Quick updates

Here is my column this week, which looks at the Sketch Crawl in Panama City and some of the words being sold at Floriopolis as part of the Space Between Words exhibit.

And here's my column from last week, which basically looked at the upcoming Summer Theatre Program at Gulf Coast State College.

Watched the first two episodes of a new sci-fi/space bounty hunters TV series, KillJoys, which has a sort of Firefly element. Extremely low budget, but interesting. I'll watch more of it when it hits TV this summer on Syfy.



I'm still doing the Fiction Fest at Friday Fest on June 5. We're adding new authors, and getting background on them in updates to the event page; check it out.

Received a rejection note this week (from a horror publisher I submitted my initial CALIBAN novel to) that managed to make me feel good about the work despite the "no." The note included the chain of comments from each of the publisher's reader/editors. Such as:
...First several pages well written, story seems cool if he can pull it off...
...Pass but ask if he has anything else. I'm just not that into Cthulhu and Lovecraftian stuff. ...
... we appreciated your style and strong writing skills, and invite you to submit other works if you have them.

As I said on Facebook, it's a weird feeling, knowing they liked the story (and my telling of it) but decided to wait for something else. I'll take this one as a win, despite the obvious. Thanks for the consideration, and just you wait until you see what else I have in store...

Peace.

Flashback Friday: Lady Starbuck for new 'Galactica'

(I interviewed Katee Sackoff by phone just prior to the premiere of the original mini-series pilot for 'Battlestar Galactica.' Syfy was still 'Sci-Fi Channel' back then. Here's the story that ran in The Entertainer on Friday, November 28, 2003:)

Strong females dominate new 'Galactica'

TVGuide.com

If there's still life in the Battlestar Galactica franchise, as the Sci-Fi Channel hopes there is, then actress Katee Sackhoff can claim a lioness' share of the credit.

Sackhoff, 23, gives life to a new take on the legendary space pilot and scoundrel, Starbuck - portrayed in the original 1978 Galactica TV series by actor Dirk Benedict. Starbuck's still something of a maverick and a hot head, even though he's no longer a he, she said.

"From the beginning, I loved the character," Sackhoff said in a telephone interview from her home in California. "I thought, for a young woman, she was written so well - a strong, independent woman. She's also very much a loose cannon. You never really know what Starbuck's gonna do. I think that comes across on screen."

Battlestar Galactica, a four-hour miniseries, premieres on The Sci-Fi Channel Dec. 8 at 8 p.m. It's a new take on the original concept, which told the story of human refugees fleeing their robot enemies across the depths of space, seeking sanctuary on a mythical planet called "Earth."

This time around, the robots are beautiful people, there's no barking "daggit" or annoying tykes, and the battles owe more to Blackhawk Down than Star Wars. The changes - Sackhoff's female Starbuck, in particular - sent fans of the original into hysterics and set Internet bulletin boards aflame.

"At first it upset me because I took it personally," she said. "You just can't read it and can't take it personally.   I would like them to give it a chance. I think it's a great mini-series."

Many of the major roles are about female empowerment, including the new Colonial President (Mary McDonnell) and a devious and sexy Cylon humanoid (Tricia Helfer). Sackhoff said Sci-Fi Channel is after a different audience than the old-school Galactica fans - one of whom is Sackhoff's father.

"I was raised on Star Trek, and my father is a huge sci-fi fan," she said. "He remembers loving (Galactica) as a young man."

However, Sackhoff took the role without having seen the old series. To prepare, she watched as many episodes as she could find and was surprised by what she saw.

"I watched it with a friend, and they kept talking about Starbuck, but I'm like, 'She's not in the room,' and my friend said, 'Dude, I think he's that guy,'" she said. "We were like, 'Oh ****.'"

Beyond some physical training, there wasn't much more she could do to prepare for the part. She wasn't about to try hitching a ride in a jet fighter, for instance.

"I'm terrified of heights," she said. "Me flying a plane would be the funniest thing ever. I hate flying."

She did work out - which paid off. An opening sequence in Galactica is a single, uncut tracking shot that follows various characters through the corridors of the ship - often crossing paths with Starbuck, who is jogging in the hallways.

"I was really disappointed that it doesn't show the heartache, sweat and tears on my part," she said. "It took about three-fourths of a day to shoot that scene, and I was constantly running. The tunnels open and close (to allow cameras access to a variety of angles), and they would have to close off sections, so I would have to sprint outside all around to get back in the shot.

