Aural pleasure (Part Two)

SEEING as I'm in a linking kind of mood, this is pure gold!

If you've had a bad day, turn on, tune in and chill out - it's the Shat at his psychedelic, sci-fi best!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-yy2URAYqU&feature=related

I like to close my eyes and imagine Bill (as I call him) emoting away in a smoky recording studio in the 60s, while the sound engineers looked on with a mix of awe, horror, shame and perverse homosexual awakening, but that's just me.

Truly an unappreciated genius. Match this Mozart!!

Aural pleasure

IF you follow this link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7365120.stm

you'll find a nice feature the Beeb have written about their Radiophonic Workshop.

This was the room where some of the most iconic noises and themes were created for Auntie (most famously Doctor Who), and the people who worked there were true pioneers, starting from scratch at a time when the typical sci-fi sound effect was a high pitched whine, that changed in tempo slightly.

i.e "What's that ... light ... coming out of the woods?"

whine whine whine whine!

Their reward was to be disbanded and shut down in 1993 by Auntie, after 40-odd years of excellence. Which makes it a bit rich that the Beeb's website should be coming over all misty-eyed now.

Still, it's still nice stuff with some good videos too.

And as I'm feeling generous, I'll throw in this link too, for some Doctor Who sounds. I know, I'm too good to you!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/sounds/index.shtml

The Magnificent Seven

IF you understand what I'm talking about when I say the words Gan, Orac, Zen and Federation, then you will have felt a tremor in the force this week.

It seems that Sky are having a go at bringing back Blake's Seven. If this comes to anything it would be fantastic as the original - way back in the 70s and 80s - was tremendous.

As a kid I loved it and as an adult, I can now appreciate the subtleties it employed behind the action.

Leaving aside all the shaky sets and garbage special effects, the series was groundbreaking.

B7 (as some marketing whiz at Sky has already no doubt called it during a thought jacuzzi) introduced revolutionary concepts like a story arc running across the series, the main villain being female, and took the idea of a morally conflicted hero to new levels with the likes of Blake, Avon and - my favourite - Vila, the cowardly thief.

It did still have some genre staples, like various space babes too, but they were usually gunslingers or some such, not the vacuous bimbos Captain Kirk routinely saved.

In The Liberator, it also had one of the genre's most kick-ass spaceships. Hands up if you had one of the little Dinky toys, where the plastic ends of the three prongs would always snap off.

Sky's success in updating Battlestar Galactica - which includes many of the same dramatic techniques and dark tone as B7 - has me feeling that something good could be around the corner.

Bringing back Blake has been tried before without success, but here's hoping.

We are the world

HOLD the phone - this blog is now international!!

Upon checking the pagelink activity from my site, while most people logging on are from the UK, I have had one visitor from Sweden and one from Thailand.

Greetings and salutations to you, my friends from around the globe.

The good Doctor

I HAVE always felt that I have a kinship with Doctor Who - even in the days of wobbly sets and even wobblier 'special' effects.

I mention this as we took a trip to Blackpool at the weekend, somewhere that has always been strongly linked with the Gallifrey locum.

Going back in time to the 1970s and 80s (1974-1985 to be exact, fact fans), the older readers may remember that Blackpool hosted the first and greatest Doctor Who exhibition.

I visited as a nipper and as I remember, you went in (brilliantly) through a Tardis on the street, before going down some steps and walking through a collection of models, costumes and - most amazingly of all - the Tardis control room.

For a child in the pre-internet, pre-DVD, pre anything like that days, it was mind-blowing.

When the programme went off air, I was one of the many who hoped it would return, and was more excited than a man in his mid-30s has any right to be when it did.

Nowadays the Blackpool link remains, with David Tennant turning on the illuminations (which include some Doctor Who ones) and also starring in musical drama Blackpool before he got the keys to the Tardis. The museum also re-opened two years ago.

Our day in Blackpool (very nice, thanks for asking) got me thinking about my own way spooky link with the current Doctor (leaving aside the fact that we've both been in Blackpool at different times and for different reasons).

As most Whovians know, David Tennant is really David McDonald. However, his very first role - in an episode of Dramarama in 1988 called The Secret of Croftmore - was as Neil McDonald.

So what you say? So that is my real-life name too!!!

All together now - ooooh!

What does that mean? Nothing really - although he could be my 27th cousin or something I suppose - I just had some time on my hands and wanted to share.

But as obscure links to iconic science fiction characters goes, that takes some beating.

Top 5 Sci-Fi Babes

Johnny Bravo - 'Hey there future babe, I've set my phasers to lurve!'

