A Parade of Dragons

Via the email list that SHALL NOT BE NAMED – the DragonCon Parade video, courtesy of  Isaac Alexander.

Also Pac*Fen’s Denvention interviews are now up.

Gotta make my wife’s lunch before we leave for work, so I can’t critique right now – but – comparing the two – I’d much rather have been at Denvention this year.

***

Lunch is made (more on ‘stupid’ sandwiches later): turkey and cheese on pumpernickel with spicy mustard.

Brian Richards (I think) announces and does some crowd interviews at the beginning of the annual geek parade at DragonCon.

He starts out well but – dude. When you’re interviewing, like, have your questions ready. And have MORE questions than you have airtime for cause, you know, some people are camera shy and others sometimes give really short, annoying, unresponsive answers and you might just have to fill a few seconds.

As for the parade?  Can’t watch it. Seriously.  Yes, I’m an SF fan and have grown used to seeing people in strange costumes walking the streets in daylight, but…

I’m sorry, but the whole thing just makes me laugh and reminds me of the days when people used to have to hide their science fiction magazines inside brown paper bags or textbooks in order to avoid public ostracism.

Look, I know that costumery is a big thing with some fans and represents an ‘ultimate’ expression of their love for and immersion in a particular fantasy world, but every time I see this kind of thing, one and only one image pops into my head:

I was attending a Star Trek con in 1976, sitting quietly in the hotel lobby pouring over my recent ascquisitions from the Huckster’s room, when not one but TWO ‘Captain Kirks’ went running by (mustard yellow command shirts emblazoned with embroidered medals), shooting each other with water pistol phasers and each declaring themselves individually to be the ‘real’ Captain Kirk.

I’d estimate they were both in their mid-thirties. The thinning hair and pot bellies kind of, sort of, lent the lie to their declarations.

I packed my stuff up and headed for home. The following month I attended my first REAL Science Fiction convention.

***

Speaking of REAL cons (you know, the ones where the work is more important than the actors, where someone isn’t trying to make a buck off of your geekdom, where the average age is ‘mature’ and the average intelligence of the participants actually shows up on a graph), J.C. of Pac*Fen finally posted various interviews conducted at Denvention 3, the 2008 Worldcon (where they give out the important awards called Hugos and Campbells and…).

He’s got bits with Harry Turtledove, Kevin Standlee (WSFS IP Poobah and master of all things statistical *breathe* and co-creator of the SFAwardsWatch website), Phil Foglio (hi Phil! – I’m still keeping watch over the Keeber Factory), Francis Hamit, Jim Strickland, David Boop and Marc Zicree.

Zicree’s interview (who? – TV writer/director/Hugo nominee) is actually kind of interesting, as are the others.  Give em a listen.

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The Top XXX (13) Science Fiction Sex Slaves

The article you are looking for can be found HERE on the new version of my blog

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How To Recommend Science Fiction and Gain a Convert For Life

Preface.

First, you’ll need to read some science fiction.  Preferably a lot of science fiction. This is an unfortunately necessary first step and one that can’t really be skimped on. You could try getting by on a little urban fantasy or maybe some paranormal romance, but it is generally a good idea to go with the genuine article.

If you aren’t exactly sure what science fiction is, don’t worry! Most other people don’t have a clue either, but that hasn’t stopped them from reading it!  Just look for the words ‘science fiction’ somewhere on the cover of the book. If those two words are printed anywhere on the cover - front or back – you’ll be in safe territory.  (Not finding those words on the cover doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not science fiction. In fact it probably is. Publishers do this occassionally when they want to actually sell a few copies of a book.  You can read it, but for now it’s best to invest your time with books that are properly labelled.)

You will probably notice that there are many different kinds of science fiction. Don’t let this confuse you. Publishers like to put labels on books so that they can be put into the proper box.  These labels are, for the most part, nothing more than arbitrary adjectives – the same kinds of things you’ll find on bottles of household cleaners, things like ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘new and improved’, ‘lilac scented formula’ and ‘safe for pets’.

While mostly meaningless, these lables can be useful later on, so don’t worry about them now, but do make note of them.

