Nicked from File 770

[james_davis_nicoll]

Ben Bova writes:

Back in the early 1970s I served as the science advisor to one of the worst television shows of all time.

He's not kidding or engaging in hyperbole, although it wasn't his fault.

Comments

[cmattg.livejournal.com]

It says something about me that I was pretty sure what show he meant before mousing over the link.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Likewise. I think it means we both read James' LJ posts.

[(Anonymous)]

While I knew because I read Ellison , which led me to buy The Starcrossed.

rgl

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

Yeah, the only mystery was whether it'd be Ellison or Bova writing the article.

[death4breakfast.livejournal.com]

You know, the *concept* would *still* make a great miniseries. You'd have to stick close to the theme though. And you'd have to convince people that a) Even though it's a space-ship, it's *huge*, therefore it's going to take a long time to get where they're going and b) It's an STL generation ship, therefore it's *slow* therefore they *won't* be using it to zip around to visit bunchs of planets like every other SF show.

I'm not entirely sure that that's not to revolutionary a concept for SF tv even now.

(Oh, and I missed the TV show, but did read the book by Ed Bryant. The book was pretty good.)

[rwpikul.livejournal.com]

I have to wonder if going a step farther would work, play the first set of episodes without revealing that they are on a ship. Even to the point of designing the opening and closing sequences so as to not reveal that the character's beliefs about the nature of their world is wrong.

Then you have the 'next time on (show)' end with a set of reactions to something unbelievable. The climax of the next episode being, of course, them finally getting a look outside.