FOR as long as there have been sci-fi programmes, there have been sci-fi babes.

So, in shameless attempt to appeal to the sci-fi watching key demographic, here is a list of my top five future chicks.

And it's been tough to choose - a long and arduous process, but I put myself through it for you, my blog readers (always assuming there are more than one)

1. Wilma Deering

There are many great things about the 25th century, but the main one was the fact they made their hot-ass military commanders wear nothing but skin-tight jumpsuits. For men of a certain age, Buck Rogers was a god, and Wilma - played by Erin Grey - made them feel a bit funny, like they were climbing the ropes in PE. And don't get me started on Princess Ardala.

2. Trinity

Any girl who can fire two pistols while hovering in mid air doing the splits has got to be fun at parties.

3. Seven Of Nine

Star Trek Voyager was dying on its arse before they brought in Seven, who was one of the evil Borg. However, before you could say 'why Miss ofNine, you're beautiful' she was in the lycra catsuit and exploring her emotions. The result? Viewing figures through the roof.

4. Caprica Six

A Cylon agent whose main job seems to be shagging and wearing tight dresses. Curse them and their emotionless cyborg ways!!

5. Barbarella

Took sci-fi chicks to a whole new level with a zero-G strip, one they have yet to return to, except in porn films like Flesh Gordon, the Sperminator or Star Whores (all of which are masterpieces ... erm ... or so I'm told).

So there you have it. Before you start, I know I've missed loads out, but I only had space for five. Still, feel free to add your own choices too.

Face of stone

IT is hard to imagine Edward James Olmos playing a transvestite hooker or a flamboyant torch singer.

However as Admiral Bill Adama of the Battlestar Galactica, he is perfect in every way.

For those not in the know - and if you're not, why not - Adama is the military leader of a space fleet of humans fleeing the remorseless Cylon army, who have wiped out their home world.

While other actors on the show - about to start its fourth series on Sky One - have more flashy roles or acting styles, Olmos brings the same sense of quiet certitude to the table as he did when I first saw him.

That too was as a centre of calm in a wild world, as the police chief in Miami Vice back in the 1980s. Even then, 25 years or so ago, he looked like his face had been chiselled out of granite using a spoon, with a striking 'tache for good effect.

Crockett and Tubbs may be gone, but Olmos is still the same and is the deliberate, measured heart of the show, which everything else revolves around.

I was a late covert to Battlestar, and as such am still working my way through the three previous series on DVD. Although Olmos stands out for me, the rest of the cast and show is outstanding too.

Although very different from the 1970s version, it is a tour de force in intricate plotting, character development and great storylines that explores some of the hot topics of today. Plus it has some fantastic babes in too!

If you haven't seen it, then do so - that's an order. So say we all.

Not that type of love

IT HAS just struck me that certain types of people who search the internet may be attracted to this blog for the wrong reasons.

For the record, it is a healthy love of the genre I will be writing about on SciFi Love.

It is not the type of love that can get you arrested in certain countries, involving STAR BABES FROM PLANET SEX who try to conquer Earth through shagging and using dildo shaped spaceships!!!

Neither is it the type of love some dusky alien chick would always ask Captain Kirk about in Star Trek, in episodes that would end with her saying 'I know now why you cry ...' in a soft focus close up.

I'm glad I cleared that up.

I love sci and fi

LAST night, while we were watching Battlestar Galactica, my wife turned to me and said 'you love sci-fi, don't you'.

As I have written, it was not a question, but a simple statement of fact, delivered in a tone of voice that was not enthusiastic or approving, but instead one of weary resignation and faint glimmers of understanding.

I looked back at her, fixing her with the same stare I used when explaining why I wanted a lightsaber for Christmas, and said 'yes, I do, but not as much as I love you.'

As Pam left the room a few minutes later, I realised that there in a sentence was a microcosm of my life - balancing the real world of family, jobs and responsibility with the place where some people say Frak and others fly the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs.

Because yes, I do love sci-fi, but not to the point where I want to end up sitting alone in my underpants in a bedsit, obsessing over which convention to attend with my new buddies from the internet chatroom.

(I originally wrote shatroom there by mistake, which would be a cool name for a William Shatner forum, if anyone is setting one up.)

So in this blog, I will be sharing my thoughts - such as they are - on sci-fi stuff in whatever form.

In the coming weeks, that will no doubt include ruminations on many of my favourite films, books and even records, as well as when sci-fi leaks out into the real world.

I hope you enjoy it.