Top Ten Sci Fi shows of all time

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The website Newsarama recently published a (rather baked) "Top 10 Sci Fi shows of all time" list. Ben and Eugene, the guys at the Fusion Patrol Sci Fi podcast (subscribe here) followed that up with a critique of the Newsarama list and their own Top Ten. Their list made a whole lot more sense. I recommend the Fusion Patrol podcast in general, but these two episodes in particular.

Here below, as the first leg of a planned four-part presentation of the Childhood Recovery Project, is the bottom three of my Top Ten. While I have my respectful differences with the Fusion Patrol list, I have only one (huge) disagreement. Check out the Newsarama list, the podcasts of the Fusion Patrol list, and my list and then discuss on the Fusion Patrol forum or on their twitter feed.

To wit. . .

While I try to make an objective case for most of my top ten, I am allowing myself subjective pics for positions 9 and 10. Bear with me.

10: MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - I can already hear the howls of "that's not science fiction." Fair enough. But this show was solidly in the realm of science fiction for me with it's use of fanciful technology. Much of what was fanciful then is commonplace now. There were robotic arm manipulators, remote control flying saucers, gyro-controlled billiard balls in a rigged game of pool, computers able to defeat chess masters, felt on a poker table that could read the cards in a poker hand, and a computer that can't lose at Jeopardy.

OK. I made that last one up. But not really.

Mission: Impossible comes to my mind as sci-fi because for a couple of reasons peculiar to me. First, it was in an approximately six-month rotation with "Star Trek" as the post-Ten-O'clock news program on local TV station Channel 13 in Indianapolis in the '70's when I was growing up. I was always disappointed when Star Trek went on it's hiatus, but Mission: Impossible quickly grew on me as a worthy substitute. And, while this does not make it Sci Fi per se, Leonard Nimoy went directly from Star Trek to Mission: Impossible. He even appears to still be stuck in "Spock mode" in the first episode in which he appears. Watch his mannerisms in the "apartment scene" at the beginning of the Season 4 opener, "The Code." (That can be viewed on Netflix.) There is also the connection to "Space: 1999" in Martin Landau and Barbara Bain.

9: MAN FROM ATLANTIS - I haven't actually laid eyes on this show outside a few YouTube clips since the '70's, and I readily take the word of the Fusion Patrol Guys' that it sucks. But for all it's faults, in the drought of TV sci-fi in the '70's, this was a cool drink of water to a very thirsty kid. This is definitely a subjective pick on my part based much more on nostalgia and the impact it had on me at age 10 than any attempt on my part to evangelize for it and say, "You've GOT to see this." It was a show I very much looked forward to every week when it was originally on the air, though I am sure I would now find it extremely cringe-worthy now. One thing I will stand by, though, is that "Man From Atlantis" had great music. See my other post on the theme for this show by the late composer Fred Karlin.

(Incidentally, the only reason I ever found the Fusion Patrol podcast in the first place is because I did a search for "Man From Atlantis" in iTunes.)

8: SPACE: 1999 - First of all, let me acknowledge the bad, BAD science in this show. The moon traveling at hyper-light speeds? Randomly bumping into inhabited planets two dozen times a year? If the moon traveled at speeds necessary to reach a different solar system on average twice a month, it would zip by them so fast there would never be time for a story to develop. An attempt was made to explain this by introducing the concept of "Space Warps" in the second season, but it's still utterly preposterous to have the moon as a space vehicle.

I agree with the Fusion Patrol Guys that the first season was far superior to the second, and like them, I also admit I had the reverse opinion at the time the show first aired. But as a model nut, the great thing about this show for me is that it had more space ships on average per episode than pretty much any sci-fi show in history. Only the "Ragtag Fleet" of the original Battlestar Galactica can equal it. Martin Landau is superb as the Commander, and the special effects were low-tech, but very ambitious and mostly successful.

This show differs from Star Trek and many other shows in that mysteries are raised in many episodes and just not explained. This works with the setting in the near future (at least it was "future" in the 1970's) with the heroes becoming accidental space explorers before their time. They were fine tooling around the earth and moon, but just weren't ready for deep space. Episodes like "Collision Course" and "The Black Sun" emphasize how small we humans are in the context of the universe, and that there will simply be some shit out there that we never will understand.

TOMORROW: Positions 7 thru 5.

Good Evening, Mr. Phelps . . .

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My last post (far too long ago) was on Season 1 of the classic espionage series "Mission: Impossible." Today, I have sad occasion to follow up on that post.

