alan's Eagle from launching, with the exertion of a constipated person to pass excrement. I "kid" my readers not. And not only this. The Space: 1999 fans have been also invoking consipation lately with regard to Tony Verdeschi fighting against Carolyn Powell's psychic-power-wielding directive in Season 2's "The Lambda Factor". This about says it all, does it not? May I "rest my case" now? These are Generation Xers who never really left their adolescence behind them. Yet, these are the people whose opinions on Space: 1999 are judged to be definitive, the only ones that count.
So, any time that a character is straining to do something, just equate it to difficulty defecating, and everyone will laugh and feel superior to the tiny number of people who happen to like Season 2. Right. This is the behaviour of adolescents.
Saturday, March 14, 2020.
I have done some adjusting of some of the images at Era 2 and Era 4 of my autobiography. If anyone is interested.
I really do not care to deal with the foolishness of fans of Space: 1999, et cetera. And I am not looking at their postings of late. And there is no news about Bugs Bunny's birthday. I would not be at all surprised if Warner Brothers halts what (if anything) might have been planned with regard to restored cartoons on Blu-Ray and DVD. With the outbreak this year of an accursed novel Coronavirus, the economy will be in worse condition this year than it was in 2008 when Warner Home Video put a stop to its LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION range.
I miss the twentieth century. The decades of it in which I lived, at least. I know that the first half of it was horrific. 1966 to 1999. Those are the years that I long to have back. Yes, even the 1990s, unavailing for me though many of those years were. Life before 9-11. Before SARS, H1N1, Fukushima, novel Coronavirus, and whatever other life-ending or life-shortening scourges have been inflicted upon the world. Life with my parents being alive, and my life largely untouched by death. Before "cancel culture". Before my generation came into power and let everything "go to pot". Oh, there were fears. Chernobyl, AIDS, nuclear war. But now, we are living in a nightmarish hyperextension of those. Fukushima is "Chernobyl on steroids" and this time met with nary a concerned word, let alone action, for the health of the populace. Deadly viruses are now spread through the air; they cannot be avoided by abstaining from risky behaviours. And now, the threat of nuclear war is still with us if a U.S. President is bellicose about Russia and proxy wars might escalate at any time. I am tired of having to worry about every breath. I want to be able to just go outside and "hang out" with friends. That is a pleasure as lost to me as a Newcastle Dairy Queen chili dog, tasty Hamburger Helper, and being able to enjoy Space: 1999.
This is all that I have to say for today. Will another day come? Who knows?
Over the past week, I have been upgrading some of the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner cartoon title cards at the supplemental image gallery for The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour Page. I have adjusted the crooked positioning of the copyright notices under several of the cartoon titles of the 1984-5 season. And I have added five more 1968-9-season cartoon title cards to the gallery. They are all in the row of title cards starting with the title card to "The Solid Tin Coyote".
April 6, 2020.
I have not much to do today. So, I thought that I would have a go at refuting the day's sorties against Season 2 Space: 1999. Why not? I have not done so for awhile. I do not wish to become "rusty" for lack of practice.
"How come Maya usually shape-shifted into the form of EARTH creatures that she has almost certainly never even SEEN before?"
Oh, not this again! Having Maya metamorphose into creatures recognisable by the viewers made her fantastic powers easier to adjust to, for those viewers. Or I should say that it ought to have done so. It was a creative decision, one that evidently did not "pay off" in impressing viewers besides myself and some others in northern New Brunswick. If so, then so be it. I have so little favour for most of my fellow humans these days, anyway. We will not appreciate the beauty in unfettered imagination or acknowledge the artistry in our collective subconscious. It does not say much for our integrity as an intelligent species. To say nothing of what we are doing to the health of our planet and ourselves through wilful blindness, hubris, and/or outright incompetence. But I am starting to rant. Keep in focus, Kevin. Keep in focus.
When Maya later did change into un-Earthly creatures, the television show was lambasted for that. It just could not win, could it? Not with the fans, anyway. The outcry then became aliens, Maya transformations included, being too outlandish. These are alien beings from alien worlds in a different galaxy, and, to quote John Koenig in a Season 1 episode of high esteem, "...if we think we know everything that goes on out there we're making a terrible mistake!" Ah, but no. Not where Season 2 is concerned. Everything encountered by Alpha has to be exactly like what is on Earth. If it is not, we must brand it as silly and, as a matter of daily course, insult people who like it.
"Because of the writers and low budget."
Space: 1999 did not have a low budget as a television series. The money spent on its production was of a higher volume than that invested in other television productions of the time. Doctor Who. The Tomorrow People. Planet of the Apes. Logan's Run. As far as the writing is concerned, I admire the imagination, and the way that concepts were synthesised for the Space: 1999 premises and aesthetics. "Air-tight" "plotting" is of far less interest to me. And in any case it does not exist in the most acclaimed Star Wars and Star Trek movies. Nor does it exist in Space: 1999- Season 1. Why "pick on" Space: 1999- Season 2? Why disparage it and only it?
"After 'The Metamorph' you COULD say it was the library computer on Alpha, but on the first episode of Season 2 there's no excuse."
Ah, yes. Excuse. The terminology of accusations. I prefer to use the word, explanation. Mentor could have mind-probed Fraser and Torens after he captured their Eagle, or accessed the Eagle's onboard computer, which could have contained the information. Or Psyche could have accessed Alpha's central computer. Or it could be that Psychon had many of the same animals as Earth. If the humanoid form is as prevalent in space as Space: 1999 depicts it, why not the forms of Earth animals, also?
"When she changes into a 'gorilla' and throws Koenig (and it is totally obviously a man in an ape suit) - I think most people decided either way about season 2 when seeing that in the first episode."
Well, of course it is a man in an ape suit. It could not be an actual gorilla. That would have been too dangerous, and simians are not guaranteed to act as directed. What is wrong with having a man in a suit? Are people's imaginations so limited that they cannot "make believe" that it is a real gorilla. Or, in Doctor Who's case, a real Silurian, Sea Devil, Ice Warrior, et cetera? The ape that Maya turns into in "The Metamorph", does not beat its chest or grunt or bellow. I think that the scene was done with admirable restraint. And what makes a gorilla suit believable or unbelievable? Of course, the head has to have holes for eyes and nose for the person within it to see and to breathe. Those cannot be fully concealed. As long as the suit has the right dimensions, the joins are not clearly visible, and movement is not restricted, it is effective. Or it ought to be considered so.
What is it about apes that people rail against in their entertainments? People seem to have an aversion to seeing apes in movies and television. Or they are inclined to laugh. Presumably because it mitigates the discomfort that they feel about some representation of the creature from which humans are said to have come. Planet of the Apes avoided this, I guess, because its apes were not shown as present-day simians. Anyway, it did not turn me against Space: 1999 to see the occasional ape, because I loved the overall Space: 1999 universe, and I respected what the writers and production team were endeavouring to do. Ah, but in case people say that I am garbage and I do not count (as they are so much wont to do), I would state that Space: 1999's second season did have a loyal enough audience in Canada for CBC Television to continue airing Space: 1999 for a further year. If people had "switched off" after "The Metamorph", this would not have been the case. An appearance of a man in an ape suit for a few seconds was not sufficient to keep them from wanting to "explore worlds beyond belief" for a further twenty-three Saturdays.
