That Wacky Redhead

[Falkenburg]

I beg your pardon? I most certainly did!

My apologies, Brainbin. Didn't see the tree for the woods.

"This video contains content from EMI, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."

By way of penance, hopefully This one will work for you.

Falkenburg

 

[phx1138]

Well, I'm very broadly defining "fanon" here as everything other than the series proper.

OK. I'm taking it as anything not officially approved.

Well, that's what they have Gerrold there for - he is constant communication with Justman (one of his old bosses, remember) throughout his tenure at the studio, and it is he who passes his complaints onto the higher-ups, who in turn impose their demands upon Gold Key, who have little choice but to comply.

Except you have to be a comics fan to begin with to appreciate why it matters. (IDK enough about David to say.) If he was (& IIRC & he did know Dave Gerber or Dave Kraft, he was), you're fine.

Yes, as with TAS IOTL, there's the obvious advantage of being unlimited by the constraints of practical effects when it comes to designing and depicting otherworldly aliens. That said, the series proper was better at depicting a multiracial Federation ITTL, even if we discount Jim Henson's contributions. There were considerable breakthroughs in makeup, for example, with revamps to the appearances of the Tellarites and the Andorians, among others. (No, not the Klingons.)

Noted, & appreciated. Comics still offer a lot more room. Even Muppets are limited by technical capacity.

 

[NCW8]

"This video contains content from EMI, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds."

Interesting - EMI refused to publicise the song when it was first released because they said it encouraged the home taping of music. It looks like they're still applying that policy

We'll be revisiting British telly - and British culture in general, for that matter - in the coming cycles. This will be the last mostly-Americentric cycle for quite some time, actually. In fact, we'll be covering events in Europe, along with Africa (!) before the end of the "Me Decade", so be sure to look forward to that.

That's good. As Star Trek is one of the influences on Blakes 7, I'd like to see how you think it will be affected by a more successful original ST series plus the presence of the new mini-series.

There's also the effect of the Dr Who "Yank Years" on the BBC special effects dept. Has a couple of years of having Desilu responsible for effects caused the BBC in-house ability to atrophy, or has the increased quality encouraged the Beeb to raise their game ?


Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[unclepatrick]

Don't get me started on that piece of...
<The following tirade has been redacted in the interests of public decency and to prevent contributing to the delinquency of minors>

The Muppets would've made a better job of it than that which Cannon & Co. served up.

Suffice to say, if all you know of Dredd is that travesty, you don't know what you're missing.

I'll do you a deal, you don't mention Stallone's assault upon an iconic character of my youth and I won't mention the V-Word.

I do find it intriguing that you made no reference or reply on the subject of Apes, though.

Falkenburg

The story that I heard behind the Dredd movie was they could not come up with a Script. At one point, the Producers hired Howard Chaykin who had does the American Flagg comics to do a Script. He come into the meeting and suggest a plot that the producer thought was perfect story. They sent Chaykin off to write the script. They did not realize that Chaykin had Drug and Alcohol problems. He come back with a strange script with Dredd talking to Death in the Wastland.
None of the Producers had taken any note on Chaykin original story ideas and they try to remember, the Script that was film is base on the memory of a single meeting 6 months earlier. They had to start filming or they would have lost the rights.

And then the Actor Stallone decided that he should be able to remove the Helmet to make Dredd more Human.

 

[Orville_third]

I do remember the FASA RPG. It helped get me into RP books as reference tools. (I didn't know people to play it, so...)
I also remember an old Star Trek arcade game, in which you directed the Enterprise to dock with a starbase while fighting off Klingons. I saw the cabinet in an exhibition at Discovery Place in Charlotte back in the 1990's.

 

[e_wraith]

The story that I heard behind the Dredd movie was they could not come up with a Script. At one point, the Producers hired Howard Chaykin who had does the American Flagg comics to do a Script. He come into the meeting and suggest a plot that the producer thought was perfect story. They sent Chaykin off to write the script. They did not realize that Chaykin had Drug and Alcohol problems. He come back with a strange script with Dredd talking to Death in the Wastland.