"I was so exhausted, I slept like a baby that night and my ass hurt all the next day. This was the hardest thing ever. I'm very proud of it."

Sackhoff grew up in Portland, Ore., and moved to Los Angeles after high school. She had a lead role in the MTV pilot Locust Valley, costarred in the Fox Family Channel series The Fearing Mind, had a recurring role on MTV's Undressed and guest spots on ER and other shows.

Later, she co-starred with Richard Dreyfuss in the CBS series, The Education of Max Bickford, and appeared in the movies My First Mister, The Glass House and Halloween: Resurrection.

"Halloween was a crazy movie to shoot," she said. "It was a case of the campier you can be, the better. You know you're not going to win an Oscar for this, so I was out of control that whole movie. I was the character people wanted to see die."

With all that behind her, Sackhoff approached Galactica as "just another job."

"I was really excited about it, but I had no idea what I was I was getting myself into," she said. "That was kind of the general consensus on the set."

She described the script as "character driven," with sci-fi trappings as "frosting on the cake." She said the director took an "almost documentary" approach to shooting, using steady-cams and other low-tech techniques.

If ratings are good, the miniseries could turn into an ongoing job. Sackhoff's already signed on for an extended tour of duty.

"I would love to do a series," she said. "There are so many different places to go with it. And it's science fiction: Anything is possible, which is really fun."
----------------

(NOTE: I followed this up with a review of the mini-series pilot that was published Friday, December 5, 2003:)

A modern spin on classic camp

From Wikipedia

One of the themes of the new Sci-Fi Channel mini-series Battlestar Galactica is that we will be held responsible for the things we do wrong.

This updated Galactica is a socalled "re-imagining" of the 1978-79 ABC TV series. The original told of desperate space voyage of a group of humans who had survived a genocidal sneak attack by a relentless robot army, the Cylons. It was referred to at the time as a "Pearl Harbor in space." The story takes on new meaning in a post 9/11 world.

The original series starred Lorne Greene as Cmdr. Adama, Richard Hatch as Capt. Apollo, and Dirk Benedict as Lt. Starbuck. It won an Emmy for its costumes and broke records for viewership and production costs in its early episodes. Ratings were still good when ABC cancelled the show, citing its cost.

A kiddy sequel, Galactica 1980, died after a handful of episodes. The storyline resurfaced in recent years as a comic book series and in novels co-written by Hatch. When XMen director Brian Singer bowed out of a proposed sequel movie a few years ago, Sci-Fi Channel tapped ex-Star Trek writer Ronald Moore to pen an all-new take on the concept.

Old-school fans were incensed by his version (leaked to the Internet), which recast "Starbuck" as a woman, made the Cylons into God-obsessed and sex-starved humanoids, and jettisoned much of the original mythology.

They howled too soon.

Disclaimer I: The preview copy of the new mini-series, provided by Universal Studios, was far from TV-ready: special effects were incomplete, the video was murky, music and sound effects were place-holders rather than actual broadcast sounds, and the edit was subject to change.

That having been said, Moore's tale leans heavily on human relationships rather than sci-fi; exchanges between characters are low-key rather than melodramatic; the director takes a cinema verite approach that makes events seem to happen in real time - complete with uncomfortable quiet moments and sudden violence - often captured by hand-held cameras that intensify the immediacy and lend a documentary edge to some scenes.

This new Galactica isn't for all ages, and parents should be advised. The language is raw, sometimes crude - which might be the way sailors talk, but is not usually heard on prime time TV.

The characters also are over-sexed: Cylon No. Six (former Victoria's Secret model Tricia Helfer) can't keep her hands off of men's private parts, and there's more kissing going on in the Galactica's corridors than would seem prudent on a ship of war.

However, Edward James Olmos brings a quiet strength and dignity to the role of Adama, a man who thought his time was past, who has lost his family to a career that is ending, and who has resigned himself to obsolescence - only to find that his people need him. He's a tough leader, he makes hard decisions, and he's not afraid to be brutal, as seen in a hand-to-hand scrap on the second night. He knows how to get the most out of his crew and when to back off from a fight. He knows he will be called to answer for the consequences of his actions.

The standout role, as in the original, belongs to "Starbuck," which is now the call-sign of Katee Sackhoff's character, Lt. Kara Thrace. Sackhoff (see her exclusive interview in last Friday's Out & About section) channels Benedict's spirit in a climactic space dogfight, but otherwise, she plays Starbuck as a hotheaded rogue who picks fights because she harbors a terrible secret. There's that theme again.