This is in the Facebook group dedicated ostensibly to venerating Season 2 Space: 1999.
"'The Rules of Luton'. Fred Freiburger came up with that title as he was an American in England and thought that the name on the motorway sign was a good name for a planet. What a cretin. This was one of the more rediculous episodes in my opinion."
So says someone who cannot spell ridiculous or Fred Freiberger's surname. These are such tiresome criticisms! I am so God-damned sick of them and the legions of blinkered boors who parrot them again and again and again. If Gwent can be used as a name of an alien man and a living machine, why cannot Luton be the name of a planet? Is there a law somewhere that says that the combination of syllables yielding Luton cannot also exist on an alien planet? As for calling Fred Freiberger a cretin, so much for having respect for the dead. It just shows how devoid of class and common decency that these people are.
Why are these comments being made in a group dedicated to Season 2? Where is the outcry of the supposed Season 2 fans? If I was in charge of the group, these people would be shown the door and told not to let it hit their posterior on their way out of the place. They do not belong in the group and I suspect are "trolling" it.
Here is another one. Made in reference to comments by actors on the outdoor set of "A Matter of Balance".
"Seen it. It only proves how actors know when they're involved in a horrible production..."
I have not seen that proved at all in those interviews. The actors are all very pleasant and upbeat in their discussion filmed at the time. They are professionals dedicated to what they are doing and convincingly positive in how they talk about it.
What is so horrible, objectively, about the production? Its concepts? Its production design? Its visual effects? Charles Crichton, Keith Wilson, Brian Johnson, et cetera. Are all of these people horrible in their work, or unprofessional and wilfully not doing their best work because they hate Fred Freiberger? Or is this all just fans retroactively applying their pigheaded biases to a production that had a high budget (for television) and imaginative writers and visualisers.
Again, remarks like this are replete in a group that is supposed to fancy the second season. Why?
I came across some commentary on "The Mark of Archanon" over the weekend, but I am unable to find it to extract quotations from it. Essentially, it was a series of attacks on it for its look and for the supposed "plot hole" of the Alphans not requisitioning help from the Archanons for a return to Earth or transportation to some habitable planet.
I am going to preface my response to this by saying that "The Mark of Archanon" is my least favourite episode of Space: 1999. I can safely say that it always has been so. I remember when it was repeated on CBC Television in 1977, as its first scenes were being manifest on my television's screen, I was saying to myself, "Oh, not this one." I was not very upset when its rebroadcast in French was preempted on CBAFT on February 5, 1979. It is the episode that I have watched the least on Blu-Ray. I have only watched it a couple of times since Season 2 was released on Blu-Ray. My reasons for not favouring it are the following. Neither Koenig nor Maya have much to do with the episode, both of them being away from Alpha during all of the episode's crucial events, their appearances being not much more than cameos. Apart from the meteor shower that Koenig and Maya are briefly seen navigating, there are no space phenomena shown. No planets, no asteroids to visit. It is largely an Alpha-bound episode with a medical crisis at its core. Not for me the most compelling science fiction/fantasy premise. And it is rather unpolished in its production. There is plenty wrong with it from a production standpoint. It and "The Rules of Luton" were the first two episodes to be filmed at the same time. This was a process that was completely new to Space: 1999 production, and probably also to Gerry Anderson Productions as a whole. There were teething troubles to it, and less polished "takes" and some "dicey" editing had to be accepted in the "time crunch". All of this said, I have no issue with the production design in the episode, nor with the story vis-a-vis the problem of the "killing sickness" as it develops as "narrative" through its four acts and is resolved.
The costumes of the Archanons and the Archanon "cosmetics" are fine as depictions of an alien culture. Alien cultures are not constrained by present-day Earth's fashion sense.
As for the so-called "plot hole", the Archanons not aiding Alpha or Alpha not shown asking for aid, does not detract from the story as developed and resolved as regards the fates of Pasc and Etrec and the threat posed by Pasc to Alpha, the essential elements of the story. It is an afterthought. And one that can be explained via the phenomena of the episode.
It is implied in the episode that contact with Earth people was a trigger for the Archanon "killing sickness", that it was what led to disaster for Pasc's expedition. It stands to reason, then, that the Archanons under Maurna's command would wish to have as little to do with the Alphans as possible. So, Maurna enters Alpha and collects Etrec, and then the Archanons depart. They would not wish to risk the contact with Earthlings that would be required in transporting 300 Alphans to Earth or a pristine habitable planet (assuming of course that they knew of the existence of such a planet). The "killing sickness" still cannot be cured without a blood transfusion that kills the donor. From the Archanon point of view, it is an unacceptable risk for the Archanons to go bounding all over space with nearly 300 Earth people. I have understood this for years. It is not explicitly stated, but does it really need to be? Why cannot it be nuanced?
Also, Koenig is not on Alpha when the Archanons are on Moonbase, and it would fall upon him to make any decision to evacuate Alpha or to negotiate with aliens for such an evacuation. I doubt that he would have empowered Tony or anyone else on Alpha to make such a crucial decision for the future of the Alphans, in his absence.
Oh, and there are more "snarky" comments about the distinct, printed-in-letters designations of equipment in the Eagles and on Alpha. There should be no labels, because everyone should know what everything is. So the argument goes. But what is wrong with labelling something for aesthetic purposes, at least? If the option exists to "slap" a label onto some piece of equipment, a weapons rack, et cetera, why not use it? It is more efficient to have everything clearly labelled. It is not just Batman and Robin using the equipment, but some 300 people. And not every Alphan has occasion to fly regularly in an Eagle. Maybe some of the less frequent Eagle travellers might be asked to locate something in a hurry during an emergency. Someone might have to do some task that is outside of their field of expertise. The labelling would help to facilitate such. In any case, I do not bloody care what the reason is for having things labelled. I love the aesthetic of Space: 1999, and that includes the labels.
Here is something that I noticed while watching Season 1's "War Games" recently. After Koenig is unable to free Helena from her cubicle and leaves the planet, he contacts Alpha and orders full evacuation and calls for reinforcement by Alan in a laser-equipped Eagle. No one asks him where Helena is. No one in Main Mission asks. Nor does Alan when he makes his rendez-vous with Koenig. Is it like no one cares where Helena is, or if she is all right. Koenig is coming from a planet suspected to be the source of the spaceships that ravaged Alpha. Him and Helena going to that ostensibly hostile planet to plead for mercy, was a dangerous mission. Surely someone ought to ask about Helena. But nobody does.
And at the start of the fourth act of "The Full Circle", Bergman and Kano's Eagle is flying above Moonbase with the injured Koenig aboard, and as the Eagle's landing engines are heard, Bergman orders Kano to "get through to Dr. Mathias" with instructions to be ready to test the Commander for possible brain hemorrhage and to have the operating theatre "standing by". Would it not have been more sensible to have given this order much earlier as the Eagle was lifting off of the planet, in advance of the flight back to Alpha? It would have given to Mathias the maximum amount of time to prepare for Koenig in Medical Centre. Why wait until the Eagle was "coming in" for landing? What were Bergman and Kano doing during the flight back to Alpha? At any time during the flight, they could have been in contact with Mathias, giving updates on Koenig's condition.
See? Season 1's writing is not without error. Ah, but only Season 2 can be slighted in full for any error. The same old. The same old.