Now the Stallone/helmet thing I knew, but wow, American Flagg guy did a script for Judge Dredd? How surreal. Though I wasn't hugely into comics as a kid I was exposed to both in the 80s via the same path... My father bought a large box of random vaguely scifi themed comics and magazines from someone he knew at work and gave them to me. Random semi-related fact: As a favor to a friend I worked this past NYC ComicCon managing the line for George Pérez, who is a very cool guy. He did the cover to the first issue (and some other issues, of course) of DC's ToS comic from the 80s.

 

[e_wraith]

Yours and everyone else's, if sales are any indication. Did you know that King's Quest V was the best-selling PC game for five years? (1990-95; replaced by Myst, another adventure game, albeit a far less conventional one). But in this day and age, even a major developer like Double Fine can't produce an adventure game without begging for money on Kickstarter (not that I am in any way denigrating crowdfunding as a source of fundraising; I've been suckered by a few pitches myself, as it happens).

Very true. As to crowdfunding old computer games, what sort of insane person would do such a thing? Just for nostalgia's sake? Ha! Ahem. Not me of course. <looks nervously towards Wasteland 2 kickstarter> Ahem. Yes, well... Okay, I give up, let's just say I have been suckered by more than a few pitches for games (video and pen and paper) that were from my youth. To be fair, though, I do consider Wasteland to be the greatest game I have ever played, and gave up hope on a 2 decades ago.

You say you were into flightsims and space sims? Well, then, surely you played the Wing Commander series! I've never actually played them myself (or any non-educational PC games until the late 1990s), but I admire them for taking the now-horrendously-dated FMV craze and really making the most of it. Looking at Wing Commander III and especially Wing Commander IV... you really see the potential there, what could have been. Naturally, as an alternate historian, it greatly appeals to me.

Oh yes. Wing Commander made my buy a Soundblaster, as a matter of fact. I guess even the first two foreshadowed the FMV future, since they were so devoted to expanding the envelope in terms of sound and animation. I can recall getting the voice disk for WC2 and how cool that was. Ah, before CD-Roms were all the rage, you had to pay for sound pack expansions... Then CD-Roms just included them as part of the main game, and of course there was room for video...

Best of luck to you with your post-graduate studies! You have my respect... and your wallet has my sympathies

Sympathy is correct. Especially when all the reasons I started out doing it changed and I wound up paying for much more of it that I expected, and its immediate utility is no longer obvious... But! Advancing one's understanding of a field is never a bad thing, and what seem to be concrete career options one day can turn into something very different a few days down the line so I cannot really call it a wasted effort. Just... I really, really love to read, and while doing school and work there is just so little time to read things I enjoy as opposed to what I need to for class or work certifications... Well, it will be nice to be done at least! This is all as opposed to undergrad time, when I seemed to have all the time in the world. Where did that time all go? Damn it, that sounds old, and since I refuse to grow up I CAN'T be old, so forget I said it.

Not sure how or why my father got one, really. Apparently he used to have a VCS that was presumably gone by the time I was born - if that's true, I'm not sure why he kept the IntelliVision and not that. My childhood friend's father owned - and still owned, by the time we were kids - a ColecoVision, though I never got the chance to play it. I don't know, were those consoles singularly popular in Canada or something?

I wanted both of them as a kid! Because, you see, all the big kids had them and talked about how much better they were than the Atari systems. I got a C64 instead eventually, since my parents believed video games were dead at that point. Which, in the long run, was actually the better option for video games.

Anyway, my cousin had the NES, not me (or my father - I guess he didn't go back to gaming after the Crash), and then I got the SNES for my birthday, shortly after it was first released in North America. And I still have it, too, over two decades later, currently sitting not three feet away from me, hooked up to my TV. The outer casing has yellowed somewhat, but other than that, it still works just fine.

The SNES was the first video game system I owned that I bought with my own money. (Maybe I should just say it was the first video game system I owned, since the blink and you missed it Atari 7200 dubiously holds that claim.) It is still hooked up to a small CRT TV in my parent's house. I own one game for it, because I had lots of friends who had the system before me so I just borrowed their games.

No, this is the game I was talking about. It's so old that it's a bona fide pioneer.

Wait, what? That game couldn't have existed! Had I known about that one I think I would have demanded an Intellivision! It looks awesome.

Creativity is a process akin to throwing pasta at the wall and seeing what sticks. The unfortunate thing about it is that we'll never know if the creators of the present are able to emerge from the shadows of the past, because by the time we find out, they too will have receded into them, and the whole process repeats itself. Then again, time is the only real judge of staying power that we have. Who knows what future generations will see when they look back at the dawn of the World Wide Web?