Old-school fans universally reviled Sackhoff before the first preview copies of the show were distributed, both personally and for the part she plays. But reading their remarks online, I imagined the wailing and gnashing of teeth that would have resulted in the mid-1980s if the Internet had existed as a major media outlet and Trekkies had heard about a proposed "next generation" Trek with a bald, French captain.

Star Trek: The Next Generation had some rough spots at its launch as well, but it went on to universal acclaim in its seven seasons. Perhaps the Galactica crew will have a similar opportunity. They deserve it.

Disclaimer II: I came to the new Galactica having interviewed Sackhoff by telephone and having been (at age 14) a fan of the original. Some of my enjoyment was thus influenced by trivia: Listen for the original show's theme played as the national anthem of the new 12 Colonies; look for glimpses of 1978-version Cylon ships and robots in a museum sequence.
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(NOTE: Finally, as Galactica returned to the airwaves as a full-fledged series, I had another chance to talk with Sackhoff.  The following saw print on Friday, January 14, 2005:)

A new face for Starbuck

TVGuide.com

Katee Sackhoff has earned her sea legs. As the hotshot pilot "Starbuck" on Battlestar Galactica, the Sci-Fi Channel's edgy new version of the 1978 space opera, Sackhoff took a fan-favorite male character with cartoonish overtones and transformed him into a living, breathing female - wreck.

Just the kind of person heroes are made of.

Sackhoff spoke to The News Herald before the 2003 miniseries aired and described her role at that time as both physically demanding and well developed.

"From the beginning, I loved the character," she said back then. "I thought, for a young woman, she was written so well - a strong, independent woman. She's also very much a loose cannon. You never really know what Starbuck's gonna do."

More than a year later - having completed another 13 hours of episodes and countless days of rehearsals and physical training - her enthusiasm for the role has only grown. She spoke with the paper again by telephone from her California home just before Christmas, as she and her mother prepared for a family trip to Australia.

"There are a lot of things as an actor that have been hard for me in this series," Sackhoff said. "Always before, the roles I've done have kind of been extensions of who I am. Starbuck, she's kind of everything. She gets to do everything - sharpshooter, pilot, teacher, lover."

The series premieres tonight with two back-to-back episodes that pick up only days after the humanoid-robot Cylons have wiped out most of the human race. About 50,000 survivors have fled in a fleet of spaceships led by an aging battleship, the Galactica, and its dwindling warriors and supplies.

The emotional side of Starbuck has surprised Sackhoff, as she has had to suppress the character's natural physicality because of her story line. A few episodes into the season, Starbuck is injured in a fiery crash; her recovery carries over throughout the remainder of the season.

"That's hard as an actor because I couldn't do anything," she said. "I had scenes I had to maneuver around with this huge brace on, and couldn't get around - so it's very hard on Starbuck too, as a character, emotionally, and it has to do with her injury."

This leads the pilot to sparring in other arenas. In one intense episode, still leaning on a cane, she interrogates a Cylon prisoner.

"That's just me and another actor - talking. Very interesting," Sackhoff said. "Again, it's tough for Starbuck because she has to bring other people in to do her dirty work because she can't do it herself."

Sackhoff said Starbuck's emotional strength is tested more than her physical strength - and that's harder to play. She points to an episode in which she confesses to Commander Adama (the formidable Edward James Olmos) that her bad decisions contributed to the death of his son - her lover - Zach.

"Even in the moments when she's telling him she believes she's responsible for Zach, there's a lot of emotion there, and I'm trying so hard as a person not to cry," she said. "As actors, we embellish that. We think tears are what the audience wants to see. And then, Eddie's got this amazing presence - he's terrifying, and I'm convinced he was going to hit me. It's emotional stuff. It drains you, and you feel it for days after."

As the season progresses, a relationship of sorts develops between Starbuck and Baltar, the mentally unstable genius whose sexual indiscretions with a Cylon femme fatale led to the downfall of the human race. They first become poker opponents, then dance partners.

"I think what happens is that Baltar and Starbuck seem to be outcasts in a sense - not understood by people, and they find that comfortable and kind of nice together," Sackhoff said. "As an actor, when I'm in a scene with James, I know that the scene's gonna be fun 'cause we're both crazy and the sky's the limit and that's kind of why (the writers have) put them together. They're kind of lost souls."
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(NOTE: The following was a separate story that ran on the Out & About page as a "What We're Watching" entry. I believe it ran a few days before the interview above, but I don't have the date handy. Or the headline.)