Tuesday, April 28, 2020.
Friday, May 1, in the Year of Our Lord 2020.
I thought that I would invoke the logdating of Johann Robinson (Chris Wiggins) in television's The Swiss Family Robinson. I like to watch that on some Saturday mornings and remember the olden times when I would occasionally watch it on the sixth morning of the week. It is available on YouTube from time to time.
I have also been recently watching episodes of The Adventures of Black Beauty. An early 1970s British television series whose, for me, most notable components are actresses and actors who were later in Space: 1999, and two of its directors who directed episodes of Space: 1999. Stacy Dorning and Michael Culver were regulars in Season 2 of The Adventures of Black Beauty, and guest stars in this television series of fifty-two episodes included Michael Sheard, Maxine Audley, Geoffrey Bayldon, Leigh Lawson, Godfrey James, Peter Bowles, Patrick Westwood, and Stuart Damon. There is a ton of actors and actresses from Doctor Who, also. And some from Star Wars. Charles Crichton and Ray Austin were the aforementioned Adventures of Black Beauty directors who also worked on Space: 1999.
The male lead, William Lucas (as Dr. James Gordon), played Mr. Range in the Doctor Who 1983 story, "Frontios". The Gordon children in Season 1 were Vicky (Judi Bowker) and Kevin (Roderick Shaw). In the latter half of Season 1, they were joined by a free-spirited, mischievous, and plucky boy named Albert. It was never completely clear how Albert (Tony Maiden) came to be in the Gordon household, and where his parents were. Just that he was doing work for Dr. Gordon and occasonally staying in the Gordon cottage. For Season 2, Vicky was replaced by Jenny (Stacy Dorning, later of Space: 1999- "The Exiles"), Vicky vanishing with no mention of her. A roguish ragamuffin orphan named Ned was introduced in the first two episodes of Season 2 and was brought into the Gordon home. And Albert returned. Ned was played by Stephen Garlick, who was in a Doctor Who serial called "Mawdryn Undead" in the early 1980s. Michael Culver (of Space: 1999- "Guardian of Piri") was introduced in Season 2 as the pompous and disagreeable Squire Armstrong who governed the county where the Gordons resided and who often came into conflict with Dr. Gordon and the children. Charlotte Mitchell was the Gordon housekeeper, Amy Winthrop, in both seasons.
Like Space: 1999, there were two seasons of The Adventures of Black Beauty, the second of which involving changes to the acting cast, with character disappearance without explanation. And the cast of characters in second season are divided between stories. Jenny and Ned are in one episode, and Kevin and Albert are in the next. In another episode, Jenny and Kevin are shown together, and in the next episode Ned and Albert are the only regular children characters present. There is usually no mention where the unseen characters are in an episode. The children are all together only in the final episode, "Game of Chance". I am not familiar with the production history of The Adventures of Black Beauty, but I suspect that episodes were filmed simultaneously to speed production to meet airdates and to insure that filming would be completed before the children needed to return to school after summer. There was more than one horse in the Black Beauty role. Such would have facilitated a filming of two episodes at the same time. Reminiscent of Space: 1999's second season this arrangement is, n'est-ce pas? What Space: 1999 did in its second season, with its "double-up" production schedule for its episodes, may not have been unprecedented. I suspect that it was done more than people realise.
Sadly, the young actors who played Kevin and Albert no longer walk this Earth. Roderick Shaw died in the 1990s, and Tony Maiden killed himself in 2004. William Lucas lived a long life and died in 2016. Also long-lived, Charlotte Mitchell died in 2012.
Anyway, I am enjoying seeing The Adventures of Black Beauty again. It was one of the many television shows that I watched while living in Douglastown from 1972 to 1977. I saw The Adventures of Black Beauty in 1973 and 1976 before I became an avid watcher of Space: 1999. And also some time before I was to see Star Wars and was aware of Doctor Who. So, the significance to science fiction/fantasy of acting and directing talent in The Adventures of Black Beauty was at that time not known to me, of course. I have been sharing episodes with friends on Facebook on a weekly basis, along with episodes of Space: 1999.
I have added an image of a snowcat in trouble in Antarctica to my Era 2 memoirs, and a montage of images from instalment seventeen of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour.
While I am on the subject of Antarctica, which may be the last large territory on Earth to be untouched by the novel Coronavirus, I would mention that I have recently watched on YouTube the Jacques Cousteau television special that aired in my area on the evening of Friday, February 22, 1974. The evening before "Hyde and Go Tweet" day. As I say in my autobiography, I audiotape-recorded portions of that television special onto a Memorex C-120 "compact cassette" that I would the next day use for capturing the audio of Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour instalment twenty-four containing "Hyde and Go Tweet". I hope that said Jacques Cousteau television special remains permanently available on YouTube. It was so very pleasing to be able to see it again. It was narrated by Rod Serling. Imagine him saying, "In a late-summer fog..." in his unique Twilight Zone cadence. Classic!
All for today.
Friday, May 8, 2020.
Nostalgia for my life's era two. I am feeling that enormously these days. My regard for my life's fourth era has diminished considerably in recent years, while my fondness for the second era continues to flourish. I am back to believing the move from Douglastown to Fredericton in August of 1977 to have been a colossal mistake. I am not going to undertake a rewrite of any of my autobiography to go along with my change in outlook. It would be far too much intricate work, as other eras would also require careful adjustments. And my outlook could change again. It is possible. Unlikely, I think. But possible.
With my surging nostalgia for my life's era two has come great impetus to add to my Era 2 memoirs. I have updated McCorry's Memoirs Era 2 with new paragraphs and several new image groupings. 1977 has seen the most new additions, as I remember more about my stay at my grandparents' place with my best friend, Michael, and have several new reminiscences of television programming that I watched that summer. I have also added a paragraph and images for my frightening experience in a C.F.B. Chatham swimming pool on Saturday, February 8, 1975, and my Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour viewing that day. Era 2 and Douglastown were not perfect, but they were the best times and place possible for me in this world. I am so grateful to my deceased parents that I had those five years, but I really should have had more. We should have stayed there in Douglastown until I finished high school. After that, we could have moved to Fredericton, with me going to the University of New Brunswick and my mother caring for her ailing father and being present daily for her mother. An only-child should not have to go through an upheaval in his or her social life midway through childhood and then have to live in a snobby community where scowling youngsters belch out F-words as insults and denunciations.
All for today.
Is not this such a nice thing to have to behold on a day way, way past the vernal equinox when it is snowing, on a day when there is a global pandemic and people cannot leave their homes for fear of being killed by a lethal virus that spreads like the common cold?
"Ninth May, the Official No Maya Day"
A day for people who would wish Maya out of Space: 1999. And in deference to them, because the world must necessarily revolve around them, no one must mention or post any pictures of Maya.
