Scyfilove blog moves from Blogger to Wordpress

IT is always an emotional moment when you move out from your first home, but that moment has come for Scyfilove on Blogger.

Yes, after 17 months and more than 150 posts, I took the decision to move on and imported the blog - lock, stock and barrel - to Wordpress.

You can find the new site here and I am sure you will agree it looks a lot better, as it should given that was the whole point of moving. It also gives me far greater flexibility going forward, meaning I can introduce new features and other exciting things which I can't talk about yet.

To those of you who follow the blog or pick it up on RSS, here is the new RSS feed to use:

http://scyfilove.com/feed/

I should add that I will leave this site up with this post at the top, as a way of pointing newcomers to the new look Scyfilove.

So it's onwards and  upwards - thanks for the good times Blogger and looking forward to Wordpress!

Flash Forward faces blackout of its own

I'M frightened ... I was watching television and then I blacked out for an hour ..... when I came to, I had visions of the creator of Family Guy making a cameo in the new, massively hyped science fiction show.

It doesn't say much for Flash Forward that the highlight of the first episode for me was recognising Seth Macfarlane as 'FBI Agent', and then wondering why he was doing it? Is he going into acting, or helping out a friend? And what does that mean for Family Guy?

Before I realised it, the rest of the show had passed me by.

That's not to say it was bad. It was just meh, which is probably worse.

Once again with an American show, the central characters look like actors playing roles. No-one is normal - they're all too ... perfect.

Joseph Fiennes in particular is meant to be battling a drink problem and his wife is on the verge of leaving him because of it, but it was painted in such broad strokes as to be only paper thin characterisation.

And how does an FBI agent in a branch office with a drink problem get put in charge of an investigation into an event which affected everyone on the planet? Apparently because he saw himself investigating it, but for major worldwide blackouts, I'd like to think you need more qualifications than that.

What if he saw himself investigating it really badly? Wouldn't it be a much more massive investigation, reporting to the president or the UN or something? Apparently not.

On top of that, what should have been the most dramatic moment in the first episode - the moment when everyone blacks out - cars smashing into each other, helicopters crashing into buildings, planes falling from the sky - was only hinted at (Too expensive?).

We just got the, admittedly well realised, aftermath, but I wanted to see the carnage - not some cars mashed up and a kangeroo (which I hope is not some deep rooted, cryptic clue to what is going on - I had enough of those before I gave up on Lost and Heroes).

Finally, pulling together shared visions on a global scale would I imagine require unheard of levels of manpower and admin, but their solution? Set up a website.

Yep, one website, to cater for the Flash Forward visions of the entire world.

I mean, the Twitter fail whale pops up on a regular basis because there are too many people on the system, so good luck with that.

Maybe I'm being too harsh. It was only the first episode and with such a large cast and story, it was always going to be tricky to pack everything in.

When they were interviewed in SFX, the people behind the show said they have planned out a three-series arc, so it sounds like they have set out what could be an involved and intricate tale.

But we are living in a world after The Wire, which raised the bar for involving and absorbing television shows to unheard of levels.

Science fiction television is also being given remarkable access to the mainstream, more so than ever before.

But because of that it has to deliver and Flash Forward - like Dollhouse and (it seems) new V - doesn't look like it will, on first viewing. That was the most frustrating thing of all, because I wanted it to be better.

Given how forgettably it has started and how fickle the American networks and viewers are, three years is an awfully long way away.

It may not only be John Cho's character who can't see anything in six months' time.

Unless it ups its game, Flash Forward may be blacking out for good.

I hope not and I will be sticking with it, starting with episode two tomorrow.

The Twilight Zone Nightmare at 20,000 Feet - Great Sci-Fi Moments Number Nine

THE Twilight Zone turns 50 today and in its honour, I decided to make Nightmare at 20,000 Feet my latest great sci-fi moment.

For those not familiar with it, the episode is based on a Richard Matheson short story and stars William Shatner (bonus - I love the Shat!) as a man recovering from a nervous breakdown who sees a gremlin on the wing of a plane, which (here's the kicker) no-one else sees.

Host Rod Serling - who wrote 92 of the 154 episodes - summed it up thus, in the introductory monologue he started each episode with:

Portrait of a frightened man: Mr. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, father, and salesman on sick leave. Mr. Wilson has just been discharged from a sanitarium where he spent the last six months recovering from a nervous breakdown, the onset of which took place on an evening not dissimilar to this one, on an airliner very much like the one in which Mr. Wilson is about to be flown home - the difference being that, on that evening half a year ago, Mr. Wilson's flight was terminated by the onslaught of his mental breakdown. Tonight, he's traveling all the way to his appointed destination, which, contrary to Mr. Wilson's plan, happens to be in the darkest corner of the Twilight Zone.



While the gremlin looks a bit ropey now, the episode is a masterpiece in building and sustaining tension with Shatner's ermm, individual style of acting absolutely right to portray a man on the edge of losing his mind, and taking desperate action to save the plane at the risk of his own sanity.

It is a fantastic story and has been referenced or homaged many times, including Bart Simpson defeating a gremlin on the schoolbus in the Simpsons episode Terror at 5 and a half feet.

By the time this episode had been broadcast, The Twilight Zone had already been running for four years, with a self-contained story each week.

The first episode was Where is Everybody, where a man in an air force jumpsuit finds himself in a town where all the other people have vanished.

It ran until 1964 (with a movie remake in the 1980s), by which time it had won an Emmy and an Oscar, while the title had entered popular culture as had Marius Constant's theme tune (which only started in the show's second year).

Go on, I bet you're humming it now!

It also attracted fantastic guest stars including the Shat, Telly Savalas, Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson and Burt Reynolds.

I'm going to throw out a ScyfiLove challenge to any TV company or production house to bring it back - given the sheer amount of sci-fi shows on now, this would take the roof off with the ratings and be true event TV.

Who's with me? And do you have any favourite Twilight Zone moments?

Former Doctor Who Paul McGann gives up hope of Tardis reappearance

FORMER Doctor Who star Paul McGann revealed today he has given up hope of taking part in a rumoured reunion of actors who have played the Time Lord.

He said he had no expectations of ever returning to the role and claimed he has had no contact with the BBC since he left the set of a one-off TV movie in 1996 in which he made his only appearance.

There have been reports that the past Who actors were being rounded up for a Children In Need special, but McGann doubted he would ever return to the role.

The actor, who has never watched David Tennant as the Doctor, said: “It’s highly unlikely, because since I walked off that set in 1996, no one’s ever called me, I’ve never met these people.

"I’ve never been down to Cardiff and met what’s his face, Russell T Davies (who masterminded Doctor Who’s revival).

“So no, maybe haven’t they got my number. There’s always rumours, it’s nice to stoke the fire. I’m always hearing them.”