#old sf

[pacollipacolli]

Summer Sale going on at High in the Bay

20%OFF EVERYTHING

Use code: OLDSF

Valid from July 27th until July 29th 12pm PST

[fuckyeaholdsigns]

[fuckyeaholdsigns]

i know you guys don’t like the ghost signs as much as the neon signs, but c'mon, show them some love. they’re old as hell.

[shadow-words]

[honourablejester]

When you're rewatching episodes of old shitty shows that are truly terrible but you love them anyway (The Fantastic Journey 1977, in this case), and you stumble across some real gems of lines:

Kid Guards: "We found him in the temple. He was going to rob it!" Dr Willaway (indignantly): "That is not entirely true!"

Entirely. It's not entirely true. As in, what, you were only going to rob the place a little? Firm and staunch denial there, love. Wouldn't suspect you for a moment, honest. *facepalms* And Willaway wonders why people occasionally try to kill him. Not the best in the world at de-escalating things, that man.

(That said, he was weirdly the best at understanding the kid trying to kill him this episode. You know, one angry accidental tyrant running largely off betrayed principles to another).

This show is amazingly terrible. I really, really love it :)

[honourablejester]

Random 70s Shitty SF

I went on a mild Roddy McDowall kick following Legend of Hell House (in between my ghost story kick, I mean), and I ended up watching all 10 episodes of a cancelled 70s show called The Fantastic Journey (said 10 episodes being here on youtube). It is ... It's kind of amazingly shite, like throw the worst episodes of Trek TOS, Blake's 7 and Logan's Run together, that kind of shite, and the special effects are gloriously terrible when they're not just terrible-terrible instead (there is one episode, it's damn near actually good, except for a truly dire 'spectral voice' effect for one possessed character that had me going WHY?! at the screen every time he opened his mouth). A bunch of people whose ships/spaceships/aircraft disappeared in places like the Bermuda Triangle end up on a strange interdimensional island divided into separate time periods, and try to figure out a way back off again. The main cast include a telepathic guy from the future, a young doctor from the 70s, a scientist's kid played by Ike Eisenmann, and then later a telepathic Atlantean/alien lady and Roddy McDowall's 60s 'rebel scientist' who starts out as a villain. The plots are a bit hackneyed, the characterisation wobbles around the place for a couple of characters, the cast switched around more than once in only ten episodes, and as stated previously the special effects vary from cheesy-bad to actual dire. ... I sort of love it. Which is bad, because there is ZERO fanfic, and I want some. Particularly, and I'm sorry to be cliched about it, but I kind of want Fred/Jonathan slash (they've a bit of Spock/McCoy vibe, okay?), and maybe Jonathan/Varian fallout from that Funhouse episode. It's not likely to happen, however :( This is the problem with discovering old TV shows. It really is. Heh.

[auronlu]

"Bonding Ceremony" from Blake's 7

We interrupt our regularly-scheduled Final Fantasy extravaganza for a silly scene from one of my favorite cheesy SF shows when I was in junior high. This came to the states around 1983, and I was hooked. About the only other SF we had at the time were reruns of original Star Trek and, of course, Tom Baker era Doctor Who.

I keep waiting for B7 to come out on Netflix, Amazon, or something in the states so that I can replace my aging VHS tapes. It was one of my early fandoms.

Dayna was like an unholy fusion of Lara Croft crossed with McGyver.

It was still somewhat unusual to have such a matter-of-factly assertive female character on TV, especially in science fiction. Contrast the role that Nichelle Nichols was given for Uhura: there had been some progress in the decade since original Trek, but there was still a long way to go before Buffy, Xena, Scully, Ivanova, et alia.

[othercat2]

The Book I Still Don't Want to Read

"The Delikon" by H.M. Hoover I saw it at the used book store. It is a book I have skimmed and generally set back on the shelf, mostly because... 1. All-wise super advanced aliens that are not actually able to communicate meaningfully because they are so advanced. (Not because they are alien, because they are advanced.) Oddly enough, they deliberately alter their appearance and do major brain mods on their officials so they can interact with humans, but somehow, they are still not able to interact. 2. Humans are primitive and violent and aliens decided to conquer them because of the primitive violence when Humans went into space. 3. It is mostly tell and no show. Lots of massive info dumping, almost no characterization. Not that I have much sympathy for any of the characters. 4. The beginning and ending are the same and the bits I've read of the middle doesn't say why. Just, "there was all this turmoil but nothing changed and no one learned anything."