Does Doctor Who fandom have a day whereupon its fandom bars a certain character from mention? I doubt it. Likewise Star Trek fandom. It is possible that Star Wars fandom has a no-Jar-Jar Binks day, but only an utter, un-discerning, supremely obtuse nitwit would compare the goofy, clumsy, stepping-in-excrement-for-comic-relief Jar-Jar Binks with the classy Catherine Schell as Maya. Some people have, of course. There is no summit of asininity that these people never reach. Oh, but she has to be compared to Jar-Jar because she is an unwelcome added character, right? Unwelcome for whom? The entire human population of planet Earth? These presumptuous louts like to think so. I do not matter, of course, for I am garbage. But other people liked Maya. There were preliminary plans for a "spin-off" television series with her character. If she were universally hated, if all letters to Gerry Anderson Productions and ITC Entertainment were disparaging about her, this would never have entered anyone's consideration. There are new additions to the casts of characters of many a television series. Chekov was a new addition to Star Trek. Doctor Who kept adding new companions for the Doctor. And so on. But only Space: 1999 must have a new character in a second season so hated as to have a day of no mention of that character. Pain of death, otherwise.
Does anyone defend Maya unequivocally and tell the person suggesting this bull's droppings of a procedure to deal with the fact that Maya and Season 2 exist, and that after forty-four years, it is long past time to adjust to this fact and stop with the adolescent behaviour over it? Hell, no. All that there is, is an echo-chambered conversation of like-minded people who after forty-four years have not had any inkling of a rational thought that maybe both seasons of Space: 1999, being opuses of the human imagination depicting space and alien worlds and life-forms, can have merit.
"How DOES a 170 lb (and Im being generous) cychon turn into a 1 gram bumble bee.. Hello ---- conservation of mass.. , a universal concept."
No apostrophe in the contraction for "I am". Psychon is spelled wrong. Why two periods? Sloppy. For people who love to faultfind, they sure do neglect to do so for their own writing.
Do we know that it is universal? Have we been everywhere in the universe? No. Then, there could be places in space where life-energy is such that this so-called "universal" standard does not apply. And besides, it is called the Law of Conservation of Energy and Mass. That is mass and energy. Not just mass. How do we know that Maya's life-force cannot store energy and emit energy in the transformation? Energy that becomes mass when Maya transforms into something larger than her previous form. We do not know that, per anything said in the episodes. There are principles, by the designations of suspension of disbelief and "economy of detail", that could be said to apply to Maya and her abilities, if fair-minded, rational people were involved in a deliberation on such. But of course, these principles are not to be recognised vis-a-vis Season 2 in this and other oh, so vaunted groups. Everyone knows that people who fancy Season 2 are mental defectives who should be made to experience isolation and daily invalidation for the rest of their days. Right? This is the implication in all of the uncontested posturings against everything Season 2. And it is why it is done. To invalidate, to marginalise, to demoralise the looked-down-upon thoughtful Season 2 aficionado. And, in the process of so-doing, stifle favourable regard and comment on Season 2. Along with the daily pleasure of "venting" to a somewhat large, approving group of same-thinkers.
All of the cliches are invoked in the discussion. Maya saves "the day" in every episode. Koenig and Russell and the others are ineffectual in every episode. Maya and her transformations resolve everything. This is demonstrably not true, but no one is concerned about attesting to that. Maya's transformations are all men in rubber suits, the fans all say. Not all of them, but some have to be. There was no CGI at the time of production. Oh, but they say that Maya's transformative ability was not necessary and bereft of artistic merit and could be eliminated with no consequences for Season 2 as an aesthetically suggestive work. Maya's transformation into Mr. Hyde in "Journey to Where" could not possibly carry any meaning, could it? If anyone says that it does, he or she is "one can short of a six pack".
I do not think that I needed to write all of this today. My readers, few as they are, already know how galling, how "getting of my goat" that these pompous, quasi-intellectual, group-think sorties, and the implications of hateful, schoolyard-calibre insult in them, do tend to be. Why do they bother me? Because they add insult to the injury of having no relevance in any of my observations and insights, to the following of the television series that I favour, they compound with that disdaining treatment that I received over these many, many years from fans, from erstwhile friends, and from peers at school, and they stridently besmirch the best year of my childhood (i.e. 1976-7), whose memory has brought for me so much solace.
It also distresses me that the fandom of my favourite television series, and the world at large, apparently, is replete with blinkered, closed-minded, insensitive people. I persisted through my Fredericton school years on the belief that not everyone was like those people whose attitudes I had to endure in the classrooms, hallways, and yards of Park Street School, Nashwaaksis Junior High School, and Fredericton High School, that the majority of people in the world were fair of mind, and did not go about the planet Earth contemptuously "putting down" things and persons fanciful with sneering, foul-language denunciations. Obviously, my persistence was founded upon unsound terrain. I can derive no moral strength today from that.
I have the Season 14 Doctor Who Blu-Ray box set, released this past Monday, to watch on this snowy weekend. It may be the last Blu-Ray purchase that I will be able to make outside of Canada. Amazon and other companies are now strictly enforcing region zoning for Blu-Ray and DVD. No one outside the U.K. can have product shipped to them from Amazon.uk.
The saga continues.
"I never cared for the Season 2 planet names. I don't know if there are more like this, but... LutON, DorcON, PsychON, ArchON... Anybody see a pattern here?..."
Artistry is lost on you, Pinky. It is an artistic thing, the rhyming of names in fiction. Poetry. Art. Aesthetics. Art that is what these louts profess to admire ever so highly if it is in Season 1. Oh, by the way, there is a planet Progron in Season 1. Fancy that! And there is no planet Archon in Season 2. Archanon, yes. Archon, no. There are, however, characters named Archon and Aarchon, in both seasons. The word, Archon, has an etymology that goes back to ancient Greece. But anyway. No one cares about that. If it is in Season 2, it must be bad. Season 2 bad, remember?
Pearls before swine, as the saying goes.
And oh, yes. To be thorough, I will state also that there is no planet Dorcon. Dorca, yes. Dorcon, no. The people from Dorca are called Dorcons.
"and ON and ON"
Oh, funny. Not! What a display of incontrovertible wisdom coming from the smug mentality of the typical blinkered, closed-minded, Season 2-hating ignoramous!
"Well, they'd better not land on the planet Moron, or they might get killed by stupidity!"
What is the gist of this ever so erudite posting? Are we to now view all words ending in o and n as alluding to stupidity? Or is it just some desperate and cheap attempt at high-brow humour. People, this is junior high school banter. Not that it should come as a surprise.
It is also not surprising that no one, not a single person, "stands up" for Season 2, in this "thread" of discussion or anywhere else. Not even in reaction to this delightful gem.
"As a teen I missed season 2, haven't watched all of them yet because the outpouring of scorn on it put me off. Now watching season 2, the steaming pile of excrement. Fred F. was a cretin."
No protests. Just hearts and thumbs-up. I am so damned "fed up" that people can make comments like this without censure. Without a single person objecting to it. Oh, I know that I said that the rancour would become worse and worse every year, but it galls me nevertheless to see no repercussions for such foul slurs on the second season of my favourite television show and its producer. The implied insult to people who like Season 2 is clear as mud.
And if anyone is asking if I believe that these people are not entitled to their opinion, my response is that they are not entitled to express their opinion in a vulgarly disrespectful and uncivil manner, and not if it is meant, through force of numbers, to bully others from stating their more considered opinion. Or insights. Insights trump opinions any day of the week, especially opinions based on closed-minded ignorance, opinions that are not formed from a rational examination of all ways of looking at something.
I was young once. Back in the 1980s, I could be rather strident in my opinions sometimes. I have mellowed with age. I am more open to looking favourably at a work that I may have disliked once upon a time. Provided, of course, that there are cogent arguments in favour of that work and that the people making those arguments are not in large numbers disparaging something that I venerate. These people have done the opposite of mellowing as they aged. I could not imagine being in the same room as any of them for even a few minutes.