You may also notice that these books come in a variety of thicknesses.  Since you need to read a lot of titles in a short period of time (presuming that you wish to make converts as soon as possible) it would be a good idea to stick with the thinner books.  Right now, thick is in. Book thickness is yet another publishing fad – like straight-legged jeans or flare-legged jeans – and like fashion, this trend is constantly changing. We’re concerned with volume right now, so don’t worry too much about wearing last summer’s bikini, at least you’re wearing a bikini.

The second thing you’ll need is a person.  Preferably someone who is not dead and preferably someone who can read. That’s not a hard and fast requirement – there are audio books, podcasts, movies and even anime versions of science fiction that the illiterate can enjoy, and lord knows there’s more than enough zombie fiction for readers who have passed on – but the ability to read on the part of your intended convert will help speed the process up.

One other thing to clear up before we move on to the actual conversion process. Some people get confused by the names used for science fiction. Here we use the full, formal, term – Science Fiction. Other people sometimes use SF (where the ‘S’ stands for Science and the ‘F’ for Fiction) or Sci Fi or SyPhy or Speculative Fiction or Speculative Literature or Science Fantasy or even ‘That Buck Rogers Stuff’.  Don’t let this fool you. It’s all Buck Rogers ‘stuff’. 

Buck who?  He’s the guy that played Captain Kirk before that upstart William Shatner came along.  Yes, it is way past the time that they should start calling it ‘that Captain Kirk stuff’, but science fiction as an industry is so so much living in the past that we won’t see that happen for at least another century. That is, if the singularity doesn’t happen first.  But we’re digressing. If the singularity does happen, none of this science fiction stuff will matter and if it doesn’t happen, reading about it will have been a waste of time.

So now you need a reader.  This is perhaps the most difficult requirement, as readers are elusive creatures who often go to great lengths to hide their true nature. You may also find yourself fooled by ‘writers’ who claim to be readers (they do this as a fairly successful strategy to lure in readers). Of course not all writers claim to be readers – only the good ones.

The easiest way to identify a reader is to find one holding a book. In the olden days you could usually count on finding people holding books in bookstores, but these days most of them seem to be holding coffee or DVDs rather than books.  You can try a bookstore, you might get lucky. You can try other public spaces as well. Libraries, like bookstores, have a lot fewer people in them holding books these days. Bathroom stalls can sometimes prove to be rewarding, if a bit awkward.  The best advice is – just keep your eyes open and go to places where there are lots of people.  Eventually you will find someone holding a book.

Next – examine the book. You’ll want to make sure that it’s a work of fiction – or at least a biography or history text. People reading non-fiction like “How To Get Rich In Ten Easy Steps” or “Your Political Philosophy Sucks – And You’re Stupid” are unlikely to make good candidates for conversion.  They’re hung up on ‘the real world’ and can’t waste time on make-believe, they need that time to catch up on cable news.

Assuming that it is a work of fiction that your intended convert is reading, you’re just about all set.

Next Week: Popping The Question

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Skiffy Tube Update: SFC is NOT Pure

Here it is.  My long anticipated and much delayed analysis of the contents of SkiffyTube™ (don’t forget the IP notification).

 

I’ll eventually be moving this to Monday so you can all start out the week knowing EXACTLY how much science fiction content there will be on the SciFi Channel.

 

Let me put that differently: I’ll eventually be moving this to Monday so you can all start out your week knowing EXACTLY how much skiffy content there will be on SkiffyTube™.

 

(I seem to remember a class in journalism or some such that mentioned you’re supposed to list the largest factor first when it comes to lists, polls, percentages and such – unless of course your subject is how little there is of something, in which case you lead with the smallest item.  Which is of course why I am in a quandary over how to introduce this.  Do I start with ‘the most content on Skiffytube™ is NOT science fiction’, or do I start with ‘the least represented genre on Skiffytube™ is science fiction’…?)

 

I took the up-coming, mid-August week (10^th – 16^th) (end of the summer season if there were such a thing anymore) as my exemplar.

