Eye on Sci-Fi - The X-Files, Star Wars, The Martian, SyFy does what it does - cancel shows

October 2015

By Ken Parker

Lots of series canceled, lots of stuff coming up and a look at The Martian movie.

Continuum Series - So after 4 seasons, Continuum is done.  I followed the show since day one and for the most part I found the entire thing enjoyable.  I felt the show never ever was on track with a true direction and that might be representative of the time travel nature of the story.  The show was constantly trying to find an identity and often changed direction.  I don't think it ever figured itself out and even in the final mini season, it just barely managed to put all the pieces together.  It was not a bad show and the ending approached a satisfying conclusion but not sure it was worth the 4 years to get there.  If you are looking for a time travel, conundrum and paradox show that looks at how and why one might want to change history, this series has some great concepts and excellent characters.

Eye on Sci-Fi - The X-Files, Star Wars - Rebels, The Martian and Summer of Sci-Fi

June- July 2015

By Ken Parker

We have another wide variety of news as well as a look at the summer of sci-fi and some of my opinions on some of the TV shows airing this summer. We also say good-bye to a couple of influential people in the genre and take a look at my most anticipated movie of the year, and it is NOT Star Wars!

Eye on Sci-Fi - Mad Max, Twin Peaks and 4K Technology, is it for Sci-Fi fans?

May 22
By Ken Parker

The summer movie season is ramping into high gear and what better way to start it off (besides watching The Avengers) is to experience Mad Max: Fury Road.  Good news for Twin Peaks fans and I look at the new home theater technology coming out this year.

Thunderbirds Co-Creator Sylvia Anderson Working on New Project - The Last Station

Sylvia Anderson, co-producer for many TV shows such as UFO, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Stingray, Space: 1999 and Fireball Xl5 is starting a crowd-funding for her new project, The Last Station.  The project will depend on resources raised at this site -

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-last-station-by-tv-legend-sylvia-anderson


The Plot -

Various species have evolved over time to understand sound in different ways. For the most part sound - music has always united us, connected us with species from other worlds, other civilizations.
But there are darker forces, the Spyrons who use sound to their sinister benefit, a vampire like species who feed off the creative energy which surrounds us all saying it is attached to the soul.
Having taken Mykron, the homeworld and center of music for the galaxy – the Mykronians and other species have made settlement on a delightful planet full of beaches, jungles and oceans – the Island of ‘Shikoba’.
It is here that we begin our story – the inhabitants have together rebuilt a centre for musical communication and rescue – ‘The Last Station’ in defiance of the shadow threat of the Spyrons.
Some have made it here already, like the Hakitans who are the higher guardians of music.  They work constantly at the HIC making and breaking music codes, to rescue the inhabitants of invaded planets and protect Shikoba from invasion.

CGI Vs Real - Part 1 - Models and Miniatures

A Pictorial Guide by Ken Parker

This is a loaded topic and is one I could research and go on forever about but my main focus is on models and miniatures VS CG.

Continuity in TV Shows - Part One - A Look Through The Decades

by Ken Parker

What is continuity first off? It can mean a number of things. Is a character wearing the same shirt he did in the previous shot? Is their hair the same style when shooting the same scene months later? Would that character do that in that situation? If they did that 3 episodes ago, wouldn’t they be able to do this in this episode? If they learned this in season 2, why are they now doing that in season 4? There are a lot of things that continuity can be and for fans who watch their favorites again and again, continuity is even more important. The following article will look at a few examples but will focus on Doctor Who and Space: 1999. Both of these shows are unique in the discussion of continuity. Doctor Who, being a serial, always had strong continuity and has had help from fans and writers in keeping the Doctor Who universe relatively intact.Space: 1999 is a prime example of 70's TV without continuity but shows those flaws more obviously with a second season riddled with change. As with Doctor Who, fiction and ongoing products over the years have patched up many of the 'errors' seemingly made within their continuities.

Technology Report - A Sci-Fi Fan's Dream - The Internet

Observations by Ken Parker

Remember just a few years ago getting Time Screen Magazine and seeing all those cool shows that aired in the UK?  No?  Since I was already a fan of Doctor Who and some other British shows, it seemed to me that the rest of the stuff would be all good but was going to be impossible to see.  At the time shows were slowly coming out on VHS tape but unless I found bootlegs of Time Slip or Doomwatch, I was out of luck. As an American I so badly wanted to see many of those.

Years later we have You Tube and now virtually anything is available to watch.  I have known this for years of course but unless I stumbled across something by accident, I rarely ever thought about hunting down these gems.

My Top Sci-Fi and Fantasy Disappointments

By Kenneth Parker

Over the years we all have had experiences where we went to go see a movie or sat down to watch a TV show and were devastated on what we saw.  Whether it was high expectations or just the fact that the product was bad, we were let down by the hope of something better.  Often this happens with sequels but it could also happen for something that looked good in the trailer or had all the elements for a good outcome.  In any case, we are left shaking our heads and either being sad or even mad, wondering how this could happen.

I have chosen a few of my own personal experiences, some you would expect to see while others might be controversial.  Not everything on my list is a bad product.  Some are excellent but because of expectations or other factors, they are deemed a let down to some degree. 

Top Sci-Fi and Fantasy Movies That Need To Be Remade

By Ken Parker

While I would prefer new original movies, I do admit that remakes can sometimes be just as entertaining.  There are a fair amount of them in the works right now but I have selected some that I feel, if done well, could be excellent products.  Some of these were made so long ago that a remake would just allow new effects and ideas to flourish while others would just appeal to newer audiences.  I actually like or love all the movies listed below and so it is not because the originals were bad films. 

Interview With Kneel Downe The Man Behind Virulent Blurb

Every now and again something comes along that is pretty cool and interesting.  Like Virulent Blurb.  Virulent Blurb is an original story that is published on Twitter.  For those that don't know you have only 140 characters to get your message across on Twitter. So imagine writing a story at 140 characters at a time.  Pretty cool huh.  So I decided to ask the man himself all about his ongoing Twitter story @Virulentblurb and see what made him want to take on this different type of endeavour. So here he is Kneel Downe.

1.  What was the inspiration behind your Twitter story Virulent Blurb?