What does it say about me that I succumbed today to being irascible? I failed today to keep my indignant sentiment about Season 2 haters from causing a lurch by me toward pugnacious hostility. I will need to admonish myself for this and resolve to better temper my feelings of aggravation or offence before I write again on the subject of Space: 1999.
Monday, May 11, 2020.
More additions have been done to my Era 2 and Era 3 memoirs. I have expanded upon my remembrances of the summer of 1977 in Era 2. The Era 3 memoirs now have some additional text regarding book and magazine acquisitions plus a photograph of the Regent Mall in 1980 and a further montage of book covers (the one starting with A Boy Named Charlie Brown).
Adding to my autobiography is always a pleasant thing to do. Remembering and writing about old times. As unpopular as my autobigraphy is to my readership, it will be receiving the most attention from me in the days to come. This being said, I cannot seem to motivate myself to finish revisions of my Eras 6 and 7 memoirs. And I am not entirely sure that I can make those memoirs consistent with the other five eras, now that my outlook on one of the eras has shifted away from my thinking of 2005 when the bulk of that era's memoirs was written.
My nostalgia now is almost exclusively for Era 2, Era 4 having fallen quite substantially in my estimation in recent years. I am back to regarding the move to Fredericton in 1977 as a mistake. And circumstances and events that befell me afterwords the results of a Karmic curse for having not only acquiesced to that move, but being in favour of it. The fact that I was only an eleven-year-old at the time evidently does not mitigate the punishment by Karma that I incurred. No cable television for more than a year. Raucous classmates and a horrible, full-class-detaining teacher for Grade 6. The loss of the friends that I had. Eventual estrangement from Michael. Seven years of being in school classrooms in hoity-toity Fredericton without any friends present. No brothers, no sisters, and no friends in my classes at school. A bullying environment. Invalidation city. Friends of a younger age around home to whom I was not really a belonging presence, liked significantly less than their same-age peers. Lasting, stable friendship eluding me throughout my latter half of upbringing and into adulthood. And of course, the curse of liking the unliked, with regard to all of my favourite entertainments, and no friend in all those years to truly and dependably "have my back".
If we had stayed in Douglastown, I would have adjusted to going to school in Newcastle. And riding the school bus every day. My home life would have been the same for awhile, until Michael left. It might have been possible to maintain contact with my younger friends at Douglastown Elementary. The upheaval of my life would not have been as drastic as was the case in moving to Fredericton. I would have had the constants and the continuity in my upbringing that an only-child should have. The same home. The same beautiful home. The same friends around home. My parents doing the same work throughout those years and being consistently happy. We were so much more of a happy family in Douglastown. That is certain.
When I wrote of Era 4, I did so thinking that things would have been better if I had told Joey that he was my best friend. I no longer believe that to be the case. Sharing that information with him would not have made a difference for his esteem for me and wishes to be with me, though it would definitely have put me in the pariah's position with everyone else. Joey was Joey. He preferred his peers. Increasingly, I was not relevant to his social life. That would not have changed, no matter what I said. Things were the way that they were for me. In leaving Douglastown, I was Karma-cursed. And to this day, I live with the consequences.
All for today. Sunday, May 17, 2020.
It seems that there may, just may, still be hope for a release to Blu-Ray and/or DVD this year of some newly remastered Warner Brothers cartoons, particularly ones with Bugs Bunny. That is if rumours to this effect on Internet discussion forums are to be believed. "Upswept Hare" is already known to have had some restoration work done on it, for some purpose. More Bugs Bunny cartoons are now being said to have also received the same attention. "What's Cookin', Doc?", "Hold the Lion, Please", "Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk", "Racketeer Rabbit", "Hare Splitter", "Hot Cross Bunny", "Knights Must Fall", "Rabbit Every Monday", "The Fair Haired Hare", and "Robot Rabbit". It could be that there is going to be a comprehensive release of Bugs Bunny cartoons spanning the 1940s and early 1950s to digital videodisc. Or it may all be for some Internet-based service. Jerry Beck is said to have some involvement in the restoration work, which might point to a release on Blu-Ray and/or DVD. A concentrating on the cartoons of the 1940s is to be expected, then, for Jerry Beck is known to prefer the 1940s. It would be nice, very nice, to see the post-1948 cartoons mentioned above on Blu-Ray, though there are other cartoons that I am rather more intent on having on shiny Blu-Ray or DVD, including one with Tweety, Sylvester, and some Hyde Formula. I was thinking a few days ago how unfair it is that cartoons like "No Parking Hare", "Half-Fare Hare", "Piker's Peak", and "Hare-Less Wolf" have never been released on home video and have not ever been seen in their very best look. They are always ignored. I think that they are very funny, very artful cartoons, whatever the opinion of them may be by persons responsible for choosing cartoons for release. And, yes, I would love to see "Hyde and Hare" on Blu-Ray. I suspect that it would not be included in the aforementioned potential Blu-Ray and/or DVD release. That such a release might only go up to 1953. As far as "Robot Rabbit". There has been no mention of "Captain Hareblower", "Beanstalk Bunny", and "Hare Brush". And they are after "Robot Rabbit" in order of theatrical release.
Anyway, I am not going to elevate my hopes and then be crushingly disappointed when the statement is made that there will be no Blu-Ray or DVD release of the newly remastered cartoons. I will believe it when, or if, I see the official announcement. It does seem strange for Warner to have this year released the perfunctory GOLDEN CARROT COLLECTION consisting of the same DVDs that were first DVDs of LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLCTIONs 1 to 5, if it was known that a superior Bugs Bunny box set was "on the cards". Why bother manufacturing THE GOLDEN CARROT COLLECTION? It still cost money to produce those newly pressed DVDs with the old glass masters. Why do so if there is a less redundant, far better product on the horizon?
Time will tell what the outcome of this will be.
Sunday, May 24, 2020.
Monday, June 1, 2020.
News is that more Bugs Bunny cartoons are now known to have been restored in High Definition, including "No Parking Hare" and "Half-Fare Hare". Yes, I had to pick my chin up off of the floor at news of this. Wow! I wish that "Piker's Peak" could have been another such cartoon. And "Hare-Less Wolf". But I will most gladly accept what is being offered, if indeed it is to be part of a Blu-Ray release. "Hare Lift" and "Captain Hareblower" have also been mentioned as being among the restored cartoons. I have to admit that it is strange for "Beanstalk Bunny" and "Hare Brush" not to have been as fortunate as these cartoons. And there are some others of the early-to-mid-1950s that appear to have missed the restorative attention of transferring-film-to-video technicians. "Yankee Doodle Bugs", for one. "His Hare-Raising Tale", for another. It could be that the Bugs Bunny Blu-Ray release, if it is to happen, will not be completely comprehensive. Time will tell. There has been no official announcement. At this juncture, it is still only rumour.
It would be so very gratifying to see "No Parking Hare" and "Half-Fare Hare" is pristine quality in High Definition! I do not have "Half-Fare Hare" in my collection in any capacity at this time.
It is June 2, 2020.
About what shall I ruminate today?