 

Let me define some terns.  Small finch-like birds that…ooops, wrong blog.  It’s easy to lose your subject (and concentration, not to mention target audience) when discussing the SkiffyTube™ channel.

 

To continue. 

 

My terms are generous.  If I think it is SF, then it goes down as SF.  If I think it is marginally SF, it goes down as marginal SF.  If it is anything else, it goes down as non-SF content.  (The sub-categories of which are legion.)

 

Where something has been described elsewhere as SF and I disagree with that identification, it goes down as non-SF – with an explanation.  Please note, no explanations are required below.

 

Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way.

 

The total programming time available over the course of a week is some 168 hours.

 

Of that time the SciFi Channel Skiffy Tube(TM) devotes

 

20 hours to paid programming

48 hours to movies

2.5 hours to suspense anthology shows

.5 hours to educational programming

9 hours to the X-Files

2 hours to anime

11 hours to reality programming

       1 hour of wrestling, 2 hours for Ripley’s (the best of the lot) 3 hours for Scare Tactics, 1 for Scariest places and the rest to my favorite oxymoron – the paranormal reality ghost hunting franchises

9 hours to dark fantasy

8 hours to paranormal fantasy

1 hour to spiritual fantasy

57 hours to SF & Marginal SF programming

 

The movies break down as:

 

4 hours of SF movies

2 hours of  Marginal SF movies

42 hours of rubbersuit monster movies

 

The 57 hours of SF programming breaks down as:

 

9 hours of  The Outer Limits

4 hours of Star Trek

17 hours of Star Gate franchises

8 hours of Jake 2.0

1 hour of Charlie Jade

4 hours of Eureka

4 hours of Jeremiah

8 hours of Jericho

1 hour of Doctor Who

1 hour of Battlestar Galactica

 

If we aggregate the anime, the movies and the shows, (that are at least marginally SF) we end up with

 

65 hours of Science Fictional programming.

 

Why is X-Files not SF?  Here’s the X-planation:  the show is a police procedural that deals with a variety of subjects – paranormal, myth, urban legend, ufology, conspiracy, etc.  Some of the trappings are sometimes SF, but the show itself is not.

 

Ripley’s Believe It or Not is an early precursor of the reality show.

 

Tales From the Dark Side is a Night Gallery/Twilight Zone anthology show also-ran, with often low-quality production – not one of the best of the lot.  Again, sometimes SF plots/themes, but more often than not, suspense, paranormal & etc.

 

You can probably figure out that I don’t think that someone gaining ‘extra-powers’ necessarily falls into the SF definition, nor do tales of someone who talks to spiritual beings – that’s something for CBN, but then they’ve probably got enough of that going on ‘for real’ over there not to need a ‘fictional’ account of the same thing.

 

I’m being generous with some of the shows I classed as SF – Jericho chief among them.  Sorry.  I saw parts of one episode once and it sucks.  The logic of the scenes I watched was so poor that I can only give them marginal credit because it’s a post-apocalyptic tale.

 

Charlie Jade – never saw it.  The Wiki description – cop trapped in a parallel world – almost sounds like Piper’s Paratime concept.  I’ll give it a nod cause Wiki says it is SF.  (Thin ice, I know, but…)

 

Jeremiah – more post-apocalyptic stuff.  Like a stretching out of the Miri episode of Star Trek, TOS:  all the grups are dead.  “Bonk Bonk on the head, bonk bonk!”  Meh.

 

(Producers like post-apocalyptic tales:  hardly any budget needed for costumes, CGI or sets.  Just find a junkyard, lay out some smoke pots and – viola!  The Earth After Whatever…)

 

I’ll be nice and admit that Star Trek: TNG, the Star Gate spinoffs, Outer Limits and etc ARE SF. 

 

So, for the week of August 10^th, 2008

 

Skiffy Tube™’s SFPR 38.69% (Science Fiction Purity Rating)

 

Hey, at least AMC gets it right a heck of a lot more than that:  when they label something SciFi, I’ll bet they’re on the mark at least 75% of the time.  (So now AMC can tell SFC they’re TWICE as pure!)

