Postcards from New York
TV Barn is here all week covering the fall season ``upfront'' announcements by the major networks. In addition to my reports on each network's new lineup, I'm writing ``postcards from New York'' describing the atmosphere of each of the gala upfront presentations. They're linked below for your convenience. Also, don't forget I'm doing blow-by-blow accounts of each upfront exclusively for the TV Barn Web site.
The return of "Heaven"
by John Zipperer
Say "low budget" to science fiction audiences, and they're likely to think of 1950s monster features or modern-day Troma product. Say "public television SF" to them, and if they think really hard, they may come up with "Dr. Who" or "Red Dwarf." But next month, they'll be reminded of an excellent example of thought-provoking, low-budget science fiction when "The Lathe of Heaven" is re-released to public television stations 20 years after it first aired. (Check local listings for broadcast times and dates.)
Based on the novel of the same name by Ursula K. Le Guin, "Lathe" was made at a time when SF was definitely not common on PBS, then better known for William F. Buckley Jr. and nature shows. "In public television, science fiction was kind of a no-no in those days," co-director Fred Barzyk tells SF Loft. "So we snuck it through under 'speculative fiction,' and they didn't know what the hell that was, so we were able to get our funding."
Pick To Click: Sherlock Holmes, the Prequel
Call it lack of creativity, or a ravenous media beast in need of new material, or simply the ritual of telling the old stories to new generations. But ``Mystery!'' has gone and dug up the bones of Sherlock Holmes and dressed them up again in an ingenious two-part prequel of sorts, airing this week and next on PBS.<
Part 1 (9 p.m, PBS; check local listings) follows a young Arthur Conan Doyle to medical school, where he meets Joseph Bell, the eccentric teacher thought to be the inspiration for Holmes. Bell's methods of deduction are considered a tad flaky by his peers. But as Bell warns Doyle, ``From the astrologer came the astronomer; from the alchemist, the chemist ... The quack of yesterday is the professor of tomorrow!'' And the literary creation of a century.
On this date ... in 1983, Robin Williams hosts a look at 80 years of aliens in film for the CBS special "E.T. & Friends." While the show is mainly an infomercial for Steven Spielberg's short special-effects-created star, Williams also does a few sketches as a used UFO dealer and a clothing designer who spaces out upon meeting the Coneheads. — Tom Heald
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