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Sep. 19th, 2005 07:16 pmAfter reading all the comments on this post by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rachelmanija, I've been thinking about cult tv that I watched as a kid. I saw a lot of these in reruns or syndication, obviously, since some of them were canceled before I was born.
Things I watched as a kid that I can't stand now:
Knight Rider. I saw ten minutes of a recent rerun. Good god is that some bad tv. On the other hand, the car is cool.
Automan. I mean, it's got some fun stuff going on, but in retrospect Automan is an ass. And where are the girls? On the other hand, the car is cool.
Things I watched as a kid that I wish were out on DVD, if only for renting:
The Fantastic Journey. Okay, see, this was like 1977, and all these people from various times got stuck in the Bermuda Triangle and had to travel from zone to zone trying to get home. And Roddy McDowall plays a bored evil 1960s scientist, and there's a sorta proto-Troi half-Atlantean half-extraterrestrial telepathic princess, and there's a Doctor from the Future who is also, natch, telepathic, and cures people with a magical tuning fork. And there are all the Standard Sci-Fi Favorites: the city of children, and the city run by women, and so on. Wheee! I remember it as being kitsch and fun and ridiculous, rather than groan-worthy. Also I wrote drawerfic for it at the age of eight.
Probe. I've talked about Probe before. It rocked, and I'm really happy that I have it on tape now. And I showed it to other people, and they liked it too, so it's obviously not just my nostalgia talking.
The Phoenix. Giggle-worthy. Wosshisname who played Absalom on X-Files played an alien with a Quest who unfortunately had a touch of amnesia. Also he was being hunted by ... some government organization. Also he got his powers from the sun. Also he made motorcycles jump police roadblocks. Whee!
Galactica: 1980. So bad. So, so bad. Bad to the gazillionth power. So ridiculous. With the time-travel and the villain trying to make the Nazis win WWII and flying motorcycles and invisble vipers and the excessively soft-focus child-genius. So bad it deserves to be immortalized on DVD and laughed at in perpetuity. It has one mildly redeemable episode: a flashback with Starbuck, who crash-landed on a planet and made friends with a Cylon.
Things I'm astonished are out on DVD:
Buck Rogers. Okay, I watched it. Even unto its second season, yea, when a character who had feathers for hair showed up. The lead actress changed hair color halfway through the show -- no big, except that it was partway through filming an episode. She's blond! She's brunette! She's blond again! Villains spontaneously come back to life! I wouldn't mind seeing bits of it again, even, if I were feeling in need of a laugh. But I had no idea that it had enough of a fan base to end up on DVD. (Plus Battlestar Galactica was way better.)
Planet of the Apes. Again, I watched it. And Roddy McDowall delivered an excellent performance. Really, though, it was h/c fic without enough of the c. I mean, Character A is kidnapped! The apes plan non-FDA approved scientific experimentation! With evil drugs! Characters B and C must save him! Next Friday, Character B will be kidnapped! And tortured to reveal the Human Conspiracy! Woe! I'm not saying it was worse than the other sf/f tv I watched (see above re: Knight Rider), but why does it get a full release on DVD when some of my favorites don't?
And of course I watched the usual suspects: Quantum Leap, the reason I kept expecting every episode of Sliders to end "oh, boy." Red Dwarf. Battlestar Galactica. The Prisoner, the show so baffling it prompted a Straight Dope answer (which is, btw, completely spoilerific, if you can spoil the end of The Prisoner). Star Trek: TOS.
I saw at least a few episodes of: The Bionic Woman -- which apparently doesn't have enough of a cult following to be out on DVD. I didn't care for it much, but I thought other people did. Lost in Space (obviously in syndication). The Incredible Hulk -- eh.
I actually never saw: the 1987 Beauty and the Beast, which I wish was out on DVD -- people tell me it was great fun.
You know, with a background that included both PotA and Battlestar Galactica, a girl could be forgiven for writing total melodrama.
rachelmanija, I've been thinking about cult tv that I watched as a kid. I saw a lot of these in reruns or syndication, obviously, since some of them were canceled before I was born. Things I watched as a kid that I can't stand now:
Knight Rider. I saw ten minutes of a recent rerun. Good god is that some bad tv. On the other hand, the car is cool.
Automan. I mean, it's got some fun stuff going on, but in retrospect Automan is an ass. And where are the girls? On the other hand, the car is cool.
Things I watched as a kid that I wish were out on DVD, if only for renting:
The Fantastic Journey. Okay, see, this was like 1977, and all these people from various times got stuck in the Bermuda Triangle and had to travel from zone to zone trying to get home. And Roddy McDowall plays a bored evil 1960s scientist, and there's a sorta proto-Troi half-Atlantean half-extraterrestrial telepathic princess, and there's a Doctor from the Future who is also, natch, telepathic, and cures people with a magical tuning fork. And there are all the Standard Sci-Fi Favorites: the city of children, and the city run by women, and so on. Wheee! I remember it as being kitsch and fun and ridiculous, rather than groan-worthy. Also I wrote drawerfic for it at the age of eight.
Probe. I've talked about Probe before. It rocked, and I'm really happy that I have it on tape now. And I showed it to other people, and they liked it too, so it's obviously not just my nostalgia talking.
The Phoenix. Giggle-worthy. Wosshisname who played Absalom on X-Files played an alien with a Quest who unfortunately had a touch of amnesia. Also he was being hunted by ... some government organization. Also he got his powers from the sun. Also he made motorcycles jump police roadblocks. Whee!
Galactica: 1980. So bad. So, so bad. Bad to the gazillionth power. So ridiculous. With the time-travel and the villain trying to make the Nazis win WWII and flying motorcycles and invisble vipers and the excessively soft-focus child-genius. So bad it deserves to be immortalized on DVD and laughed at in perpetuity. It has one mildly redeemable episode: a flashback with Starbuck, who crash-landed on a planet and made friends with a Cylon.
Things I'm astonished are out on DVD:
Buck Rogers. Okay, I watched it. Even unto its second season, yea, when a character who had feathers for hair showed up. The lead actress changed hair color halfway through the show -- no big, except that it was partway through filming an episode. She's blond! She's brunette! She's blond again! Villains spontaneously come back to life! I wouldn't mind seeing bits of it again, even, if I were feeling in need of a laugh. But I had no idea that it had enough of a fan base to end up on DVD. (Plus Battlestar Galactica was way better.)
Planet of the Apes. Again, I watched it. And Roddy McDowall delivered an excellent performance. Really, though, it was h/c fic without enough of the c. I mean, Character A is kidnapped! The apes plan non-FDA approved scientific experimentation! With evil drugs! Characters B and C must save him! Next Friday, Character B will be kidnapped! And tortured to reveal the Human Conspiracy! Woe! I'm not saying it was worse than the other sf/f tv I watched (see above re: Knight Rider), but why does it get a full release on DVD when some of my favorites don't?
And of course I watched the usual suspects: Quantum Leap, the reason I kept expecting every episode of Sliders to end "oh, boy." Red Dwarf. Battlestar Galactica. The Prisoner, the show so baffling it prompted a Straight Dope answer (which is, btw, completely spoilerific, if you can spoil the end of The Prisoner). Star Trek: TOS.
I saw at least a few episodes of: The Bionic Woman -- which apparently doesn't have enough of a cult following to be out on DVD. I didn't care for it much, but I thought other people did. Lost in Space (obviously in syndication). The Incredible Hulk -- eh.
I actually never saw: the 1987 Beauty and the Beast, which I wish was out on DVD -- people tell me it was great fun.
You know, with a background that included both PotA and Battlestar Galactica, a girl could be forgiven for writing total melodrama.