I am quite certain that my readers, few in number as they are, are tired of me angrily lamenting the attitudes of the detractors of all that I like. But I so rarely have news to report these days. Time will tell what all of the talk of Bugs Bunny cartoon restoration will ultimately pertain-to, per the chosen option of the decision-makers at Warner Brothers. New cartoons are being made with the characters of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, and I have my opinion on those. A largely unfavourable opinion. I do not want to see them "mixed in" with the vintage cartoons in any Blu-Ray or DVD release.
The new cartoons are eschewing the evolved, pleasingly structured look of the characters that became the norm in their appearances in all media through the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s and going for the crude, basic compass-circle-shaped looks, with excessively large eyes, of the early-to-mid-1940s most associated with the Clampett unit. The unit that all of the ever-so-"avant-garde", Friz-Freleng-scorning cartoon aficionados, including my nemeses of the Termite Terrace Trading Post, of the post-2000 era so imperiously and condescendingly prefer, in their increasingly prolific numbers. In their ascendancy that has continued since I quit cartoon fandom in 2009, they have managed to upend conventions in how the characters are drawn, conventions dating back to the late 1940s. But I am going to reserve my umbrage on this subject. Good things are happening now for Bugs, if rumours are correct, and I do not wish to sour that. It is giving to me something pleasant to think about in this trying time of pandemic.
There are a few more things that I wish to add to my Era 2 memoirs. I will be working on that in the days to come.
I was thinking yesterday as I was having a late-afternoon walk, smelling the lilacs and violets and looking at all of the green grasses and leaves, that I should address my situation with Dean. I mention Dean many a time in my Era 5 memoirs and this Weblog. My awareness of nuances in Space: 1999 was turbo-charged in my correspondence and meetings with Dean starting in 1988. Oh, that seems so long ago now. 1988.
I am of two minds, and have been for some time, about Dean's emergence into my life and its effects. It brought so much insight to me, either conveyed to me by him, or developing in me under his influence. But it also led to an augmented consciousness of the disagreeable tendencies of fans, and put me in the firing line as I sought, in vain, kindred spirits and a new and burgeoning movement favouring the second season in view of new insights provided by Dean and to a lesser extent by myself. I could be overzealous at times, and I overstepped myself badly, resulting in a "falling-out" with Dean in 1990. A "falling-out" that had me in debilitating self-doubt and panic attacks for years thereafter. He was very condemning in his assessment of me, and the more that the fans proved him right in his expectations of them and their behaviour, the more that he appeared to be correct about me. But somehow he had become rather impressed by something about me. And so, he extended an olive branch and tried to re-establish rapport with me in 1994. We found a harmony for awhile before more disagreements and a further "falling-out". And then another. There is a matter of money that has loomed over us additionally since 2005. The details of that are best left unsaid.
Dean and I never really were friends. Allies in a cause that without Dean's consistent involvement does seem hopeless. But not friends. He occasionally still reaches out to me, and I do not engage. In friendship, we are just not a good combination. I do not need toxicity in my life. Who does? He has a tendency to be dominating (our conversations are ninety percent him and ten percent me, if that) and cuttingly critical on a personal level. He is extremely intelligent and learned, and his assessments of people usually very considered and thorough. Which makes his judgements upon me, whether warranted or not, all the more difficult to sit through in telephone conversation or in-person meeting. So, I avoid him. All that I really want from him, all that I have really wanted from him for quite some time, is the publication of his project, his book, on "regionalism" in the "storyline" of the second season of Space: 1999 and all associated patterns, allusions, and symbolisms that came, somehow, to be so intricately interwoven into the subject matter. It would be a most sophisticated tome written by a most sophisticated man. I will give Dean that. Willingly. Whole-heartedly. Whatever my reaction may be to him as a person, it does not jaundice my opinion of his work, and the beauty of his observations, his insights, all of which should be universally recognisable. This is being intellectually honest. It would be intellectually dishonest to reject everything he presented to me with regard to "the show", and everything that I recognised, just because I do not "get along" with him and did not find a workable friendship. I want to see his book published, and I want to see it start to "turn" people's opinions, or at least "get the ball rolling" in that direction, ultimately to vindicate my long and painful dedication to Space: 1999. Yes, I believe what he has found to be this profoundly changing in the public's regard for Space: 1999 and its second season. But I have been waiting for such for 30 years, and it seems that I will go to my grave still waiting. For some reason, he cannot seem to push the project to its conclusion and publish it as a tome. Today, he will occasionally surface in fandom, say some cleverly nuanced words that most obtuse fans would not recognize as having significance as a defence of Season 2, and then vanish again. It is frustrating for me, to be sure. I have to "hold my tongue" on so very, very much that he discovered and some things that I intuited during my discussions with him, seemingly in perpetuity, while the daily assaults upon Season 2 continue with increasing smugness and intensity.
This is the way that things are for me on the subject of Space: 1999. And always will be, apparently. I paid the price in the fan movement for my fidelity to Dean's work. There are times when I wish that I had never been approached by him. And I would not have been if I had not joined the fan movement. I wish also that I had never done that. I wish that I had not moved to Fredericton. Maybe my fandom for Space: 1999 would not have grown to the extent that it did, if I had stayed in Douglastown. I might have "moved on" to the "next thing". Star Wars, I guess. And been all the happier for it.
I guess that this is all that I have to say today.
Saturday, June 6, 2020.
It is an overcast and intermittently rainy Saturday in New Brunswick, and the weather is expected to stay this way through the weekend.
I am happy to report a resurgence in Website visitors in the past few weeks. Especially for my Web pages pertaining to the Warner Brothers cartoons and The Littlest Hobo. It could be that news of the restorations of cartoons is fuelling a renewed interest in them on the part of the public. And there is some news of import about The Littlest Hobo. I am not at liberty yet to say what it is, but television industry people might be having a look at my Web page for The Littlest Hobo as they are ruminating about certain recent developments.
Several of the newly restored Bugs Bunny cartoons have been seen in High Definition by way of a broadcaster, HBO, and there are complaints about the look of the cartoons, specifically that film grain reduction techniques are causing a loss of the classic animated cartoon cel look of the cartoon shorts and causing picture to be soft in its quality, and with sudden "bursts" of grain during some scene transitions. There are also quibbles about the colours not being entirely faithful to how they have traditionally been. It is possible that some of this is due to how the broadcaster is compressing the video, and that when, or if, these cartoons are released on Blu-Ray, they will not be manifesting any of these issues. As I often say, time will tell.
My nostalgia for Era 2, for my life in Douglastown, continues to surge, whilst I continue to do updates to my Era 2 memoirs. I am dreaming often about being in the old house and in my old yard. I do not see my parents very much in my dreams about Douglastown. Nor do I see my friends. But I am usually going out into the neighbourhood in search of my friends. I am having flashbacks to my early days in Douglastown, as my first impressions of our house and its immediate environs were imprinting on my six-year-old psyche. Overall, I have a warm feeling of comfort in thoughts of Douglastown. I guess maybe this is to be expected in this awful time, when my home in Fredericton is where I am living during all of the anxieties and alarms of a pandemic, highly contagious deadly illness, a dangerous vaccine from the country from which the illness originated, national governments and people in high office who cannot be trusted, possible food supply problems, and economic collapse and loss of value in my bank accounts. Douglastown is still in my mind a place of innocence, untrammelled youthful fancy, company, overall happiness, and largely worry-free existence under the protective care of loving parents, caring teachers, and benevolent neighbours and community leaders.
