The History Of Product Placement In Science Fiction

Science fiction is all about showing us new and startling worlds — and it doesn't hurt to sell a few widgets along the way. Like Eureka, which recently proved that you can save the world using Degree antiperspirant. Think Reese's Pieces in E.T. the first example of products in sci-fi? Take a look at this comprehensive history.

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Screen Actors Guild to go on Strike?

SAG will possibly strike in November. The writers' strike affected the entire entertainment industry, and this would certainly rattle the industry just as much, if not more.

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Sci Fi Sports: Six Sweaty Moments of Geeky Triumph

If you watch enough high school movies, you'll begin to think that jocks and geeks are always at war. Not so, however: Science fiction is full of triumphant sports moments, and not just the ones that end in death.

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DIGG THIS --> Knight Rider: An Open Letter To NBC

Last Spring we got a preview of the NEW Knight Rider. It sounded promising, and we even got a special visit from the Hoff. So with much anticipation, I've watched the first 3 episodes, only to be disappointed.

Like many television of movie remakes of recent years, more often then not, they royally screw them up. Name a few you say? The Dukes Of Hazard, Starsky and Hutch, Planet Of The Apes, The Bionic Woman, and Dragnet (The Series). And I'm not looking forward to the new Star Trek movie by J.J. Abrams, because he admitted he was not sticking to the ORIGINAL Star Trek "universe".

Note to all would be producers of TV and movies remakes. DO NOT DEVIATE FROM THE ORIGINAL STORY. If you think you're gonna put your own spin on it and it will be wildly popular, you better take a look around before you spend the studios money.

Knight Rider has gone off the beaten path from it's ancestral roots, and it's not being successful. What do I mean?

1. The shows writers and producers need to watch and re-watch the original series, especially the 2 hour pilot. From a show foundation standpoint, they are trying to reinvent it.

Mistake #1, don't re-invent the show, stick with what worked. Michael and KITT were a crime fighting team. They helped people, small businesses, and towns. The new "Team" only goes after the big fish.

Mistake #2, the foundation (F.L.A.G) is out, and the FBI is in. Listen, KITT's not gonna save the world from another 9/11 style attack. But he might help put some bad guys in jail.

Mistake #3, there are way too many people on the "Team", mostly because a show has 5-7 main characters. The other team members detract from the stories.

Mistake #4, government conspiracies and cover-ups are not required to make a successful show. In the original series, we knew who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Now we have a leader that is not exactly forthcoming about his intentions, and he would eliminate anyone of the team to further his agenda. I would remove this element of the show immediately.

Mistake #5. Because of the deviations, Mike Traceur's past is continuously coming back to haunt him. Something we didn't have with Michael Knight (Long). The attempt to kill off Mike Traceur in the series premier was short lived, since Mike Traceur keeps running into people from his past.

2. Bring back some of the original cast. I know that Edward Mulhare is no longer living, but his character could be revived but someone else filling the role. Patricia McPherson dropped out of show business in 1991, but would be a welcomed guest to the show.

What would really give the show a shot in the arm is the return of the Hoff and/or the original KITT. The show has nothing to lose at this point.

3. The original show features special effects and sounds. Some of these are corny, but the red light on the front, and the swishing sound are the only special effects from the original series brought to the new series. Fans identify with them, and is part of the entertainment. You need to work on that!

4. KITT is too vulnerable. In the TV movie and the first 2 episodes, KITT was incapacitated. This is unacceptable. The car is the show... The car is the show... THE CAR IS THE SHOW! Don't forget that.

5. KITT is too much like a real car, makes too much noise like a car. In this day and age loud cars are a menace to society. The original KITT was much more "science fiction" in every way, and I think that was part of it's attractiveness.

6. It's like the network wants to see this show fail, like the Bionic Woman did. The network and executives want things a certain way, see this article, and then can't understand when the show just doesn't appeal to even us hardcore fans. If NBC is still making new episodes of Knight Rider after Christmas, I will be very amazed.



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John Crawford

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DIGG THIS --> NBC's Life Is Resurrected

NBC's Life is back, a rare survivor of last years WGA strike. The cerebral Charlie Crews and his partner Dani Reese are back as LA's top crime fighting team. Crews is like Monk, Columbo, and Baretta rolled into one. Quite the opposite of Monk, Crews is afraid of nothing, as cold as ice.