Wikipedia.org

They are shell-shocked survivors of a sneak attack by an implacable enemy who thinks God is on its side. They struggle with issues of personal freedom in a state of constant warfare, dwindling resources and raging paranoia.

This is Battlestar Galactica, the disco-era sci-fi franchise, reincarnated as a modern military adventure with sociopolitical commentary for a post-9/11 world.

A new TV series premieres Jan. 14 on the Sci-Fi Channel, after NBC broadcasts a trimmed-down version of the 2003 miniseries Saturday that "re-imagined" the Galactica concept for a new millennium. Sci-Fi and NBC are part of the NBC-Universal media group, which is producing the new series.

"It will bring a whole different range of viewers to the show," said Katee Sackhoff, the actress who plays hotshot star pilot Lt. Kara Thrace (call sign "Starbuck") in a recent interview. "There are people who never go past those first three or four channels on the TV, who don't even know there is a Sci-Fi Channel, and this is really great for us, and really smart for NBC-Universal."

Sci-Fi Channel also plans to rebroadcast the entire miniseries, as well as appease fans of the original source material by showing the 1978 Battlestar Galactica and its far inferior spin-off, Galactica 1980, in the week leading up to the series premiere.

The early episodes pick up only days after the Cylons attacked the 12 colonies and killed every human being they could find. None of the survivors is sleeping. A ragtag fleet of human ships is on the run, jumping to random coordinates in deep space, and somehow the enemy is finding them every 33 minutes. People suspect there's a traitor among them.

Then Capt. Lee "Apollo" Adama (Jamie Bamber) has center stage in a claustrophobic episode aboard a ship of convicts who take hostages. He's pitted against a man who calls himself a political prisoner -- others call him a terrorist -- portrayed by none other than Richard Hatch, who originated the role of Apollo in the 1978 Galactica.

NBC/Universal

A favorite episode for its emotion and nonlinear structure delves into the haunted memories of Starbuck as she struggles to survive in a crippled star fighter. We see the death of her lover (Apollo's younger brother), for which she blames herself; training new pilots after an accident kills several experienced hands on the landing deck; admitting her failures to her commander; fighting for her recruits' lives.

Throughout are standout performances by high-caliber actors including Edward James Olmos as Commander Adama, Mary McDonnell as President Laura Roslin and James Callis as Dr. Gaius Baltar.

The new series premiered several weeks ago in Great Britain, where it has received rave reviews.

"It makes the release date here easier," Sackhoff said of the good buzz overseas. "It's nice to be able to say that people like it. Trust me, it's good."

Defiance premieres tonight

Defiance premieres tonight on Syfy. I got the chance to watch the premiere with family and friends a few weeks ago, and we all agreed it has potential. Obviously, it has its work cut out for it, because it's an ambitious storyline, filled with strange alien creatures all coexisting on Earth after a fleet of alien arks crashed and burned all over the planet; their ecosystem is mixing with ours, and apparently the intervening years have included massive geological and environmental disasters as well as wars between the various races.

A war is hinted at, and a disaster that caused the arks to fall to the earth; these things will no doubt be explained further as the show commences.This is from the Defiance wiki entry: "The series takes place sixteen years later in 2046, and largely revolves around the character of Joshua Nolan. Nolan was only ten years old when the Votans arrived in 2013 and he served in the military during the war. With the war now over, he returns to his hometown of St. Louis to find that it is no longer the city he left; it is little more than a border town renamed "Defiance". Deciding that his services are needed, Nolan takes up a position as the Chief Lawkeeper in Defiance, so he can protect the town from dangerous clashes between humans and aliens, military scavengers and other dangerous visitors who occasionally enter the town."

>>Watch the first 14 minutes of the pilot<<

The series is being produced in conjunction with what is called a "massive multiplayer online game," in which the outcome of missions will have repercussions on the TV show, apparently. Like I said, it's ambitious.

Stephanie Leonidas as my favorite character so far, Irisa.

The actors include several genre favorites: Julie Benz (from Buffy, Angel and Dexter); Jamie Murray (from Dexter and Warehouse 13); Stephanie Leonidas (from Mirrormask); Tony Curran (from Underworld, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and — as Vincent Van Gogh — Doctor Who); and Academy Award winning actor Graham Greene (Dances with Wolves).