This is all for today.
Saturday, June 13, 2020.
No further news about the Bugs Bunny cartoon restorations or a possible Blu-Ray release of them. And the way that this year is going, nothing can be considred "a given". Doctor Who Blu-Ray releases continue to be "on hold". And I would not "count chickens before hatching" on any home video release, whether it be mooted or confirmed. In addition to a pandemic virus that is in all probability going to "hit" North America in "waves", the U.S. appears to be on the brink of a civil war. More and more people are going stark raving mad.
I see that Gunsmoke has been released onto DVD in its entirety in a mammoth box set. All twenty seasons. I have decided to buy one such box set. I have only seen a small fraction of Gunsmoke's episodes, and it is top quality television. It has impressed me with every episode of it that I have seen. I became interested in Gunsmoke for it being the television show preceding Space: 1999 on CBHT, CBIT, CBCT between 1983 and 1985. If I had been able to see one of these three CBC Television stations every Sunday back then, I would have been watching Gunsmoke in advance of Space: 1999, as I did on Sunday, September 16, 1984 when my parents and I were in a hotel room in Truro, Nova Scotia, and I watched and videotape-recorded Space: 1999- "The Last Enemy" after an airing of Gunsmoke- "The Scavengers" (which had Yaphet Kotto as guest star). I remember that morning fondly. "The Last Enemy", I already had on videotape, but I would glean a better copy of it through that September 16, 1984 telecast of it.
There is no telling yet when the Gunsmoke box set will arrive at my door. Amazon.ca is out of stock of it for the time being.
It looks like my favourite people at the Facebook Space: 1999 community, are "at it again". Another round of Fred Freiberger-"bashing". Someone made the observation that he was producer for part of the first season of The Wild Wild West, and the attitude on such was an acknowledging of its verity, followed by "put-down" of The Wild Wild West as being "camp". No one offered a contrary opinion on the subject (oh, naturally not; even if the "camp" description of The Wild Wild West is demonstrably wrong, these people are dead-set against any possible defence of any work of the man that the group regards as its Satan).
I cannot say that I am much of an authority on The Wild Wild West. I have not seen most of its episodes. I bought one of its seasons on DVD back in 2007. The second season, I believe. And I watched every episode on those DVDs. It was a handsome-looking television series. Colourful, with impressive production values. Likable characters. Interesting guest stars, and some not so interesting ones. It had a unique and audacious premise, it being a science fiction/fantasy, action-adventure opus set in the Wild West era when villains with grandiose schemes were in nefarious operation. And its two main characters being government agents in cowboy garb and possessing technologically advanced gadgetry. But try as I did, I could not generate much enthusiasm for it. Even with my emergent interest in the television Western by way of Gunsmoke, it did not "float my boat". I opted not to purchase more seasons and to sell the season that I had. To Blockbuster Video, I think. But I do respect it. I can respect a production while not personally enjoying it. Blade Runner would be another example of this. I have respect for it, but it is not "my cup of tea". I have only ever sat through it once, and that was for a science fiction film course in which I was enrolled at university in the 1990s. I have the highest respect for Mission: Impossible, and I do like some of the episodes of it, but it does not "fire" my imagination, instill aesthetic interest, or thrill me enough for me to want to "seek it out" and watch it.
But I digress.
Of the episodes of The Wild Wild West that I did see, my impression was that it had a serious approach to portraying its situations and conveying its subject matter, albeit with some humour tastefully sprinkled here and there. Some of the villains may have been "arch", or verged on being so, but they were not being played by the actors in an deliberate effort to "send up" the proceedings. At least not that I could tell. They were not doing what Batman did with its villains. The "overripe" laughter of Caesar Romero's Joker, for example. There was no character like the overwought and somewhat effeminately essayed Dr. Smith of Lost in Space (a prime example of a "camp" character), despite the attempts of the Space: 1999 fans in the discussion that I am citing, to liken The Wild Wild West to the often "over-the-top" satire of Lost in Space. The heroes of The Wild Wild West were both quite masculine. The situations did not give rise to attempts to "nudge-nudge, wink-wink" the audience into believing everything to be silly and to "go along" with the absurdity of everything. God, I hate the word, silly, as applied to the products of people's imaginations. But I use it here in the context of outlining other people's thought processes, much as I am opposed to them. The Wild Wild West seemed to "take seriously" what it was profferring, and, on top of that, it was making a concerted effort to present to a reverent audience a credible fictional universe. At least this was my impression of the episodes that I was watching thirteen years ago.
The only productions that I have seen that I would classify as "camp" would be Batman, Lost in Space, some of Gilligan's Island, and The Brady Bunch Movie. And maybe Get Smart. My knowledge of it is limited. Some of the Tom Baker Doctor Who serials were verging on being parodies. These are the only productions that come to mind. Star Trek was not "camp". Not even in its comedic episodes. Nor was Space: 1999 in either of its seasons. Mind, "The Full Circle" in its caveman scenes comes rather close to the "camp" category. Close, but not quite.
I cannot refute these people's assertions with absolute certainty or authority, but their attitude toward Fred Freiberger skews their judgement on so many subjects, and they are probably "off-base" here. Their smug, oh, so matter-of-fact declarations always rile me, in any case.
I do not relish in any way being anti-anyone-who-is-anti-"Year 2", but this has to be the case. I tried working with these people. I tried to "get along" with them. Never again. Their incessant, daily barrages, the vulgarity, in all of its crassness, of their satisfied-as-a-group "put-downs", and the demoralising effects that this has upon me in my isolation as the "village idiot" who sees nuance and meaning in Season 2, makes no other reaction possible. I deplore these people, and will go on doing so for what is left of my life. I will do my best not to allow my deploring of them to not make me patently disagreeable or irascible, but I cannot deny or stifle how I feel.
It galls me so very much that we cannot just all enjoy Space: 1999, appreciate what we see in either season, respect what each of us sees, and "get along". No, they have to be right absolutely about Season 1 and Season 2, and I have to be wrong. And I have to have my wrongness thrown in my face every single day, and I am supposed to just meekly "take it" like a Caspar Milquetoast character. Or rail against it and be branded a contemptible crybaby. Or capitulate and reject Season 2 on whatever pejorative or whatever angle of attack is de rigueur. Or just "go off and be alone", forever. None of these options is at all pleasing for me, and I resent only having them as choices. I resent those people and their unflinching, increasingly rancourous forty-four-years-old attitude. They have poisoned everything. The Shout! Factory Blu-Rays. The Big Finish audios (yes, Big Finish is the company outputting those; I will grant to it this, plus an image of the front cover, one of the less visually dynamic front covers, to one of its products). New printed publications. Facebook. Everything. And in spite of this, in spite of all of this, I do still love Season 1. Of course, I do. I used to prefer it, many years ago. I am so grateful for it for enabling me to "get through" my first school year in Fredericton, that of 1977-8. There is not a single episode of Space: 1999 that I dislike. But the attitude of the fans has tainted the enjoyment of "the show" that I used to experience every time that I watched an episode. Especially one newly acquired on home video media.