Beautifully said, though my only semi-facetious answer to your rhetorical question is far less so. Porn. And maybe the thousands of thousands of dead animated gif links of a thousand, thousand dead geocities pages. Indeed, if the bulk of the population of the time saw the bulk of what was out there, they may have demanded we just shut the whole thing off circa 1995 or so. But time tends to smooth over some of the rougher spots in the birth of a medium, I guess. And yet, the porn industry largely decided the course of the VCR battle, and indeed has had quite an impact on the Internet. So much can be said there about baser instincts driving advances in technology and society, I guess.

Great to hear! And I'm also glad to know that you got through that dreadful hurricane in one piece. And I look forward to your list. Since you spoke out so strongly against the Okudagasm "remasterings", I trust that you'll be watching the episodes in their proper, unmodified versions?

Ha! Nope, I am giving the remastered eps a try. I figure I didn't really give them enough of a chance when they were on TV and you know open mindedness and... Well, in reality they're available on Netflix (US, at least, not sure if they have made it to other markets yet) in that form and sometimes you take what you can get. I am pretty sure Buck Rogers wasn't remastered at least... Which was a better show than I ever gave it credit for, I think. But that's another story all together. I still feel there's no need to go back and touch up the show, let it stand for itself as it originally did. We already have a remake of it anyway.

I'm glad you like hockey, because I've been looking forward to talking about it for quite some time! Though maybe I should wait until the strike ends before I post it...

Second best sport! (I realize I am in the minority to put baseball as number one even in my own country, but I will none the less.) No offense to Canadians, of course. Aactually, someone very dear to me is Canadian and she doesn't care for hockey at all so I guess that stereotype is a bit played out. Curling, however...

Ah yes, 1980 is approaching... You can destroy all of history I guess by changing an ice related event there. Change the course of the Cold War forever! Destroy the free world as we know it! Condemn the world to darkness and fear for all eternity! Well, from a US perspective at least. Hmmm, I think that would have a huge impact on hockey's growth into a much bigger sport in the US, at the least. As to the strike, I am starting to think that's actually part of the charm of the NHL. Without a strike/lockout/whatever every few years it just wouldn't be the same. And it would actually threaten to become even more popular in the US, which, I guess, both the players and owners just won't stand for.

(As an aside, am I right in assuming that Mets-Rangers fans are quite rare? It was my understanding that Mets fans form a bloc with Islanders fans, and Rangers fans with Yankees fans. I'm wondering if you can shed some light on that, for those of us who only have one sports team from each league in our metro area )

Ugh! Islanders? ISLANDERS?!! I'd sooner root for the Devils! Or Philadelphia's goons... No sir! These days I am not sure there are many who would admit to being Islanders fans, maybe that will change after they move. But historically speaking I think you are right. My house liked to be contrary. Or just liked to root for all the losing teams, I guess. We'll not go into the Nets or the Jets, who are my family's choices in other sports. We have a choice here, and we pick the teams that choose to lose. I think that's even worse than being in an area where you don't have a choice!

Now that would be telling

Somehow I saw that coming... Hey, does Chuck E. Cheese still exist? It was the most successful and enduring original component of Atari for a long time... Syzygy's path is already going to be quite different, I guess. The Syzygy Amiga I am guessing? Certainly no Jack Tramiel years and no ST unless Desilu's role turns into the same role Warner played. But I am getting ahead of things, I know. I also hate typing Syzygy.

 

[Thande]

If it doesn't contradict what you've already set down, I had some ideas about Star Trek based on re-reading one of the books about production (can't remember the title). You mention Star Trek gets a higher budget and better SFX later on. When he designed the Enterprise, Matt Jeffries originally had ideas for a sleeker and more detailed model but the funding wasn't there. (This is actually where the movie-era Enterprise design comes from, in the fundamentals it dates back to the 1960s). When he gave the ship its registry number, he said it came from "the 17th design of cruiser, number 01" (i.e. the Enterprise was meant to be the first ship of her class, which was later changed of course to make the 00 ship the class ship). Very interestingly, he also added a note saying "use 1701A for future upgraded version". Which of course was later used in the movies for its successor ship. But it strikes me that in your setting, perhaps they would use their increased budget to change the Enterprise's design in this way between seasons and justify it in-universe by calling it an upgrade? However I suppose they might not be able to do this just because they wouldn't be able to use their old stock footage (which was clearly important because they notoriously kept using stock footage of the old pilot version of the ship even after they made significant changes, like the backs of the nacelles changing from vents to spheres).