Crews has an uncanny ability to solve the most perplexing crimes. He is compulsive, and thinks outside the box on everything. Reese is a conventional thinker, and keeps Crews balanced and between the navigational beacons. In the season opener, a killer is putting dead bodies in luggage style crates, and depositing them in key locations. Crews used tracking data from GPS to outwit the killer, which turned out to be a young, but emotionally disturbed stationary store clerk. In the second episode, Crews and Reese go up against a steroid abuse ring, and the misfits peddling it to solve a brutal murder.

Charlie Crews is a cop that spent 12 years in prison for murder, but was later released after proven innocent. He received a $50 Million settlement and got his old job back. He also agreed to not pursue the case that sent him to prison. Season 1 was all about his "secret" pursuit, and ends with what is believed to be all the evidence to show who framed him. But Season 2 so far has been mostly absent of that. Solving the crime of the week is the primary focus. He did find the girl, who is now grown, who was in the house during the murders, and has her in protective custody. And he is still harassing Jack Reese, a key player in his conviction, whom Crews believes is the mastermind. Jack Reese is also the father of his partner. His partner is a recovering addict. While she is a great cop, she has a past. So far in 2 episodes we've had zero character development for Dani Reese.

New this season is Captain Kevin Tidwell, new captain of the Robbery/Homicide division. At first he came off as hard nosed, but soon he was following Crews' and Reese's lead. Life airs on NBC Monday and Friday Nights at 10PM.

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John Crawford

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DIGG THIS --> Knight Rider: A Mixed Bag

NBC is banking on another series remake again. After it flaunted The Bionic Woman, and was just starting to gain some momentum, NBC pulled the plug. Just a victim of the WGA strike, I think. Now they've brought back Knight Rider, bigger and sexier than before. Ok, I like a bit of nostalgia once in awhile, I'm a huge fan of the original series. We got a big mouthful of Knight Rider last Spring with a pilot made-for-television movie. So, we had a good idea of what to expect. I don't think you need to be from my generation (old enough to remember the original series in prime time) to appreciate the new series. The creators built the foundation with the movie, and now we have a NEW crime fighting team with an invincible car. Well, that's the theory at least.

Most of the similarities end there. After the first two episodes, I'm thinking this new series leans towards the lame side. I mean, they have this car that should be invincible, at least the old KITT was close. 25 years later, a vastly more sophisticated and technologically advanced KITT is far from infallible. For instance, in last nights episode, KITT was nearly beaten in a street race. WHAT??? OK, the guy had NOX, but that whole scene is wrong. The original KITT could reach speeds well above 200MPH in super pursuit mode. And to top it off KITT had a melt down because it's not capable of doing a "transformation" during a turbo boost. Yeah, that's my tax dollars at work, jokingly of course. It sounds typical, though, for something to cost so much and have a such a weakness.

Let's transplant that flaw to another venue. During the pilot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, when they first encountered Q. When the Captain ordered the ship to be "seperated" at maximum warp, Data warned that maneuver had never been tried at such velocities and is not recommended. So the Captain ordered it so, and the ship craps out, dead in space, has to be towed back to space dock. ST:TNG would have been on less episodes that the Bionic Woman.

In the original series, KITT was always rescuing Michael. Seemed every week a new gadget was being showcased. Maybe because it was 1982, and the whole idea was far off the reality scale. It was all "jee-wiz, wow, bang, hey that's kool". In 2008, though, the technology is not so impressive. The stories seem to focus more on the main characters, their histories, their secrets, and their motives. This will be the shows undoing. What did we ever know of the original Michael Knight? Devon Miles? or FLAG? The good guys and the bad guys were clearly marked, and they didn't switch sides.

Clearly, this is one of televisions fatal flaws, certainly so for science fiction. The writers like to twist things up every which way, they mistakenly believe this will heighten the intrigue and cause viewers to tune in. In reality, it confuses and alienates them, and they do not tune back in.

So, here's my advice to the shows writers and producers. Knight Rider is all about the car. It's not about Michael, his partner girlfriend, or any of those other groupies in the bat-cave. It's not about Michael's "lost" memory, or the efforts to keep things from him. Knight Rider is ALL about the car, period. Your show will live allot longer if you focus on that. The writers and producers need to go back and watch to original series pilot, remember where the story came from.

Knight Rider has a whole new crew, but really only one person that's been around a while, Bruce Davison. Rumor also has it that Val Kilmer is the voice of KITT, but neither he (nor the identity of the voice) is listed anywhere on the official Knight Rider site.

Knight Rider airs on NBC on Wednesday nights at 8PM.