I was thinking some weeks ago on one of my walks about parallels in my experience with the Warner Brothers cartoons and the two seasons of Space: 1999. In both cases, I mostly saw the latter "half" of the oeuvre first, and the fan opinion favours the earlier "half" of the work. And I "fell out" with the fans of the cartoons in much the same way as I did with Space: 1999 fandom. Ah, but there is a difference. I have affection for both seasons of Space: 1999. I love them both. But where the Warner Brothers cartoons are concerned, I only really love the post-1948s. I do like some of the pre-1948s. Yes, some of them, I like. Some of them, I dislike. The vast majority of them, I am indifferent-to. And my liking for the cartoons pre-1948 is not effusive. And I would much prefer to be watching a post-1948. Are there some post-1948s that I am not much fond-of? Sure. "Shishkabugs". "Apes of Wrath". Those two come to mind. And "The Iceman Ducketh". And most of the "cheater" cartoons. But I would still prefer to watch those over "sitting through" a Clampett cartoon. Even the occasional Clampett cartoon that I actually like. There are a few. Not many. A few. "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery", for one.
I think that I have rambled enough this morning.
Friday, June 19, 2020.
First item of news is the death of actor Ian Holm, CBE. Best known to fans of the science fiction/horror genre as the too calm and too collected, treacherous Ash in Alien. He tended to play the fastidious, brooding type of character with a long fuse and a "slow burn", with a lurking, potentially dangerous volatility should that fuse "run out". He was especially effective in this particular mode of characterisation as the weaselly aristocrat or the priggish minor official. This seemed to be his forte. I saw him in several productions of the 1970s, including Nicholas and Alexandra, Juggernaut, Jesus of Nazareth, All Quiet On the Western Front, S.O.S. Titanic, and, of course, Alien. And he played Napoleon in 1982's Time Bandits. I am less familiar with his work of later years. I saw him in the unmemorable The Fifth Element and a disappointing Johnny Depp vehicle about Jack the Ripper, From Hell. He was the first choice for the part of the villainous Morgus in Doctor Who- "The Caves of Androzani" but declined the role. He was primarily a movie actor, in both theatrical films and movies made for television.
His portrayal as Science Officer Ash as unruffled by even the most horrific of goings-on, led my then (in 1979) friend Tony and me, especially me, to use the expression, "Ian Holm down", instead of "calm down". Neither of us had seen Alien in the movie theatre, of course, it having a Restricted rating. We knew the events and characters of Alien from a photonovel thereof.
Holm was a natural for the part of J. Bruce Ismay in S.O.S. Titanic, and that of Corporal Himmelstoss in All Quiet On the Western Front. He was also very effective as the put-upon passenger ship owner Nicholas Porter in Juggernaut, one of the first non-Disney movies that I ever saw. Acting with him in Juggernaut were Julian Glover and Freddie Jones of Space: 1999. And in Jesus of Nazareth, he, as the devious Zerah, had most of his screen time with Ian McShane (Judas). Ian McShane was in Space: 1999.
His son, Barnaby, appeared with him in Juggernaut and would later play Peter Reynolds in The Final Conflict.
Rest in peace, Sir Ian Holm.
The newly remastered Bugs Bunny cartoon, "Hare Splitter", has surfaced on a Blu-Ray of the movie, Romance On the High Seas, as a bonus feature. The news is bad, I am afraid. Very bad. It is in Standard Definition with interlaced, not progressive, video, and sporting a look that is soft and bland in its colour. This does not bode very positively for a mooted release in a Bugs Bunny Blu-Ray set of it and fourteen other restored Bugs Bunny cartoons. It boggles my mind no end how Warner Brothers continues to "drop the ball" when it comes to treatment of the cartoons of Bugs Bunny and the other characters of vintage Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. It is almost as if it is wilful "sabotag-ieeee" (to use a Bugs Bunny expression). I have not seen the "refurbished" "Hare Splitter" myself. I am just referencing the screen captures that I have seen and the reports of a person who did see it. Suffice it to say, I am not impressed.
Someone at the Space: 1999 Facebook group dedicated, supposedly, to celebratng and venerating Season 2, is saying that not only is "The Rules of Luton" the worst episode of Space: 1999, but the worst episode ever made of any television series. Not a single person objected, of course. Quislings that they all are. Yes, yes, yes, yes, "The Rules of Luton" could use some more polish. It was among the first two Space: 1999 episodes to be filmed simultaneously. Yes, it could have been more elaborate in "setting up" its premise of an alien world dominated by sentient plants. And yes, it does borrow tropes from other works of the science fiction/fantasy genre, or "draws" from the same "pool" of ideas used by those other works. But it is far from being unenjoyable or "un-moving". Koenig and Maya's scene wherein they remember their pasts is outstanding value as a "filling in" of character background. Oh, I know that that very scene has "come in" for flak recently for Maya not acknowledging the evil committed by her father and remembering only the "good times", but it is at a time when John and Maya are trying to find some respite in a desperate situation. And the only past that Maya has prior to her joining Alpha, was that of her life on Psychon with her father and her mother. She has chosen to separate Mentor's obsession and his "turn" to "mad scientist" from her earlier memories of him as a highly respected genius, devoted husband, and loving father. Koenig has allowed her that. It is the least that he could do after his actions, however righteous in their motivation, put Mentor in a life-or-death situation from which Mentor opted not to extricate himself. And I respect his humanity in such. Koenig did say that he did not mean to remind Maya of her sadness in losing her father and Psychon. And she chooses to remember the happy times, with a melancholic "feel" for all that she lost and a sense of longing for a brother of an untold fate. It is a tender and "moving" scene, leading to Koenig remembering the pain in his past, with Maya being kind and empathetic as she listens, and I think that it is carping way too much to be lambasting it for it not being a dissertation of the evil deeds of the obsessive Mentor. There is every reason to believe that all of the acknowledgement of Mentor's derangement of his final years had already been done between Maya and the Alphans in the weeks and months after "The Metamorph".
But I digress, again.
The person lambasting "The Rules of Luton" so absolutely does not qualify his objections to the episode. I have to surmise that it is mainly based on the sentient or intelligent plants concept, as though such a thing is impossible anywhere in the universe, and the "economy of detail" used in the episode with regard to how Luton and its consciousness-endowed and communicative flora came to be and how they operate. And why Maya was trapped in the cage. Does this make "The Rules of Luton" so damnably bad that it should he held in such low esteem that it is worse than "Spock's Brain" and other "low-lights" of Star Trek , every episode of Lost in Space (including "The Great Vegetable Rebellion"), the most farcical episodes of Tom Baker Doctor Who, Colin Baker Doctor Who, the cheapest-looking episodes of The Tomorrow People, all episodes of The Starlost, and the dullest, least imaginative episodes of Battlestar Galactica, to say nothing of Galactica 1980? Ridiculous! And there are countless episodes of non-science fiction/fantasy television shows that did some questionable things with their premises or characters. Not only do I not think "The Rules of Luton" to be the worst television series episode ever made, but I do not think it to be Space: 1999's least accomplished episode. And I certainly declare poppycock on the person's assertion of "The Rules of Luton" being a "crime against humanity". Yes, that is what he calls it. No hyperbole is off-bounds to these blights to intelligent discourse that are these impossibly "twisted" people who call themselves Space: 1999 fans.
This is all for today. A sad death, bad news for Bugs Bunny, and a most extreme case of ill-tempered umbrage. And oh, yes. My summer vacation is also in doubt.
Weblog entries post-June 19, 2020.