 

For those of you who like the math done for you:

 

20 hours of paid programming                            11.9%

48 hours of movies                                             28.5%

2.5 hours of suspense anthology shows                 1.4%

.5 hours educational programming                           .02%

9 hours of the X-files                                            5.3%

2 hours of anime                                                   1.1%

11 hours of reality programming                            6.5%

9 hours of dark fantasy                                         5.3%

8 hours of paranormal fantasy                               4.7%

1 hour of spiritual fantasy                                        .05%

57 hours of SF & Marginal SF programming       33.9%

 

 

8% of the movies are SF

4% of the movies are marginal SF

 

And, just to put a fine point on things -

 

111 hours devoted to non-SF programming

  57 hours devoted to SF programming

 

or

 

ONLY 57 hours devoted to SF programming

and 111 hours devoted to other shit stuff.

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Firefly & Serenity – An Experiment: Two Reviews in One

Up until about half a year ago or so, I’d managed to avoid Firefly.  Sure I’d heard lots of fans saying great things about it and I was certainly aware of all of the attention Joss Whedon was attracting (brilliant, down-trodden savior of all that is meaningful on TV), but I had this little problem believing any of it.  I’d been enticed into watching a couple of episode of Buffy and wrote it and Whedon off as trash.  Funny, sometimes high-concept (over the top) trash, but still trash.  Sorry Buffy fans.

I’m probably wrong about Buffy, but the second strike against it is that I’m not into vampires or fantasy, so even if I’d stuck around enough episodes of that show to catch Joss’s deftness with character, I still wouldn’t have put the show on the must watch list.  (I have no ‘must watch’ list for television.  I went seven years without an idiot box and consequently have gotten out of the habit.)

So, when I saw that Firefly was ‘by the same guy who did Buffy’, I figured some day I’d catch an episode or two, but I wasn’t going to waste any time making that happen.  Given the source and the title of the show, I figured it just had to be some SciFi send-up of a teenaged girl kicking alien monster butt – an SF re-tread of Buffy.  And to tell the truth that concept (except for the possibility of pleated school girl skirts in space) kind of left me yawning.

Then the show became available online and I decided to give it a shot.

I was intrigued from the get go.  This guy Whedon sure has created some interesting characters.  To say the man has balls is like thinking human when the reality is elephant.  Who else would start off a show with the defeat and near-death of two of his primary characters?  Who else would begin the pilot episode with a highly complex, expensive and very emotionally charged battle scene and then dump the whole frenetic, explosively paced thing for the mundanity of a freighter going about its business?

That’s like opening a hero movie with the climactic end scenes.  And then retro-flashing to the back story. Brilliant.

I watched all of the episodes on line and was thoroughly pleased. The characters were great, especially Mal and Jayne.  There wasn’t a one among the crew – Zoe, Kaylee, Wash, Inara, Book, River or Simon who didn’t have something to offer. 

Mal is nearly perfect in his conflicts – betrayed and vowing to never let it happen again, yet still reliant on a crew of misfits and inspiring deep loyalty.  He wants to be mean and get even, but he’s too nice/good a guy to really put his heart into it.  The portrayal though doesn’t overwhelm the story - it’s written into the way the character goes about doing his thing.  And the same is true for everyone else.

Of course I do have a few quibbles:  what kind of solar system has multiple planets and hundreds of moons that can all be terraformed?  No one is supposed to have FTL here, so how the heck did they get to this place from ‘Earth-that-was’?  What’s the economy like that such a small ship could make a living? (That this type of ship was designed and built presupposes economic viability without resorting to illegal activities.)  But those minorities fade into the background in the face of the characters and the storylines.

Having enjoyed the show, I decided that I needed to see the movie Serenity and absolutely put it on my ‘must watch’ list.

While waiting to acquire a copy of the movie I happened upon a chance to pick up the novelization at a library sale.  I then decided to conduct a little experiment, seeing as how I’m such a huge advocate of ‘the book is better than the movie’ type thinking.  True, this wasn’t a perfect experiment – the movie came first in this case and it really ought to go the other way around – but it still might be fun.  So I read the book all the way through to the final scenes (I put it down when Serenity and crew return to Mr. Universe’s world) and then I watched the film.

