Season 14 contemporary Sci-fi

Since we've done it a number of times before with previous seasons that we've gone back to, I decided that we should look at contemporary sci-fi during Season 14.

At the time, American sci-fi was pretty much dead. Star Wars would not come out in the cinemas until after Season 14 had finished, and thus the post-Star Wars sci-fi boom had not happened yet. So, all that was really reaching British audiences were home-grown shows.

Also on the BBC, we had the final season of Survivors, which started airing towards the tail-end of Season 14.

Over on ITV, the second season of Space: 1999, as well as Star Maidens began airing almost concurrently with Season 14. Children of the Stones started airing during Robots of Death, and the fifth season of The Tomorrow People during The Talons of Weng Chiang.

What are your memories of these shows? Or, have you got into them since? Let us know what you think! :)

I clearly remember watching the first series of Space 1999 on Friday evenings around 6:35 in late 1975/early '76. But the second series was not treated very well and was buried in early morning schedules around the ITV regions. In fact, in Wales we may not have had it at all, I'll have to check that out. But I certainly never saw any episodes of series two until it was shown on BBC2 many years later.

Children of the Stones I recall watching as it was an HTV production and would have been well promoted in our area. It was a tense, creepy story, one that would stick in the mind. The DVD release of that was very welcome.

Star Maidens, sorry, know the name but don't recall anything about it whatsoever.

Out of those you listed I recall watching the odd Survivors episode but not really getting into it and the same goes for Space 1999. But, I was a big Tomorrow people fan and always pretended I had a juanting belt.

I bought a box set of this a couple of years back (the season when Elizabeth joins the team in the story "The Red and the Blue") and was quite shocked at how poor some of the acting was and why I didn't see that at the time. It stopped me buying any further DVD's of the show.

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Originally Posted by duncan

I bought a box set of this a couple of years back (the season when Elizabeth joins the team in the story "The Red and the Blue") and was quite shocked at how poor some of the acting was and why I didn't see that at the time. It stopped me buying any further DVD's of the show.

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If you don't mind me asking, Duncan... how old were you at the time? If you were young, I've often found that I didn't notice atrocious acting when I was younger.

For example, I saw Timelash for the first time when I was 9, and I absolutely loved it! I just didn't notice the poor acting from some at the time!

In 1976 I was 10 years old and I'm sure I was just enjoying the programme for what it was and not looking at the quality of the acting. I'm sure if I looked back at everything I used to watch, a lot of it would look a bit ropey now.