Also, a less dramatic one they could do is get the money to build the sleeker shuttle they originally wanted rather than the boxy one they ended up with. Maybe use the boxy Galileo at first but later switch to the other one, much like later happened on TNG where they had that little shuttlepod for a while as they waited to build a bigger set.

(Original TOS shuttle concept)

 

[NCW8]

If it doesn't contradict what you've already set down, I had some ideas about Star Trek based on re-reading one of the books about production (can't remember the title). You mention Star Trek gets a higher budget and better SFX later on. When he designed the Enterprise, Matt Jeffries originally had ideas for a sleeker and more detailed model but the funding wasn't there. (This is actually where the movie-era Enterprise design comes from, in the fundamentals it dates back to the 1960s). When he gave the ship its registry number, he said it came from "the 17th design of cruiser, number 01" (i.e. the Enterprise was meant to be the first ship of her class, which was later changed of course to make the 00 ship the class ship). Very interestingly, he also added a note saying "use 1701A for future upgraded version". Which of course was later used in the movies for its successor ship. But it strikes me that in your setting, perhaps they would use their increased budget to change the Enterprise's design in this way between seasons and justify it in-universe by calling it an upgrade? However I suppose they might not be able to do this just because they wouldn't be able to use their old stock footage (which was clearly important because they notoriously kept using stock footage of the old pilot version of the ship even after they made significant changes, like the backs of the nacelles changing from vents to spheres).

Some of the Star Trek Phase II ideas would be good as well. I suspect that Nimoy would be one of the actors who doesn't return for the mini-series. He's probably more interested in directing at this point and is probably even more fed up than OTL about being identified with Spock. So the character of Xon as a new Vulcan Science Officer could be introduced (IOTL, this character evolved into Data in ST:TNG).

OTOH, it would be neat to include different aliens in the main cast. Maybe if the character of Thelin was introduced in the episode Yesteryear, he could be brought back as the new first officer.

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[Thande]

Some of the Star Trek Phase II ideas would be good as well. I suspect that Nimoy would be one of the actors who doesn't return for the mini-series. He's probably more interested in directing at this point and is probably even more fed up than OTL about being identified with Spock. So the character of Xon as a new Vulcan Science Officer could be introduced (IOTL, this character evolved into Data in ST:TNG).

OTOH, it would be neat to include different aliens in the main cast. Maybe if the character of Thelin was introduced in the episode Yesteryear, he could be brought back as the new first officer.

Cheers,
Nigel.

The animated series shows they were keen to introduce more 'alien' aliens like Arex if they had had the capability to do so.

 

[vultan]

The animated series shows they were keen to introduce more 'alien' aliens like Arex if they had had the capability to do so.

Jim Henson will probably have a field day here.

 

[phx1138]

The animated series shows they were keen to introduce more 'alien' aliens like Arex if they had had the capability to do so.

I do like that. And M'Ress. And an early *Tuvok (which I've said {unabashed plug} Gene should've done to begin with). Henson's Creature Shop could just push "ST" TTL toward a *Chewie with better articulation, allowing actual speech.

 

[Brainbin]

I made that article!

I can't say I'm the least bit surprised

By way of penance, hopefully This one will work for you.

"This video contains content from EMI, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds." But thanks for trying

Comics still offer a lot more room. Even Muppets are limited by technical capacity.

This is true, and perhaps the limitations of practical effects helps to explain the zeal to embrace CGI IOTL - for better and for worse.

Interesting - EMI refused to publicise the song when it was first released because they said it encouraged the home taping of music. It looks like they're still applying that policy

Apparently so! And it wouldn't happen in a TL where Britain and Canada have stronger trade relations

That's good. As Star Trek is one of the influences on Blakes 7, I'd like to see how you think it will be affected by a more successful original ST series plus the presence of the new mini-series.

Fair enough, although many of the shows I'll be covering have far more mundane settings, and far more mainstream audiences.