A pause now for commercial interruption -

I’ve finished the Ebay pulp magazine searches on the web page and they’re all active and up.  I’m pretty pleased with the results – I’ve even found a few pulps to add to my own watch list.  I think it’s a useful tool.  The first twenty pages or so don’t have a ‘back to the menu’ button (just use the back button) and I’m fixing that, but everything else is functional for now.

If you’re at all interested, I also added a few more images to the magazine checklist page – a couple of issues of Amazing Stories, a few more of the Ultimate reprint digests.

I still have a few Chandler Ebay searches to add (France and such) but they won’t take long and might even get finished today or tomorrow.

Now back to the show.

To begin, the novelization must have been written from a working script as there are a few scenes in the book not presented on the screen – most notably one involving Cuban cigars.  That’s actually a bonus rather than a problem, because we get a small glimpse into the movie-making process here. The scene involved Jayne and Book and may have been dropped as being a bit out of character for Jayne.  Or just for time or pacing.  We also miss out on seeing a battle scene with Book, which is a bit disappointing.

My main problem with the book was the author’s choice of presenting the crew’s manner of speaking – their vernacular and slang.  In an attempt to convey emotional content, the broken words, broken sentence structure and slang is carried beyond the dialogue.  Rather than putting you in the mood, it detracts and reads like something written by an inner-city illiterate.

The emotional content – particularly when compared directly to the movie – comes across as flat; back story and motivations are presented in the novel, they’re just not as immediate as watching the actor’s expressions or hearing their tones.

Reading the book and watching the movie were actually two entirely different experiences.  The fact that the storyline tracked so well between them is unusual – even for a novelization. (Compare Alien by Alan Dean Foster to the movie, for example.)  I found it very revealing (of Whedon’s abilities) that my full knowledge of the plot in advance of watching did not detract from my enjoyment of the film at all. 

What had left me cold while reading the book was suddenly alive in the faces of the actors.

That’s not to be saying that the book was bad.  As I said, the presentation of the characters and particularly their dialogue was a bit stilted – but that is something that I was probably overly sensitive to from having watched the television show.  I know how Mal sounds and looks and what I was reading was a slightly off, slightly pale reflection of Mal.  Recognizable, just not completely alive.  If you picked up this book sans knowledge of the show, your conclusion would most likely be ‘not bad – not great, but not terrible either, maybe I’ll catch the movie some day’.

There were also quite a few visual in-jokes scattered through the film that were not picked up on in the novel.  A crashed shuttle shows its registry numbers as C57D – the same name as the cruiser from Forbidden Planet.  At one point the ‘landing party’ are shown wearing red, yellow and blue colored t-shirts, resembling nothing so much as a party just beamed down from the Enterprise.  Quite a few of the scenes are derivative of other movies, presented in homage. I’m sure there are others that I’ll pick up on when I watch the film again.

I’m glad I had this chance to experience both forms of the story side-by-side. It was very revealing of the advantages and limitations of the different media.  I’d give the book 2 walking sticks and the movie 4 walking sticks.  In this particular case, the move outshines the literary form, which is probably as it should be, considering that the intended media was visual.

Having done this direct comparison, I can say that it confirmed my belief that one of the next big things coming down the pike will be (or should be) an original story that is conceived of and delivered as a multi-media blitz.

From the ground up, a movie is written in conjunction with a television series, the original novel is written in lockstep and the follow-on book series is plotted out while the graphic novel is drawn, the animated version is being storyboarded, the interactive game is being designed and melded with the social-networking site even as the audio book and podcast version of the radio play are being recorded and the top ten pop songs are being mixed in the studio.

A mantra of marketing is to never let anything get between the message and the consumer.  The fact that some people prefer one media over another is a huge impediment, a major objection to a sale.  Having to ‘wait’ for one preferred version or another to reach the consumer is another major objection.  By the time the product they are looking for hits the market, they’ve already moved on to other things.