The show's creators include Rockne S. O'Bannon (who created Farscape, another ambitious series with dozens of alien races); Kevin Murphy (lyricist for Reefer Madness, also worked on Caprica); Michael Taylor (a writer for Deep Space Nine, Voyager and The Dead Zone).

I'll be following this one.

Looking Back at 'Logan's Run' (1977-78)

(The following is a segment from a memoir writing project I'm playing with. Hope you like it. Share your own recollections of 1970s Sci-Fi TV shows in the comments.)

Logan 5, Jessica 6 and Rem (Wikipedia)

A spin-off of the 1976 movie that starred Michael York and Jenny Agutter, the Logan’s Run TV series suffered from the common practice of dumbing down scifi to try to appeal to mass audiences and to make the show more “kid friendly.”  The series starred Gregory Harrison and Heather Menzies in softer, less sexualized versions of the characters played by York and Agutter, Logan 5 and Jessica 6, with supporting actors Donald Moffat as the android Rem and Randy Powell as Francis 7, Logan’s former best friend, fellow Sandman, and now relentless pursuer.

>>Check out video of the intro titles and theme music here<<

Carousel (Ebay image)

In the post-nuclear holocaust world of the 23rd Century, Logan is a Sandman; Sandmen are a sort of police force that patrols the City of Domes, where the last humans known to be alive chose to live a hedonistic existence in what looks like an upscale shopping mall, and then give up their lives at age 30 (age 21 in the original novel).  The populace believes they will be reincarnated via the “Carousel” ceremony, but they are simply killed to make room for new test-tube babies.  Sandmen track and kill any citizens who try to escape rebirth by running, i.e., “runners.”

(The series recycled many of the movie’s special effects, including the Carousel sequence, but exchanged the spectacular image of exploding bodies used in the film for a freeze-frame and a “crystallizing” effect.  Probably to keep little kids from trying to blow up their friends at home, which seemed to be the prevailing thought process at TV studios.)

In the film, Logan is placed undercover by the ruling computer to infiltrate a subversive group that is seeking to escape the city for some mythical “Sanctuary” where they can live out their lives in peace.  He gets Jessica to help him, and the two make it through a series of adventures to the ruins of Washington, D.C.  There, they meet an old man and Logan realizes there’s no reason to continue supporting the old ways of the City of Domes. He decides to return there, overthrow the computer ruler, and set the people free from Carousel.

The series wanders from the film’s plot, however, almost as soon as it begins.  Logan is already questioning the rite of rebirth, and he runs with Jessica.  Francis is taken before a secret council of old men and told he can join their number if he successfully brings Logan back for re-education.  It is never really made clear why Francis — not to mention all the other Sandmen dispatched into the outside world — would want to prop up the City of Domes when it’s obvious that there are many other survivors and civilizations in the outside world, which appears to be fully recovered from the war, and they no longer have a reason to die young.

So we once again have the familiar “Fugitive” structure for our episodes:  Innocent of any crime, our hero is on the run from relentless pursuit, meeting new people each week that need help, and then being forced to move on just one step ahead of the long arm of the law.  But rather than a search for proof of innocence, we have innocents searching for a place they can belong and experiencing true freedom — not the false freedom of consumerism and hedonism in exchange for giving up their personal power to a faceless authority — for the first time in their lives.

Logan and Jessica in the film (Screened.com)

I didn’t see the movie in theaters (I was 12 when it was in theaters), catching it only after it had been “Edited for Television” in advance of the series premiere.  And somehow, I rarely caught an episode of this series all the way through in its original run, and never at my own home.  The night of the premiere (Sept. 16, 1977) I was at Grandma and Pawpaw Massey’s house.  The grownups were playing canasta in the dining room, and about the time the pilot got to its secondary story, they took a break to come into the family room to talk; they started making jokes about the show, and I came to realize it was not as good as I was willing to believe.  It was like the Penguin running for Mayor, all over again — though it didn’t stop me from drawing pictures of Logan’s Sandman gun and trying to make a wooden version in my shop class.