There's also the effect of the Dr Who "Yank Years" on the BBC special effects dept. Has a couple of years of having Desilu responsible for effects caused the BBC in-house ability to atrophy, or has the increased quality encouraged the Beeb to raise their game ?

Excellent question, but there's only one way to find out!

And then the Actor Stallone decided that he should be able to remove the Helmet to make Dredd more Human.

Actors seem to be pathologically fearful of having their faces off-camera whenever they're onscreen. It's the same reason why no table has chairs that face away from the fourth wall, and why all the living room furniture is pointed at it (or, rather, the television set up against it) as well. Consider Topher Grace as Venom in Spider-Man 3. A ridiculously common complaint against the character was that he would always undermine his intimidating costume by pulling it back to reveal his (wimpy) face.

I do remember the FASA RPG. It helped get me into RP books as reference tools. (I didn't know people to play it, so...)
I also remember an old Star Trek arcade game, in which you directed the Enterprise to dock with a starbase while fighting off Klingons. I saw the cabinet in an exhibition at Discovery Place in Charlotte back in the 1990's.

That's some good stuff, Orville_third! Thanks for sharing that with us

Random semi-related fact: As a favor to a friend I worked this past NYC ComicCon managing the line for George Pérez, who is a very cool guy. He did the cover to the first issue (and some other issues, of course) of DC's ToS comic from the 80s.

Wow, that's actually a pretty huge deal, getting to meet a giant of the Bronze Age as a favour to a friend, no less! Some people have all the connections...

Very true. As to crowdfunding old computer games, what sort of insane person would do such a thing? Just for nostalgia's sake? Ha! Ahem. Not me of course. <looks nervously towards Wasteland 2 kickstarter> Ahem. Yes, well... Okay, I give up, let's just say I have been suckered by more than a few pitches for games (video and pen and paper) that were from my youth. To be fair, though, I do consider Wasteland to be the greatest game I have ever played, and gave up hope on a 2 decades ago.

Boy, did they ever choose the right time to pitch a sequel! Post-apocalyptic anything will sell like hotcakes. Frankly, I don't see the appeal, but to each his own!

Oh yes. Wing Commander made my buy a Soundblaster, as a matter of fact. I guess even the first two foreshadowed the FMV future, since they were so devoted to expanding the envelope in terms of sound and animation. I can recall getting the voice disk for WC2 and how cool that was. Ah, before CD-Roms were all the rage, you had to pay for sound pack expansions... Then CD-Roms just included them as part of the main game, and of course there was room for video...

Ah yes, the finer nuances of the floppies vs. the CD-ROM versions. Funnily enough, since you mention voice discs, they were included with the two PC Star Trek games I mentioned before, 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites. They actually brought back the entire original cast to voice their characters (mind you, this was the early 1990s, so they all sounded really old, despite the fact that both games were set during the original five-year mission). Worth noting is that Judgment Rites, released in 1993, marked the final appearance of DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy ever, in any medium - all six of the other regulars reprised their roles later on, in the flesh.

I really, really love to read, and while doing school and work there is just so little time to read things I enjoy as opposed to what I need to for class or work certifications... Well, it will be nice to be done at least! This is all as opposed to undergrad time, when I seemed to have all the time in the world. Where did that time all go?

Hey, at least you're not going for a doctorate, right? Those take twice as long, and I'm sure they're even more expensive

I wanted both of them as a kid! Because, you see, all the big kids had them and talked about how much better they were than the Atari systems. I got a C64 instead eventually, since my parents believed video games were dead at that point. Which, in the long run, was actually the better option for video games.

Not to mention that, if you want longevity, you certainly can't beat the Commodore 64! They were still in school computer labs by the mid-1990s.

The SNES was the first video game system I owned that I bought with my own money. (Maybe I should just say it was the first video game system I owned, since the blink and you missed it Atari 7200 dubiously holds that claim.) It is still hooked up to a small CRT TV in my parent's house. I own one game for it, because I had lots of friends who had the system before me so I just borrowed their games.

And, of course, you could always rent games from the video store back in those halcyon days. (Why the heck is this thread making me nostalgic for the 1990s?)

Wait, what? That game couldn't have existed! Had I known about that one I think I would have demanded an Intellivision! It looks awesome.

It was really good - and a real trailblazer, as noted. It makes me lament the OTL Crash interrupting the potential there for taking that nascent genre and running with it. If only I knew someone who was writing a timeline with a focus on video games which took place in that era, to whom I could make some kind of appeal...