I opined that Steven Hill's performance in season 1 of this series is rather underrated, and it is not Hill's fault that the actor who succeeded him, based not only on acting skill but also looks and presence, upstaged Hill in almost every way possible . . . and impossible. Hill looks positively bookish compared to Graves, who strode on to the M:I set in 1967 with no explanation as to why the original series star had been replaced. He brought with him rugged good looks, unmistakeable stature (both in terms of physical height and impressive manner), and a shock of hair that seemed spun from brushed aluminum. As was common up until the late 60's, Grave's hair was treated with the customary greasy kid stuff early on, but morphed into "the dry look" sometime in the early '70's.

While "Mission: Impossible" was an Emmy Award magnet, Graves himself never won the award until his turn as host of A&E's "Biography."

As William Shatner would learn to do later in Priceline.com commercials and the series "Boston Legal," Graves would take the risk of stepping away from his hero-icon roots to make some serious fun of himself in the "Airplane!" movies. As loosely closeted pedophile Captain Clarence Oveur ("Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?"), Graves was able to step out of the grimness and determination of Jim Phelps and create a great deal of ridiculous and memorable comedy.

After "Airplane!", Graves returned to the Phelps role in the 1988 re-make of the "Mission: Impossible" series. This new version had it's moments, but never captured the essence of the original series. Unfortunately, that show's best episodes were probably the ones directly re-made from the original series scripts during the writers' strike that occurred that year. The only way to make "new" television during the strike was to work from existing scripts, which is what was done with classic 60's episodes such as "The Legacy,""The Condemned," and "The Killer." (Here are links to imdb.com pages for the 1988 versions of "The Legacy,""The Condemned," and "The Killer.")

As Jim Phelps, Peter Graves always accepted the mission, and was only rarely caught and never killed. He died (no, I'm not going to say "self-destructed") following an apparent heart attack at his home on March 14, 2010. He will be missed.

MISSION: Impossible - Season 1

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In addition to the debut of "Star Trek," 1966 also saw the arrival of "MISSION: Impossible," which remains in a close second place behind "Trek" on my list of all time favorite classic TV Series. Season 1 of this series sometimes got left out of the rotation when the show was shown in reruns in syndication on local TV stations. Channel 13 of Indianapolis carried "Mission" for many years in my home state of Indiana, but I went several years without ever seeing a season 1 episode.

Peter Graves (as Jim Phelps) was such an iconic star of the series, that the season anchored by his predecessor, Steven Hill (as Dan Briggs), can be relegated to trivia question status. This is kind of a shame since the season 1 episodes were on the whole, very good in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact the "MISSION: Impossible" formula was not quite set in place yet.

One major difference in season 1 compared to the rest of the series is that most episodes do not open with a self-desctructing tape recording. "The Secretary" would instruct Dan Briggs to "dispose of this recording in the usual manner," which meant the tape would be removed from the player and deposited in a nearby incinerator, or in a barrel of acid that may have conveniently been located nearby. One of the earliest self-destructing recordings was an LP record that went up in smoke at a set interval of time after being peeled out of its sealed envelope. I recall there was another self-destructing record which seemed to go up when the needle reached the center close-out groove.

Here's where technology is not making our lives better. In the modern day, the mission would be delivered on an encrypted .mp3 file downloaded from a secure server onto an iPhone locked by thumbprint access. After being played, the iPod would write zeroes eight times over the data. (I'm sure there's an app for that.)

Now wouldn't that just be slightly more exciting to watch than drying paint?

In season 1, Martin Landau, who would later out-shine series star Peter Graves in many episodes of Seasons 2 and 3, made a "special appearance" in very nearly every episode. His character, Rollin Hand, even assumed a role very close to that of "team leader" in some cases near the end of the year as things got tense with Steven Hill and he was present on the set less and less. Hill, an devout jew, would leave the set at sundown on Friday regardless of the status of the shooting of that week's episode. In one particular episode, Barbara Bain received the recorded instructions (at a beauty salon, no less), selected the team, and carried out the mission (Episode #23, "Action!"). This seemed a clear sign that Hill was being pushed out of the picture. (Hill has been better known in recent years as District Attorney Adam Schiff on "Law & Order.")

Not yet developed in the first season was the reliance on split second timing and the miraculous technology seen in later seasons. However, season 1 did have at least one prototype for most of the major types of story lines that would make up the rest of the series. Several of the episodes, (such as Episode 9, "A Spool There Was,") were more subtle, with little in the way of technological razzle-dazzle and which more closely resembled a modern day police procedural, only with spies in foreign lands instead of cops.

"MISSION: Impossible" Season 1 would not be the first season of this classic I would buy on DVD, but it would be in the top 3, trailing closely behind seasons 2 and 3, which is when the show really hit a solid stride (and which will be fodder for a later post).