ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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This episode is as tidy as your Aunt Edna's favorite cat, with a story that cracks the door on a great concept and gives you a literal peek into the future!

Warren Stevens (Doc Ostrow from Forbidden Planet) moves in next door to Don DeFore (who lived next door to Ozzie and Harriet in days gone by), and arouses his new neighbor's interest with odd gizmos like a flashlight that emits X-rays —


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— and a small autonomous vacuum cleaner (yes . . . a roomba in 1955).


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Don just happens to be a science fiction writer — and if you don't love that little twist, you are definitely on the wrong message board, my friend!

The two guys have a relaxing dinner a Don's house one evening with their wives, and Warren casually suggests a story idea to his new buddy: people from the future feel oppressed by the dictatorial government, so they move to the past to live in a more pleasant age.


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Don is intrigued, because being a writer and therefore a smart cookie (pardon my own lack of modesty here), he's already figured out that Doc and the missus are definitely "not from around here".


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The fly in this tale of futuristic ointment is the fact that the "future police" track down Doctor and Mrs. Ostrow one night and whisk them away to face a legal system that doesn't permit temporal emigration.

This is an episode that shows just what Science Fiction Theatre is all about.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

This was one of the few episodes, fragments of which stuck with me through time and space into adulthood. (Some time after the series aired I even had one of those Robert Robot toys, although I didn't remember it as having appeared here.)



The episode probably impressed me at my tender age by the depiction of strange occurrences in the neighbor's house and the sudden disappearance of the family. Spooky stuff for my psychological makeup at the time.
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...or not...

WayneO
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[Bud Brewster]

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Yep, this is one of the better episodes because of the way it's written and directed.

Additional points in its favor include the fact that the happy family man is played by Don Defore, who was Ozzie Nelson's friendly neighbor, and the mysterious neighbor from the future is none other than Doctor Ostrow from that movie, Forbidden Something-or-other.

And then of course, there's the fact the episode was directed by the legendary Jack Arnold. How cool is that?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Bud, could these episodes be remastered with new visual effects like they've done for ST:TOS?

I was thinking the other day about how impressive the enhanced FX are for ST:TOS & could such methods be applied to other television series?

The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits are the first ones that come to my mind.

[Bud Brewster]

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I suppose they could be, but the situation is a bit different I think in all three cases you mentioned.

With TOS, the show had grand ideas that really needed to be presented with slick, eye-popping FX. The cheap, grainy FX we endured for decades just didn't present the grand future in which the show was supposed to be set.

The enhanced FX give the series an over-all consistency which it didn't originally have: challenging science fiction concepts combined with gorgeous science fiction special effects.

And the non-FX parts of the show look good enough not to clash with the clever way they designed the enhanced FX. In fact, they blend perfectly. The old FX are, in fact, the ones that clashed.

But with Science Fiction Theatre, the condition of the prints are fair at best, and the episodes rarely use FX of any kind. So even if you did redo the occasion FX, you'd have to degrade their picture quality to match the rest of the episode.

The Twilight Zone episodes look just fine — but again, they rarely used any kind of FX that could be enhanced. And the majority of the TZ episodes aren't really sci-fi anyway.

With The Outer Limits, the situation is different in another way. It was in black and white, so even if you tried to jazz up the occasional FX, they aren't going to impress us as much as the TOS stuff.

Now MY personal pick for a good series whose FX tend to be the "weakest link" is The Invaders. The FX are actually pretty good, but they could better in some scenes. And as I've stated in The Invaders thread, the saucers bear an unfortunate resemblance to an inverted salad bowl.





I'd rather see something more like this.





And they look better in the air, too.



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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YouTube has a number of episodes from this great show with a reasonably good picture qualtiy.

Science Fiction Theatre - Time is Just a Place S1 E2


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

This is the episode with that great robot during Bradlys' introduction.

There was a Ray Bradbury story with a similar plot of fugitive time travelers who get caught by a psuedo movie crew.I forget the title. Maybe one of our fellow All Sci experts know?
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.