And yet, the porn industry largely decided the course of the VCR battle, and indeed has had quite an impact on the Internet. So much can be said there about baser instincts driving advances in technology and society, I guess.

As Boogie Nights proves, there's some really fascinating topics of discussion to be mined from the history of pornography, but somehow I don't think a proper timeline focusing on that would yield any fruitful results, especially on this board (And no, I'm never going to be covering it as part of this timeline, either.)

Well, in reality they're available on Netflix (US, at least, not sure if they have made it to other markets yet) in that form and sometimes you take what you can get.

I believe that there's an option to switch back to the proper effects shots, and I urge you to investigate how that would be achieved on a Netflix release.

Second best sport! (I realize I am in the minority to put baseball as number one even in my own country, but I will none the less.) No offense to Canadians, of course. Aactually, someone very dear to me is Canadian and she doesn't care for hockey at all so I guess that stereotype is a bit played out. Curling, however...

Even here, (the Canadian variation of) gridiron football is very popular - easily the #2 sport behind hockey, maybe even #1 in some places (like Saskatchewan - which has a CFL team but no NHL teams). I have no objection to your ranking baseball higher than hockey, of course, but from a historical perspective, it was the quietest of the four major league sports throughout the duration of this timeline IOTL, so there won't be as much opportunity to discuss it. But hockey, on the other hand...

Ah yes, 1980 is approaching... You can destroy all of history I guess by changing an ice related event there. Change the course of the Cold War forever! Destroy the free world as we know it! Condemn the world to darkness and fear for all eternity! Well, from a US perspective at least.

I actually wasn't talking about 1980 (much sooner, in fact!), so you'll see what I have in mind when the time comes.

Ugh! Islanders? ISLANDERS?!! I'd sooner root for the Devils! Or Philadelphia's goons... No sir! These days I am not sure there are many who would admit to being Islanders fans, maybe that will change after they move. But historically speaking I think you are right. My house liked to be contrary. Or just liked to root for all the losing teams, I guess.

Ah yes, and when you were very young, the Islanders were enjoying their dynasty. And funnily enough, speaking of their pending move to Brooklyn, I've heard a rumour that they might change their name (even though Brooklyn is technically on Long Island) to the Americans (or Amerks), in reference to the last pre-Original Six team to be dissolved.

Hey, does Chuck E. Cheese still exist? It was the most successful and enduring original component of Atari for a long time...

Bushnell has been too busy running Syzygy to dabble in other ventures. He might have had more time, had someone akin to That Wacky Redhead taken a more active role on the Board of Directors, but alas, it was not meant to be. I'm also obviously going to avoid comment on your other questions.

I also hate typing Syzygy.

Your complaint has been noted and logged, and will be summarily ignored

If it doesn't contradict what you've already set down, I had some ideas about Star Trek based on re-reading one of the books about production (can't remember the title). You mention Star Trek gets a higher budget and better SFX later on. When he designed the Enterprise, Matt Jeffries originally had ideas for a sleeker and more detailed model but the funding wasn't there. (This is actually where the movie-era Enterprise design comes from, in the fundamentals it dates back to the 1960s). When he gave the ship its registry number, he said it came from "the 17th design of cruiser, number 01" (i.e. the Enterprise was meant to be the first ship of her class, which was later changed of course to make the 00 ship the class ship). Very interestingly, he also added a note saying "use 1701A for future upgraded version". Which of course was later used in the movies for its successor ship. But it strikes me that in your setting, perhaps they would use their increased budget to change the Enterprise's design in this way between seasons and justify it in-universe by calling it an upgrade? However I suppose they might not be able to do this just because they wouldn't be able to use their old stock footage (which was clearly important because they notoriously kept using stock footage of the old pilot version of the ship even after they made significant changes, like the backs of the nacelles changing from vents to spheres).

They're not going to totally revamp the Enterprise. Remember, we're dealing with the studio that invented the rerun. Two radically different Enterprise models would be problematic, considering how strongly the ship is identified with the show, and even considered shorthand for same. That said, I'm willing to endorse Jefferies making further small revisions to the core design, as he did IOTL (as you note), perhaps culminating in the construction of more models from the same basic blueprints.