But if someone can figure out a way to effectively deliver a property in all those media simultaneously, in a manner that allows them to be merged seamlessly with each other while still being workable as stand-alones - well then, they’ll be teaching Lucas a thing or two about modern day merchandising, won’t they?

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Scientific Fiction, Scientifiction, Science Fiction, SF, SciFi, Skiffy, SyFy

What’s in a name, hmmmm?  A rose is a rose is a rose.  Its also: a flower, Rosa Multiflora, a traditional Valentines Day gift and ‘that damn weed’ when you’ve forked ove the cash.

When Gernsback was playing around with the idea of introducing a new fiction genre he needed a name for it.  He originally chose Scientific Fiction (Science and Invention ‘Scientific Fiction Number’, August 1923).  He played around with this phrase and eventually settled on the portmanteau word Scientifiction, which was enshrined in the editorial of the first issue of Amazing Stories, April, 1926.

Hugo liked word play, particularly anagrams (see the contents page of his last SF magazine – Science Fiction +; virtually all of the bylines are anagrams of Hugo Gernsback) so its not too surprising that he was happy with ‘scientifiction’ – but I can’t imagine that too many other people were.  Its virtually unpronouncable and most definitly does not trip off the tongue.

Ultimately, it was thrown over for the easier to pronounce (and type) science fiction. That is, until the advent of Forest J. Ackerman, aka Forry Ackerman, aka 4E, aka 4SJ, aka Mr. Science Fiction. (As of this writing, the Acker-mini-mansion website was unavailable.)

Forry can basically be defined as the first fan.  He attended the first Worldcon in 1939, has amassed an enormous collection, writes, acts, agents, edits and publishes. 

Like Hugo, the man enjoys playing with words and he is generally credited with coining the phrase Sci Fi. Many liked it, many more didn’t.  It is ironic that Sci Fi was perceived as a pejorative by ‘tru fans’ – having been coined as it was by the original trufan: Ackerman was awarded a special Hugo Award (#1 Fan Personality).  Nevertheless, it was a phrase hated by many traditionalists.  Ellison referred to it as “the sound of crickets fucking”. 

For a good few decades, Science Fiction (shortened at some point during this time to S.F., most likely as a competitive move) was used by the traditionalists to refer to real science fiction and sci fi was used to denigrate bad SF; those using the phrase SciFi were regarded as neophytes or wannabes and many such fans were treated to shoutfests at conventions if they dared use it in front of traditionalists.

This war of the names, interestingly enough, took place at about the same time that Star Trek fandom was coming into its own, and the collision between the two camps (trufandom and trekkies) reflects the battle over the names.  Bruce Southard notes, quoting Patricia Byrd: “‘there is a close, if not always amiable, relationship between Star Trek and other science fiction fans, who like to think of themselves as purists and of Star Trek fans as television-star smitten pre-teens’. The attitude of the the “purists” undoubtedly derives from the fact that science fiction fandom has been in existence since the early 1930s.  Those interested in Star Trek, accordingly, a Johnnies-come-lately who have adopted the trappings of fandom but who do not fully participate in the multiplicity of fannish activities.” (emphasis mine).

This was going on at the time that I attended my first convention – a Trek con (the first one).  I attended two more Trek conventions (at the time it was perfectly ok to refer to ourselves as ‘Trekkies’; only later did the name morph into ‘Trekkers’ – but that’s another fannish story) before attenting my first ‘real’ science fiction convention (a Philcon).  It was only then that I realized that not every SF fan wanted to dress up as Captain Kirk.  I was also quickly indoctrinated in the proper use of phrases (Science Fiction or SF, not SciFi) and became one of those fans who would not allow a conversation to continue unless and until the utterance of SciFi had been corrected.

More tomorrow.

Quick note to commentors:  I haven’t been checking my spam filter all that frequently and found a few legit comments in there, which have now been allowed past the gate.  I’ll check my spam more frequently now.

