Inspirations - Scifi/fantasy Series Part 3

Well, I'd only intended one post on this, but we're up to three already! This, however, is the last, and I hope I've stirred up a little nostalgia with these. Or possibly just shown my age and poor taste. :-O

9. Sapphire and Steel. I loved these, even though only six episodes were ever made. The stories creeped me out. Sapphire and Steel are two human-looking agents who travel throughout time and space keeping humanity safe. These are more though-provoking than action stories, and the SFX and sets are very limited, but that intrigued me. As a child who suffered badly from nightmares, this particular episode had me so freaked out that I imagined I could see 'the darkness' moving around in my own room. This clip is the worst and probably the source of my Siah-dhu - the dark entity in Keir and the associated stories.




10. Stargate. I enjoyed the film and watched the first series, although I found some of the story-lines a little dubious. Their use of the 'stargates' annoyed me a bit since I already had a similar mode of transport in mind for my own travellers, but what can you do?! :-P A scientific/military team of humans travel across space through special gateways, encountering alien races and battling the tyrannical parasitic Goa'uld.




11. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I LOVED Douglas Adams! Not just this spoofy scifi series but the Dirk Gently books too (which, incidentally, got me into the poetry of Coleridge). The accidental travels of Arthur Dent and his alien companion Ford Prefect had me hooked from the first episode. Frankly I was a little disappointed by the film version. I liked the idea that alien space ships weren't all gleaming metal, that sticking a fish in your ear worked better than a translator, and that Vogon poetry is the third worst in the Universe. "Oh freddled gruntbuggly." Oh, and don't forget your towel. :D




12. Space 1999. This didn't even come up in the comments from the first Inspirations post, but I have to mention it. This was compulsive viewing for me on a Saturday morning. I'm not sure the idea was terribly feasible - the Moon is blasted out of Earth's orbit after a nuclear explosion (fair enough) but the number of aliens and other worlds they encounter on their journey deeper into space seemed beyond reasonable coincidence. My favourite character was the shape-changing Maya. Even though most of the aliens were awful rubber suits, some of the stories really stuck with me, and the opening credits with their dramatic theme got me every time. :)



So that's it - 12 scifi/fantasy series that have influenced me along the way. Did I miss any of yours out? :-P

Inspirations - Scifi/fantasy Series Part 1

After a discussion on Twitter about a certain scifi series, it got me thinking about all those I've watched over the years and that I've fallen in love with or felt inspired to write by watching. Once I started writing the post, I realized there were quite a few so I've split the post into two parts to make it easier. So, in no particular order, these are my top scifi/fantasy series. Enjoy!

1.Doctor Who. Probably the first scifi series I ever watched, and mostly because my parents were fans. The never-ending (?) journeys through time and space of the renegade Time Lord, now the last of his people, has been running since 1963, which must be a record. The earliest episode I can recall was the very last Jon Pertwee adventure - Planet of the Spiders - and I often wonder if it was the source of my spider phobia. :-/
Of course, it's come a long way since then ...



2.Star Trek. The pure, unadulterated original series! Again, my parents were fans so it was kind of compulsory viewing in our household, but even so my love for ST took me to watch all the following versions. Out of all of them, DS9 was probably my favourite, with Voyager coming a sadly-disappointing last. I tired so hard to like Captain Janeway, but she just didn't cut it for me. Seven of Nine was the only redeeming feature. :( Star Trek is often quoted as being ground-breaking because of the mixture of races and genders working together in a form of equality that many are still striving for even now. The range of story-lines, often covering moral dilemmas as much as Kirk's reputation of 'shoot to kill' make up for the periods of dodgy acting and even more dodgy special effects.


(I really like the Flintstones mash-up of the original, lol.)

3.Farscape. I LOVE Farscape! It's probably been the biggest influence on my writing that I've been consciously aware of. I even treated myself to the complete DVD set including the Peacekeeper Wars as a Christmas present. The idea of a living ship, of an alien that's a plant, of travel through wormholes, and helium farts (yes, you read that right) - fabulous! The relationships between all of the crew and the gradual romance between Crichton and Aeryn are all beautifully done. John Crichton, astronaut, falls through a wormhole to another universe and becomes part of a crew of escaping prisoners aboard a living ship - a Leviathan - called Moya as they attempt to evade the Peacekeepers.



4.Blake's Seven. My husband mocks my fondness for this lo-budget old scifi, but I loved it. It had a fab alien ship, elegant weapons and a hodge-podge of the most psychologically conflicting and demented characters ever. The constant sniping from sardonic Kerr Avon kept up the friction even when poor scenery and the odd dodgy storyline let it down. The iconic Deep Space Vehicle Two - better known as the Liberator - is a state-of-the-art space ship high-jacked by a band of criminals and led by the moral crusader Roj Blake as they attempt to evade the corrupt and tyrannical Federation. You could consider it an early version of Farscape without the romance.




So that's the first four, and I'll post the rest next week. But what's your top scifi series and why? :)

Dirk Gently

OK, I rarely, rarely lose my temper. And when I do, I rarely vent it. It's a side of me I don't like, and who wants to listen to me sound off?!


But today I have to. Last night I saw something that almost had me in tears, that I'd been looking forward to every since the BBC announced it was in the making. Tears of bitter disappointment, of betrayal, of sadness.



I'm referring to the drama of 'Dirk Gently' on BBC Four. Misnamed (because there was very little of the book remaining in the piece), and misrepresented. A travesty. Someone has ripped the heart and soul from one of my favourite books. They had removed the scifi elements, the deranged poetry of Coleridge, the spires of Cambridge, the quirky humour and one of the main, and to my mind, most glorious characters. The remaining characters were a pale and feeble shade of their previous selves. The remaining story was tedious drivel.

No offence to the actors, particularly Stephen Mangan who, I felt, gave a good rendition of the character Dirk Gently. And usually the BBC delivers. But I was deeply disappointed by the resulting adaptation, and now fervently pray that, if this is an example of how they render Dirk Gently, the BBC will leave the other Douglas Adams books well alone. My advice - go and read the books, if you haven't already.

You can find more information on the episode on the BBC website, and if you are in the UK, you can even watch the episode on iPlayer if you missed it last night. You can also read Stephen Mangan's view on the adaptation by clicking here.