Screen capture from 'Captured' (ShareTV.org)

I was at my friend Troy Gandy’s home for the third episode (“Capture,” broadcast Sept. 30, 1977), in which our heroes (and Francis) are hunted by the guy who was the young hot-head gunslinger wannabe from the original Magnificent Seven feature, (Horst Buchholz, bringing some presence to the screen).  Troy was eight months older than me, born in December 1963.  His brother, Robert, was a couple of years older than the both of us.  Troy and Robert fought constantly, either mouthing off at each other, or literally fist-fighting, which was a family dynamic I was not familiar with.  The night of this episode, Robert had picked at Troy until he lost his temper and lunged at his older brother.  They threw each other around the living room, overturning tables and chairs, scattering snacks on the floor.  I just stayed out of the way.

Looking back, I wonder how much of that activity was play-acting, like a TV wrestling match.  I couldn’t tell.  I also wonder how much of it was prompted by sheer boredom after the brothers discovered this was what I wanted to watch on TV.  When we all saw headlights on the driveway, a sudden calm hit the room.  The boys separated, a whirlwind of cleaning occurred, and by the time their mother came in the door, the place was back in the shape it had been in before the fight.  The three of us, sitting on the couch together, eating potato chips and watching Logan’s Run.

I thought about this and other times at the Gandy home a few years ago, when I learned that Troy had taken his own life.

And I realized that Troy and Robert, in their sibling conflict, had mirrored the dynamic of Logan and Francis in that very episode:  One former friend — a brother in almost every way — hunting and fighting the other until a common enemy appeared to force them to work together, at least until their next opportunity to struggle for dominance.  In the theater of my memory, I would have to cast Troy as Logan, as he was only trying to maintain his freedom and his sense of self that night.

I guess that makes me either Rem or Jessica in that scenario; I’ll go with the dispassionate and pacifistic Rem, if it’s all the same to you.  I don’t look that good in short skirts.

On Halloween of that year, I was again at the Gandy house for the only boy-girl party I was ever invited to during my middle- and high school years.  A game of spin-the-bottle was happening on the back porch, and the girl I liked (one of Troy’s cousins) didn’t want to participate.  Moreover, when the bottle pointed at me early in the game, the girl who should have kissed me begged off, lying to the crowd that we were cousins and it wouldn’t be right; I didn’t dispute her.

Screen grab from 'Half Life' (SnowCrest.net)

Instead I went inside to get some snacks, and discovered the TV was on in the living room.  No one was watching it.  Logan’s Run was playing (“Half Life” written by Shimon Wincelberg, broadcast Oct. 31, 1977).  I just stood there, watching Jessica 6 being duplicated, which is a familiar enough idea in sci-fi TV.  Except her personality was being split between the two bodies, so that one Jessica was good and the other evil.  Anyone who had seen Star Trek (specifically “The Enemy Within” episode) knew that we need both expressions of our personality to make us whole, and that people can’t go on as half-people.  (This episode also features a very young Kim Cattrall.)

I heard laughter outside and somewhat reluctantly left Jessica to seek out the party again.  This might have been when I began to recognize that real people didn’t hold as much allure to me as the ones on TV, or maybe I just told myself that because no one wanted to play spin the bottle with me.  Strangely, my situation again mirrored the very episode that was broadcast that night, except that I was the outcast whose personality didn’t conform to the accepted group, and no amount of video effects would make me right for them.

Screen grab of 'The Crypt' (OVGuide.com)

A week later, I saw the next episode from start to finish at my friend Chuck’s house.  Chuck and I had known each other since before we were born.  That is, our fathers and mothers had been in school together and were close friends; our mothers were pregnant within a couple months of each other, and we had playdates from a very early age.  The only real fist fight I ever had in middle school was against Chuck, and we both ended up getting paddled by the principal.  (I remember sitting in the office and Chuck telling me, "You were punching and crying at the same time. That scared the crap out of me.")  Probably one of the first times I ever slept over at a friend’s house, it was at Chuck’s.  He never had quite the same fascination with scifi that I did, though, so it wasn’t surprising that I sat and watched “The Crypt” episode (Nov. 7, 1977) more or less on my own.

Taken from a story by Harlan Ellison, who would later be one of my favorite authors, “The Crypt” concerned a group of people in suspended animation, endangered by earthquakes and stalked by one of their own.  I watched it while sitting on the wood floor in the living room.  Chuck was off somewhere else.  His mother, Elizabeth, was sitting on a chair drawing; later, she showed me the sketch she had done of me as I concentrated on the show.  It embarrassed me to know she had been watching me, but also made me feel special.  She was an English and Literature teacher, and as I grew up and started trying to write fiction, she would be one of my first readers and encouragers.