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Channel Adds

New on TCSFC today:

Star Trek: Phase II – the Hugo Nominated, fan produced, released to the internet series

Starship Regulars – animated shorts

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The CLASSIC SF Channel

After reading the SciFiChannel’s intention to “expand the definition of SF” (so that their channel will appeal to viewers other than “geeky young guys” [or even geeky old guys]) and after writing my previous entry about the death of traditional science fiction through the offices of mass market appeal courtesy of media conglomerates, I decided to take a look at what a REAL science fiction channel might look like.

Of course you’d have to start with product that was already in the can and cheap, which means a return to anything and everything that ran on the tube from the early 50s on (believe it or not, science fiction was one of the original genres embraced by early television broadcasters).

Of course, this isn’t a scientific study.  I have no access to market research that would help determine what kind of audience share such a channel might enjoy, nor do I know how much any of the owners of these properties that still remain in copyright might ask for airing them again.  I’m by no means a professional broadcast programmer.  Heck, I don’t even know if some of these shows are even available for airing any more.

But I do know one thing.  THIS is the channel I’d watch on a regular basis – even if it was only on for background noise.  Sure, some of the shows are definitely hokey and I’d probably flip over to Discovery or History when they aired (even despite the fact that this would be my own channel) – but from the small bit of research I’ve done on the net, every single one of them has a fan base that would love to be able to see them on the boob tube again, so who am I to judge? 

I mean, if every single one of these shows has generated a handful of fairly-well trafficked nostalgia websites (and some have hundreds), and if many of them have annual conventions devoted to their fans, and some of them even have Ebay categories devoted to them – how the heck can you go wrong tapping into that?

Maybe I ought to call it the Science Fiction Nostalgia Channel…

Imagine a click- through to the channel’s website from – every single lost in space fan page; every single irwin allen fan page; every single quantum leap fan page; every single firefly fan page…

Will the audience be 18 to 49 year olds?  Hell no.  It will be 35 to 70 year olds.  Most of whom have homes, multiple cars, many own their own businesses, the majority of this audience has a college degree.  Maybe the Intelligent Science Fiction Channel would be the proper name? Or maybe the “I’m A Parent With Minor Children and I Tell Them What To Watch Science Fiction Channel” would be most appropriate.

The Other Science Fiction Channel?  The REAL Science Fiction Channel?  I think I’ll stick with Classic Science Fiction Channel for now.  And notice, please, that I’ve completely foregone the use of the skiffy abbreviation.  SciFi is something you type when text messaging, or something you hang on a cable channel that features Professional Wrestling in its line up.

Tomorrow I will post my current show schedule.  Below are the names of all of the shows I considered.  What I’ll be posting is just the roll-out schedule.  Please, if there are shows that you think belong that I’ve missed, let me know.  In the meantime, please pass the word.  I’ll be doing the same on the forums I visit. 

Shows considered for the inaugural season of THE CLASSIC SCIENCE FICTION CHANNEL (in no particular order):

Futurama

Jetsons

Thunderbirds

Fireball xl5

Super car

Lost in space

My favorite martian

Voyage to the bottom of the sea

Time tunnel

Land of the giants

Firefly

Dr. who

One step beyond

Outer limits os

Outer limits ns

Night gallery

Twilight zone

3^rd rock from the sun

alf 30 102

amazing stories

blake 7

captain scarlet

hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy

land of the lost

rocky jones, space ranger

War of the worlds

Quark

Farscape

Red dwarf

Star trek tos

Star trek ng

Star trek ds9

Star trek voyager

Star trek enterprise

Star trek tas

Tripping the rift

The invaders

Johnny quest

Tales from the darkside

The prisoner

Stargate sg 1

Stargate atlantis

Dark angel

Babylon 5

Tripping the rift

Quantum leap

men into space

Buck rogers in the 25^th century

The 6 million dollar man

The bionic woman

Flash Gordon serials

Flash Gordon

space above and beyond

Sliders

the starlost

x-files

Science fiction theatre

The greatest american hero

Space 1999

Battlestar galactica

Alien nation

Andromeda

V

Logan’s run

astro boy

max headroom

Earth: final conflict

UFO 

Starblazers

Exo squad

Akira

 

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