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John Crawford

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DIGG THIS -->Fringe: Quality Scifi Returns To Television

The WGA strike last year must have been good to some science fiction writers. This fall featured the premier of Fringe. Fringe is simply awesome, it's like the X-Files on steroids! Fringe pushes the envelope in every direction, including the time-slot it airs - 9PM Eastern Time. The subject matter is mature and intense, but not overly complicated. I think one could watch a single episode, and not knowing the whole background, would be drawn into the story.

After just the first 3 episodes, I have come to expect to get queazy sometime during the episode. So if you're not a fan of blood and/or needles, you are hereby warned. Last week's episode "The Ghost Network", was particularly unnerving, and I have to wonder how it got past the "sensors" for a 9PM timeslot. While I'm not a fan of Lost, or Mission Impossible, creator J.J. Abrams is certainly on track for success with Fringe. If they can get through the first half season without some cranky network executive calling for it's cancellation, I think we'll see Fridge for a few seasons.

Fringe airs Tuesday's at 9PM EST on Fox.

Our cast of characters:
FBI Agent Olivia Dunham, former Marine and now rising star of the FBI, is the lead character. When a German commercial airplane experience catastrophic failure in flight, but lands by auto-pilot with all hands dead, Agent Dunham is specially picked be part of a Homeland Security task force investigating it and and a series of unexplained phenomena called "The Pattern". Olivia is driven by the personal guilt of sexual involvement with another FBI agent, and his betrayal. She sees the simple link between all the "incidents" and a global company called Massive Dynamics. She hunts down a man in Baghdad, and convinces him to get his father released from a mental institute in order to help solve or at least explain these phenomenon. Olivia Dunham is played by Australian native actress Anna Torv.

Peter Bishop is played by actor Joshua Jackson. Peter has a mysterious past. Besides being the son of a brilliant, but weird scientist, which did not make for a fondly memorable childhood. Peter is immensely intelligent and well traveled. He also appears to be well connected, both good and bad, in high and low places. Olivia hunted down Peter in Iraq and convinced him to get his father released from a mental hospital. He was brought in to the task force to supervise his father.

Dr. Walter Bishop is played by another Australian native, John Noble. There was an accident in Dr. Bishop's Harvard lab 17 years ago which caused the death of an assistant, and forced him into a mental institution. He is father of Peter Bishop, and thus explains Peters unpleasant childhood. Peter got him released from the mental hospital at Olivia's request to help solve these strange phenomenon.
Homeland Security Agent Phillip Broyles is played by actor Lance Reddick, is a Baltimore, MD native. As luck would have it, no scifi drama seems to be complete without a government conspiracy. Agent Broyles is the link to the yet undisclosed conspiracy that awaits us. While he is the strong and immovable task force leader, we found out at the end of last week's episode that he is, in fact, "in bed" with Massive Dynamics.

Agent John Scott is played by actor Mark Valley. The character of John Scott was killed off in the first episode, supposedly. Agents Scott and Dunham were partners in the FBI, and they were romantically involved. After a passionate moment where he proclaims he loves her, they are called away on a mission, and both recruited for the Homeland security task force investigating "The Pattern". While chasing a suspect Agent Scott is hit by an chemical explosion. Not quite dead, his injuries and condition are a complete mystery to known science. The only lead to a cure is Dr. Walter Bishop, who is in a mental institution. Olivia tracks down Peter Bishop and convinces him to get his father released because she believe he can save Agent Scott's life. He does in fact save Agent Scott's , but is later killed in a car chase when Olivia discovers he is part of "whoever" or "whatever" caused the deaths on the plane. The 'dead" body is taken to Massive dynamic for "questioning". At the end of last week's episode, we learn they are still downloading information from him. Since he is listed in the opening credits, and not as a guest star, I'd say we haven't seen or heard the last of Mark Valley on this show. It's also a safe bet that Massive Dynamics has been and will be the root cause of all the unexplained phenomenon known as "The Pattern".

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John Crawford

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The Fold, A Hypnotic Review

This is a review of a new scifi series called "The FOLD".

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John Crawford

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Battlestar Keeps On Keeping On, According To Six

While the audience waits impatiently for the final half-season of Battlestar Galactica, the cast and crew have already moved on... kind of. Tricia Helfer has been talking about her experiences on the show, from how little she knew at the start to the reaction of the cast to the end of the show... even though that end keeps on staying out of reach.

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Admiral Adama Will Direct the Upcoming Galactica TV-Movie

News continues to pour in about the upcoming Battlestar Galactica TV-Movie, which will be filmed after the completion of the fourth and final season of the series. Galactica staff writer Jane Espenson (a longtime writer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer) will write the script, and Admiral Adama himself, Edward James Olmos, will direct

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