Also, a less dramatic one they could do is get the money to build the sleeker shuttle they originally wanted rather than the boxy one they ended up with. Maybe use the boxy Galileo at first but later switch to the other one, much like later happened on TNG where they had that little shuttlepod for a while as they waited to build a bigger set.

However, I am willing to endorse a new shuttle, for the very simple reason that the original shuttle model had, very prominently displayed, the insignia of the Galileo, which was lost midway through the first season (in the episode "The Galileo Seven"), and which the show, IOTL, finally addressed late in the third, unimaginatively renaming it the Galileo II.

Some of the Star Trek Phase II ideas would be good as well. I suspect that Nimoy would be one of the actors who doesn't return for the mini-series. He's probably more interested in directing at this point and is probably even more fed up than OTL about being identified with Spock. So the character of Xon as a new Vulcan Science Officer could be introduced

Well, as we know, Spock did appear in TMP IOTL, despite adamantly refusing to appear in Phase II (to the point that the actor cast as Xon, David Gautreaux, had to accept a very minor part in the film, and obviously had no further involvement with the franchise). That's something to bear in mind ITTL.

OTOH, it would be neat to include different aliens in the main cast. Maybe if the character of Thelin was introduced in the episode Yesteryear, he could be brought back as the new first officer.

I can indeed confirm that - as in the OTL episode - the Andorian Thelin (with an improved makeup job!) appears as First Officer of the alternate Enterprise.

Jim Henson will probably have a field day here.

He definitely made his name as a "legitimate" effects creator on Star Trek ITTL, which is part of the reason that Solow convinced That Wacky Redhead to take a gamble on his variety show idea (remember that every other production studio in Hollywood turned him down, IOTL). Their science-fiction parodies would thus have a certain extra edge ITTL.

 

[phx1138]

Bumping slightly...

it wouldn't happen in a TL where Britain and Canada have stronger trade relations

How so?

Actors seem to be pathologically fearful of having their faces off-camera whenever they're onscreen.

Which does make the "TOS" Enterprise bridge design a bit odd... Especially if you consider putting the upper-level consoles at the "railing", instead, makes real sense, both ergonomically & dramatically.

And, of course, you could always rent games from the video store back in those halcyon days.

IDK if that makes us backward or advanced, 'cause you could do it here until a few years ago, when the company went out of business.

somehow I don't think a proper timeline focusing on that would yield any fruitful results

I imagine it rapidly degenerating into the relative merits of one performer or another. I'm not even going to mention a single one, for fear of derailing this into the gutter... (You have no idea how strong that temptation is.)

maybe even #1 in some places (like Saskatchewan - which has a CFL team but no NHL teams)

Not for lack of trying... I still don't know what the League's beef was with selling the Blues to a SK group.

Your complaint has been noted and logged

You do continue to have the option of calling it Syz.

Well, as we know, Spock did appear in TMP IOTL, despite adamantly refusing to appear in Phase II (to the point that the actor cast as Xon, David Gautreaux, had to accept a very minor part in the film, and obviously had no further involvement with the franchise). That's something to bear in mind ITTL.

I'll wager that doesn't happen TTL. If the miniseries goes off before 1979, anyhow.

the Andorian Thelin (with an improved makeup job!) appears as First Officer of the alternate Enterprise.

 

[e_wraith]

Wow, that's actually a pretty huge deal, getting to meet a giant of the Bronze Age as a favour to a friend, no less! Some people have all the connections...

My friend is that person. He knows people in every field. He works for the government now, but he came from the TV industry, sports production. In this instance, his best friend represents lots of comic artists in the resale of their original art and he helps out. But he's been my mentor in my actual career for a long time now.

Boy, did they ever choose the right time to pitch a sequel! Post-apocalyptic anything will sell like hotcakes. Frankly, I don't see the appeal, but to each his own!

Wasteland defined my childhood. I can go on forever about why this game was so awesome, but I will not. Interplay (the one that existed at the time, of course) also did the Star Trek 25th Anniversary game, and as you note they brought back the cast to do the voices there. I actually owned it as a later CD-ROM edition. But Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space I had on disk and had to get the CD-ROM edition later for the extra footage and whatnot. Ah, the days of transitionary technology!

And, of course, you could always rent games from the video store back in those halcyon days. (Why the heck is this thread making me nostalgic for the 1990s?)