DVD box set (TheWickedLocal.com)

Recently, I purchased the box set of Logan’s Run from the Warner Archive Collection (WBshop.com) and enjoyed seeing the 14 episode series from the beginning.  Watching the fourth outing, “The Innocent,” I turned to my wife and muttered, “This show did not deserve to live.”  However, there were many bright moments:  “The Crypt” holds up, as does “Man Out of Time,” written by scifi author David Gerrold (most famous in the genre for writing the Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles”), who was unhappy with changes to the script and used a pseudonym, “Noah Ward” (as in “no award”) in the credits.  The latter concerned a time traveler who is trying to forestall a nuclear war, but learns that his success at jaunting into the future precipitated the first strike; Logan and his friends have to decide if the traveler should be allowed to return to his own time, even if his success means that their world — and by extension, each of them — might be wiped from history.

I appreciated, even in ’77,  the bravery and earnestness of Logan, the optimism and innocence (girl-next-door and yet Farrah Fawcett-like hotness) of Jessica.  And the lead actors (particularly Donald Moffat) are always fun to watch; you can see they recognized the limitations they were faced with each week and were determined to rise above.

The show was often preempted by the network (only 11 episodes were ever shown on the West Coast during the initial broadcast, according to Internet sources), and it ended its run on Feb. 6, 1978, with “Stargate,” a story written by comic book legend Dennis O’Neil, that failed to bring a conclusion to Logan’s search for Sanctuary.

Thirty-odd years later, I have a daughter named Jessica Heather (and it wasn’t until I began writing this segment that I realized she shares names with the character and the actress); our family lives in a gated community called Sanctuary Beach, where I have taken issue with the runners (at least the ones who trespass into the neighborhood and let their dogs run off-leash).

I have become a Sandman, but I still don’t have a working pistol.

Review: No simple fairy tale

She’s a strong, independent woman, but life literally sucks for “Bo,” the heroine of Syfy’s newest scripted series, “Lost Girl."

Bo (portrayed by Anna Silk) is a 30-something brunette with dangerous appetites — a full-blooded succubus who feeds on the sexual energy of humans. She was hidden among humans as an infant and raised without knowledge of her lineage, only learning about her “Fae” powers when she drained her boyfriend’s life during her first intimate encounter.

Now, after years on the run and faced with the choice of joining either the light or dark factions of the fairy realm, she shuns both. She takes the middle path, aligning herself with humans, and making her the go-to outsider for Fae with problems. She takes their cases while searching for the truth behind her heritage.

Premiering two weeks ago (the third episode is Monday), “Lost Girl” is new to American TV, but it is soon to start its third 13-episode season in its native Canada.

The setting takes the Syfy channel deep into the dark urban fantasy territory of popular novel series like those of Patricia Briggs, Laurell Kaye Hamilton and Kim Harrison, which also focus on strong female protagonists. It’s the latest new TV series dealing with fairy tale creatures in the modern world, such as ABC’s “Once Upon a Time” and NBC’s “Grimm.”

The regular cast includes Kris Holden-Ried as “Dyson,” a wolf-like Fae working as a human police officer; Ksinia Solo as “Kenzi,” a human pickpocket and con artist who becomes Bo’s confidante and aide; Zoe Palmer as “Lauren,” a human doctor working for the Light Fae, who also crushes on Bo. A notable recurring guest star is Emmanuelle Vaugier as “The Morrigan,” the leader of the Dark Fae.

The first two episodes provided for review show the series getting off to a bumpy start. The pilot, “It’s a Fae, Fae, Fae World,” is sexy and violent (sometimes simultaneously), though the explanations of the show’s setting tend to slow the pace. Episode two, “Where There’s a Will, There’s a Fae” is just as goofy as it sounds, lapsing close to self-parody, which is odd territory for a show that (in the U.S., at least) hasn’t yet established itself.

In Canada, the series received positive reviews and developed enough of a following for the second season to be boosted to 22 episodes and an order placed for the third season. “Lost Girl” was developed and produced by Prodigy Pictures, in association with Shaw Media and Showcase.

(This review originally appeared in the News Herald prior to the season premiere of the show; I just recalled that it wasn't added here, so here it is now, slightly altered because of the passage of time.)

Catch “Lost Girl” at 9 p.m. CST Mondays, following the second season episodes of “Being Human,” Syfy’s Americanized adaptation of a hit BBC series, which airs at 8 p.m. “Being Human” follows the struggles of a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who share an apartment in Boston.