ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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gort

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Pow not only provides fascinating facts about movies and TV series, he often discovers series I didn't even know about, thus expanding my awareness of sci-fi television shows.

And on the thread that contains his post about Adventures of Superman, he agrees wholeheartedly with my enhancements of George Reeves' costume and physic, as shown in the image below.





I'll never understand why the producers of that beloved series didn't realize what a hideous mess that Superman costume was. I'm sure George would have agreed with me.
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Adventures of Superman!

Some Super Facts about the AOS.

The crew on the show dubbed the Superman uniform "the underwear."

The two~piece outfit was colored gray & brown so that it picked up better on black & white film. It was made of heavy wool and under the intense lights used for filming GR would sweat profusely and lose several pounds.

Adding rubber muscles to the costume made the whole thing weigh in at 20 lbs.

The cape was raw silk.
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TNG season 4 episode 4 - Family

"Family" was the fourth episode of the fourth season and aired on October 1, 1990.

Written by Ronald D.Moore and directed by Les Landau.

While the Enterprise-D is in dry dock; Captain Picard returns to his home on Earth at the French vineyards where he grew up.

"Family" is considered one of the most heart stirring episodes produced by ST:TNG and is a fan favorite.

And Gene Roddenberry absolutely loathed it.

GR felt that the plot for this episode had no place in his vision for the 24th century.

He felt that by the 24th century hostile relationships between siblings as seen with Picard and his brother, Robert, would be non-existant.

In fact, the federation was a utopia with no interpersonal conflicts whatsoever.

Such an edict by GR made writing for the series a huge challenge.

GR was also not pleased about the negative implication regarding how Picard's parents raised Jean-Luc & Robert.

Script writer Ronald D.Moore felt that after the events that occurred in "The Best of Both Worlds" parts one & two that Picard would have been negatively & profoundly affected by his assimilation by the Borg.

He would be suffering from PTSD and would not simply & easily pickup where he left off prior to his capture.

Picard resuming command of the Enterprise-D as if nothing happened was both unrealistic and insulting to dedicated fans of the show.

RDM wanted to explore the impact upon Picard as well as his estrangement with his brother.

Producers Michael Piller & Rick Berman asked RDM to meet them in GR's office to discuss RDM's script for "Family."

GR harshly criticized the script, which left RDM feeling crushed.

All these years later, RDM still recalls the pain from that day.

Producers Rick Berman & Michael Piller liked RDM's script and supported him and got the episode made in spite of GR's dislike of the script.

Trivia; This episode would be unique in several other ways.

It has no scenes taking place on the bridge.

It has no science "B" subplot story.

Data doesn't appear.

Two subplots were considered and then dropped. One was about a child stowaway on board the Enterprise.

The other was about a paranoid's nightmare about disappearing crew members. This plot line would be used later in the episode "Remember Me" with Dr. Crusher being the one who experiences crew vanishing.

The location for the Picard estate in Labarre, France was actually shot at a private dryland operation near Lancaster, CA. SW of Edwards Air Force Base.

The heat during filming was extreme at the time.
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The Invaders (1967 - 1968)

More Invaders Stuff.

The music by composer Dominic Frontiere created for "The Outer Limits" episode "The Form of Things Unknown" was also used on TI TV series.

BTW, That episode of TOL also served as a backdoor pilot for a weekly TV show. The producers of TOL wanted to also do another anthology TV series. Unlike TOL, this new show would have been fantasy-based instead of sci~fi based like TOL.

On "Lost In Space," actress Angela Cartwright (Penny Robinson) tells how all the female cast members staged a silent protest over the fact that they felt the women were not given enough to do on that show.

June Lockhart (Maureen Robinson), Marta Kristen (Judy Robinson), and Angela did a scene where they were standing lined up and all of 'em extended their pinky finger just like the aliens on TI.

Angela said that it went unnoticed by the director but did not indicate which episode they did this on.

The crooked finger concept that was created for TI rarely would show up on the series second season.

TI creators Larry Cohen said that "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Invaders from Mars" were his inspirations when he came up with TI.

Alfred Hitchcock was also an inspiration for LC.

Larry always liked the lone man in jeopardy theme that was present in such AH films as "The 39 Steps" (1939), "Saboteur'' (1942), and "North by Northwest'' (1959).

The plot where an innocent man sees or discovers something dangerous but no one else is present when it happens, nor believes the man, was always intriguing to Larry.

During the run of TI we never learned about life on the aliens' world. We never learned the name of their planet or even their species.

Even though we do learn in the opening narration that the invaders home world is dying, we still don't know exactly why that is happening to their planet.

TI creator Larry Cohen also had created the TV western "Branded" starring Chuck Connors.

Cohen said the "Branded" was an allegory for the Hollywood Blacklist that took place in the 1950's.

TI was his allegory for the Communist paranoia that infused America at one time.

The Quinn Martin TV shows always were of high production values which QM insisted upon at all times.

QM would pay higher salaries to writers, directors, and actors compared to most other TV shows on at that time.

Such salaries would attract performers who rarely did television.

QM was somewhat uncomfortable with TI as it really wasn't his thing. QM shows were largely about detectives & law enforcement and not sci~fi.

QM produced TI because he had a contract with the ABC network who told him that if he would accept producing the show, then ABC would guarantee they'd place it on their mid-season TV schedule.

QM shows were pretty black & white regarding content. Doing a quirky, paranoid, and covertly political fantasy was most certainly not QM's style.

TI producers Alan Armer & Anthony Spinner did seek out established science-fiction writers to script TI.

According to them they said that oddly enough the sci~fi authors they talked to just did not know how to write for TV.

I've always wondered about that fact. I have read that because someone is a sensational sci~fi book author that their talent doesn't always translate well to writing scripted TV.

I've also read that such authors also have such vivid imaginations that the scripts they submit are so full of incredible ideas that it cannot possibly be produced on a TV budget.

Some of their concepts can also be so wild that the producers of a TV series just can't grasp these ideas, or feels the audience won't catch on.

Larry Cohen wanted to keep the alien's gadgetry off-screen as much as possible and create an aura of mystery about them for the series.

Larry Cohen had nothing to do with his creation once QM Productions took over the show.

Cohen would offer up advice---largely ignored by the producers---for the show.

Cohen felt that there were too many aliens in each episode and they became jokes as they were easily killed every week.

Other than the pilot episode where we see the alien's space ship, QM had no plans to have the ships appear anymore on the series.

"The Trial" which is considered one of the more sophisticated episodes was born of desperation.

A writer did not deliver his promised script to the production.

The producers had to quickly crank out a script for that week and it was one of the best ever done.

On the thirty-first episode, "The Believers," we see that David Vincent no longer faces the alien threat alone.

He meets with a group of wealthy & powerful individuals who are now working with Vincent against the invaders.

The idea behind that was not from the producers. ABC insisted that Vincent receive help. The group would explain where Vincent would get financial backing and resources in order to wage war against the aliens.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)