Oh yeah, I remember that! Renting games and finishing them and returning them. Fun times.

I believe that there's an option to switch back to the proper effects shots, and I urge you to investigate how that would be achieved on a Netflix release.

It would not be, sadly. My parents have the DVDs, though, I can always borrow them. It has been interesting, though, watching the remastered versions. At frist it wasn't bothering me too much. But the effects vs. the sets and acting and what I remember has becoming jarring at times. And I am just through Season 1!

Ah yes, and when you were very young, the Islanders were enjoying their dynasty. And funnily enough, speaking of their pending move to Brooklyn, I've heard a rumour that they might change their name (even though Brooklyn is technically on Long Island) to the Americans (or Amerks), in reference to the last pre-Original Six team to be dissolved.

These days it is much more the devils, but because of the run the Islanders had when I was little and the lack of existence of the Devils, they raised me to hate the Islanders. Last I heard they were keeping their name, but Long Island proper is pretty annoyed about it.

I'm also obviously going to avoid comment on your other questions.

This I expected.

Your complaint has been noted and logged, and will be summarily ignored

Somehow this I also expected!

 

[NCW8]

The animated series shows they were keen to introduce more 'alien' aliens like Arex if they had had the capability to do so.

Voiced by James Doohan, of course. I find it amazing that he voiced over sixty characters in the animated series, including Mr Kyle.

Fair enough, although many of the shows I'll be covering have far more mundane settings, and far more mainstream audiences.

You say that like it's a good thing! Since Star Trek has introduced story arcs and season-end cliff-hangers ITTL, Blakes 7 might not seem as influential as it is OTL.

Well, as we know, Spock did appear in TMP IOTL, despite adamantly refusing to appear in Phase II (to the point that the actor cast as Xon, David Gautreaux, had to accept a very minor part in the film, and obviously had no further involvement with the franchise). That's something to bear in mind ITTL.

So Nimoy was willing to appear in a film, but not so interested in a tv series ? Apart from Takei, whose political career is likely to keep him from returning, Nimoy is the most likely candidate to not appear in the new tv series.

You've given us Dr Who without Tom Baker, so how about Star Trek without Spock

I can indeed confirm that - as in the OTL episode - the Andorian Thelin (with an improved makeup job!) appears as First Officer of the alternate Enterprise.

The Andorians were sadly neglected in the Star Trek spin-offs, apart from Enterprise. It would be good to see them developed more ITTL.

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[Thande]

You say that like it's a good thing! Since Star Trek has introduced story arcs and season-end cliff-hangers ITTL, Blakes 7 might not seem as influential as it is OTL.

Blake's 7, if it's still made, will likely just deconstruct other things about Star Trek.

 

[phx1138]

The Andorians were sadly neglected in the Star Trek spin-offs, apart from Enterprise. It would be good to see them developed more ITTL.

Agreed. They fascinated me. And I cheered when they started using Shran regularly (& not only because Jeff Combs was playing the role, after starring opposite himself so much in "DS9").

 

[unclepatrick]

Blake's 7, if it's still made, will likely just deconstruct other things about Star Trek.

Would the BBC spend more on Blake hoping to sell it to a US Network? I love to see a Blake 7 that had decent looking sets and costumes.

But to be fair, it did not look any worst than the US Buck Rogers show. Both the costumes and the set were just as bad, but Buck lack the good writers and interesting Characters that Blake had.

 

[NCW8]

Would the BBC spend more on Blake hoping to sell it to a US Network? I love to see a Blake 7 that had decent looking sets and costumes.

But to be fair, it did not look any worst than the US Buck Rogers show. Both the costumes and the set were just as bad, but Buck lack the good writers and interesting Characters that Blake had.

I've recently been watching the first season of Blake's 7, and on the whole the sets and costumes didn't look too bad (well apart from the Federation soldiers). What really needs improvement are the special effects. There's some half decent model work, but most of the shots of Liberator flying through space are very basic cartoons.

I didn't notice it when it was first broadcast, but this time I was struck by the episode Duel. In this episode Blake and his arch-enemy Travis are kidnapped from their ships by powerful aliens and forced to fight hand-to-hand to the death. Their crews are unable to help but can watch the whole fight. Blake wins (of course), but refuses to kill Travis. The whole thing seemed strangely familiar.

Cheers,
Nigel.